Malstrom says here in his post Lending.

	...Lending is an extremely important part of the ‘viral nature’ of making sales. Satisfied and enthusiastic customers make the best salesmen. A child, hooked on Super Mario Brothers, will sell Super Mario Brothers to other kids better than any salesman alive... ...And this brings us to the subject of digital games, namely WiiWare. Iwata says WiiWare is supposed to be the great laboratory of gaming. This is all fine and good, but the real objective, which I think Iwata would agree, is to put these experimental titles in as many hands as possible. You just can’t have the diehards buying these WiiWare games. And the makers of these WiiWare games would surely want as many people as possible to PLAY their game...

I think companies are so anal trying to keep people from stealing that they don't take into consideration all the word of mouth people can generate by sharing. Now, companies are saying demos don't help sales but that's probably because most demos suck or worse the games themselves suck.

This could be one of the issues holding digital distribution back.

can players lend out their PSN/XBLA games?

No. Malstrom talks more about the Wii though, so that's why you see him singling them out there. I am a bit suprised he didn't try to get in a few more digs on the HD consoles though. He's usually so excited to do so.

How exactly would a lending system work anyways? Are we talking something along the lines of DS's download play here? Maybe a game can be lent when both parties are online only to keep from trading them around like used copies.

Transfer a good PC game to WiiWare like World of Goo or make an original WiiWare game that is awesome and it will get the sales.

the PS3 can share a game up to 5 times before it becomes inactive for the main user.

Really? How exactly does that work? I've got 3 PSN games that I wouldn't mind trading to somebody for three of theirs.

how about u jsut have have u friend come over and play it on ur system...?

...?

Because it's not lending unless they get to take it home.

liquidninja said: Malstrom says here in his post Lending. ...Lending is an extremely important part of the ‘viral nature’ of making sales. Satisfied and enthusiastic customers make the best salesmen. A child, hooked on Super Mario Brothers, will sell Super Mario Brothers to other kids better than any salesman alive... ...And this brings us to the subject of digital games, namely WiiWare. Iwata says WiiWare is supposed to be the great laboratory of gaming. This is all fine and good, but the real objective, which I think Iwata would agree, is to put these experimental titles in as many hands as possible. You just can’t have the diehards buying these WiiWare games. And the makers of these WiiWare games would surely want as many people as possible to PLAY their game... I think companies are so anal trying to keep people from stealing that they don't take into consideration all the word of mouth people can generate by sharing. Now, companies are saying demos don't help sales but that's probably because most demos suck or worse the games themselves suck. This could be one of the issues holding digital distribution back.

Do you really blame them for being wary of people pirating the games?  Do you really think the honor system would work on digital copies?

twesterm said: liquidninja said: Malstrom says here in his post Lending. ...Lending is an extremely important part of the ‘viral nature’ of making sales. Satisfied and enthusiastic customers make the best salesmen. A child, hooked on Super Mario Brothers, will sell Super Mario Brothers to other kids better than any salesman alive... ...And this brings us to the subject of digital games, namely WiiWare. Iwata says WiiWare is supposed to be the great laboratory of gaming. This is all fine and good, but the real objective, which I think Iwata would agree, is to put these experimental titles in as many hands as possible. You just can’t have the diehards buying these WiiWare games. And the makers of these WiiWare games would surely want as many people as possible to PLAY their game... I think companies are so anal trying to keep people from stealing that they don't take into consideration all the word of mouth people can generate by sharing. Now, companies are saying demos don't help sales but that's probably because most demos suck or worse the games themselves suck. This could be one of the issues holding digital distribution back.   Do you really blame them for being wary of people pirating the games?  Do you really think the honor system would work on digital copies?

This would probably be their main concern, though there are certainly ways around it. Trial software of all kinds exists, so you could pick up a WiiWare title for a 100 minute trial, or something, and then it would become useless, instead creating a link on the channel menu to punch you over to the Shop Channel. You could "send" trial software of games you own just like you can gift anything off the Shop Channel