The End Is Nigh, Says Square Enix CEO

Digital Distribution will fail in Canada, we still have our 60GB Internet Download cap's on our "PRO" plans, Business plans in my area which charge upwards of $139.99 to have only have 250GB Cap's, every GB over = $2.00, so I'm always buying boxed games and saving my Bandwith for actually playing them and downloading patches.

He speaks the truth, but I don't like it one bit. I wub my physical media. :(

Well, the one thing that most people (like Wada) ignore is the fact that the digital download model kills a liquid second market. Simply put, mass market goods do not work if there is no pricing competition, and no chance to resell. Even more successful markets for downloaded music are characterized by competition (for example, Itunes, Amazon, Lala, etc.). Once we reach a digital "future," maybe the model will change. But PSN and XBL are both emblematic for their inability to drop prices to match demand.  

Japan is crazy about their download-only stuff.  I think he's overestimating how into that sort of thing the rest of the world is.

" @Linkyshinks:   Not implying he was your president. More of a play on how our corporate media in the US treats Mr. Obama as "The Last Best Hope for the World!" Yes I'm being sarcastic but we're bombarded with this here in the US.   As to your broader point it still comes down to money. That is true no matter where you are in the world. Govt's can mandate & plan all they want for new technology & development. But private business will always have the final yay & nay vote. As long as this fraudulent idea of a "Global Economy" that makes everyone co-dependent on everyone else exists, money will be the deciding factor my friend. "

What we're really jumping the gun on here is the prediction - not that discs are going to become obsolete - but that consoles are going to be obsolete.  Essentially that people will be able to hook up their laptop to a TV and stream games in that manner.  Essentially, all these console manufacturers are just going to throw their comparative advantage in manufacturing high-quality electronics and hand business over to dell, becoming nothing more than software publishers themselves (with perhaps the occasional peripheral).  Ain't going to happen.  Even if all software becomes digitally downloadable on release day, there will be a box that says Sony or Microsoft on it that you can plug into your TV which will do the downloading for you.

Yeah, I have to agree with a few others here.  I don't think we'll see gaming go completely digital that soon, because I feel like the Internet just isn't anywhere close to being able to handle that yet.  I feel like that's a technology I won't see until the day my children are able to enjoy it for  themselves and I'm a middle-aged, silver-haired, home owning, two car garage having  sort of man.  I'm still living in a apartment with two of my friends, so... that day is still a ways off.   
 
I also just love the idea of having a physical product in my hands that I can see and smell and touch.  The smell of cracking open a new game...  Ah! There's nothing like it!  It's right up there with that new car smell, or a brand new book.

" Not another one of those consoles will die soon statements!!!!!!"

If companies like Queer Enix keep shitting out the same game like they have for 20 years then yes, eventually people will tire of playing as a mute androgynous she-male with spiky hair and Michal Jackson's fashion sense, with amnesia, a dead parent or two, some world-killing demon that ends up being a relative, and some kind of airship.

yep consoles are dieing, and Square enix is the main offender putting them into the ground with extending their original IP development times to never existing, and taking 3-4 years to produce a new game in the final fantasy franchise they fall back on releaseing remakes and such to bring up the slack.
 
Which is killing the industry, I wish the end was nigh for square enix i really do. they piss me off.

" @Afroman269 said:

" Not another one of those consoles will die soon statements!!!!!!"

Fixed and this. "

First off, I think its good that Square Enix is trying to look to the future and prepare for it, most companies won't do that and will inevitably get left behind when the next shift happens.
 
I like having a physical copy of my game, and I am sure most people would agree, but from the retailer point of view digital distribution is great idea; not having to pay the retailers to sell your games, or spend money printing discs and boxes/boxart, so you get a way higher percentage of profit per sale.
 
The crappy thing is that it would mean the end of preorder bonuses =( and videogame specialty shops like gamestop =P
 
But hey, its called progress, and its impossible to see the full effects it will have on the future, but its pretty safe to say that nearly every developer wants digital distribution, they just need to find a way to do it without developers getting angry (not that it would matter that much since they aren't carrying their products anymore).

There's a trend towards online distribution and network implementation - so much so that most applications will probably be web-based in the near future, if the Google Chrome OS idea takes off. But I feel like there will always be a need for better and trendier hardware, even if local processing is completely eliminated. You can't access a network without some sort of Internet-capable device, and peripherals will always be essential.

Good.  That means GameStop will go out of business.  Those people are villains.

That's true, they already tested out a similar server sort of thing with no consoles where it's all streaming. Still at least pc's won't die out next gen, everyone will still have a computer which they can easily upgrade to play pc games and graphics are not going to be compromised by bandwidth and what they can stream. However that might also kill pc gaming considering there will be less suport for disc media and no one wants to put together a pc anymore and just stream it on consoles. I don't like the idea games will be streamed one day from an outside server.