Ostrich Report: Digital Delivery vs Bricks'n'Mortar

Any retainler sho is not making contingency plans to deal witht he threat of digital download has (as this title suggests) their head in the sand. I will be shocked if we have physical media after the next generation, and I suspect that most games will be bought by download long before then.

Game size is not the issue - with 20mb broadband which a lot of us have already and a lot more are getting every day - a user can download a 25GB game in around three hours - that's less time than it takes to drive to your local town and buy a game from retail and get home. It's WAY less time than it takes to arrive once it's been ordered from GameStop.com. Downloading is the way things are gonna go - and retailers shareholders need to learn to deal.

Doc, that's a nice gaming utopian dream you paint, but I'm still sceptical. Why? Because of the nature of games consoles from country to country. While us rich well off buggers in the U.K, E.U and U.S etc have broadband, many places don't. Because of this dvd game media will be around for ages yet.

PS3 and 360 have started the downloadable games stuff on consoles well, but its years away before the like of physical media is taken over by downloads.

The day when gaming goes 'digital only' is likely going to be the day that I stop properly gaming.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with that mindset.

I second that motion, which is exactly why I'm building a collection of games. All this move to DL is cool but a threatening knife to the throat of customers.

I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it, just tweak it.

I agree. I mean, I was pissed when someone gave me more than 640k of RAM.




There's a train coming... you get get on it, or you can stand in front of it. Choice is yours.

This is nonsense reply. I've nothing against change, I buy the latest gadgets, I have all the consoles and handhelds of the moment and I even dabble in downloadables, owning a number of XBLA and Wiiware/VC titles.

BUT, that doesn't mean I want a future where I don't physically 'own' anything. Especially when it comes to games. I can just about stomach downloadable music now that it has become DRM-free but movies and gaming is going to be a tough sell to me and many others.

I'm miles away from my local telephone exchange and as such can only manage 4Mb on ADSL2 technology - it takes an age to download a 500Mb demo from the PSN and Live stores so the thought of spending £30 to download the 4Gb Burnout Paradise game isn't a pleasant one.

I also worry about the effect this will have on pricing for games. I'm not a poor person, or a modern day scrooge but I'm not keen on paying £40 for a game that I don't have the time to play properly. I will however stump up £15 or £20 when it hits the sales. You don't see that philosophy in downloads though, do you? Sure, XBLA have finally dropped 7 games to a lower price but that is pretty much it.

I note the same is true for music downloads, where I once pick up a year-old album for a fver, the same isn't true for the download sites who seem to have cemented the prices in place at album-release date.

I think there is a future for downloads, but I can't see it being download-only for a very long time indeed.

You think it is. And I don't. We can discuss it all we like. But progress has never stopped for anyone... so the best thing would probably be to meet back here in 10 years time, and see who's right.

Winner buys a round!

But this really isn't about what you want. This is about publishers wanting Retail's cut. Abotu publishers not wanting you to be able to sell a game when you've finished with it. It's about publishers not wanting you to be able to lend games to your friends.

And to be honest. Unless you are one of the few who does actually dig their heels in, and refuse to buy from corporations who kill babies, who sanction murder, who exploit children, who destroy the environment... then choosing this as your battle ground is a pretty f**ked up choice.

And I'm betting that when it comes down to play our way or don't play at all... you'll roll over.

Wouldn't be much of a discussion though, would it? Essentially your replies read as "you are right, I am wrong".

And I didn't say in my first response that this wouldn't happen, just that it would likely bring about my exit from gaming. And 10 years is a long time (an era in gaming!) so by then, we could indeed be digital-only.

I'm not an idiot, I know why publishers want the gaming world to go digital, and I could have explained the reasons without shoving in an expletive, but I believe the gaming market is consumer driven and if consumers demand physical media, the publishers will provide for them. In 10 years time when we all have super-fast connections, this may be different, I can't argue with that, but for me to stick with gaming, I'm going to need to see massive progress from where we are right now.

Back to the original story about Gamestop being unconcerned about digital delivery - they are right - shareholders are going to be looking at the next two years and Gamestop can safely rest on their laurels that digital distribution is still too far away from being a significant threat.

EA may be putting its toe in the water but it is just that - a toe, and a late one at that since the physical version of the game has been out for a while. The closest we have come to true digital delivery in modern consoles is Sony's release of Warhawk which still needed a retail release as backup.

I predict that more games will be released via digital in the next two years, some will even be digital-only (a new Ratchet and Clank game is on the horizon as a digital-only title I believe?). I think the next round of consoles will go for both digital and physical releases for 90% of games and we might just see full digital-only by the time we have the following generation, 2014-ish.

Hey, if analyst's can predict the future, why can't I?

So, basically, you are agreeing with my original comment:

I will be shocked if we have physical media after the next generation.