We'll get there, I guess.

Well games tend to be very large and you can run out of disk space. I don't want to delete/re-download/manage some game later (because the process of having to re-download and wait awhile for it to get here, pretty much means you won't bother with it). Further, for $60, I want to have a physical item and the Blu-ray or DVD will be my backup of the game. If XBL should get hacked and go down for a few weeks, I don't have to wait for Softy to get XBL up and running in order to download my game. Note that I love Steam, but I rarely pay more than $30 for a game and if I find out that I can get the game in a box and can load it on Steam as well, then chances are I will buy the disk & hook it to Steam (Case in point: Civ 5 and Civ 5:Gods and Kings).
Also Steam has its own backup system so you can store your games locally to an external drive, rebuild your PC, then put the whole Steam on the new system.

I don't see anything to "fear" about having to have everything digital. I can't stand DLC either and when I know a game is going to produce tons of it, I'll usually wait for the GotY edition and then buy it on Steam, usually as a sale (Such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution + DLC for $10 on a Steam sale). Some games I'll have to get the DLC, such as Mass Effect series, but these games are few and far between. However, if EA's going to crank out a yearly Mass Effect like they do with Call of Duty, I'll probably skip the release and wait for the discount or not even bother. I'm not a big fan of cash-grabbing franchises.

@hailinel: Exactly.

I'm not opposed to a digital future, but I'm not exactly going to open my wallet and throw away my consumer rights for the sake of saving a dying industry (I'm paraphrasing, but that seemed part of your argument, at least implicitly). It would be akin to buying a GM car in 2008 just because I wanted to see more cars from GM in the future.

I enjoy Steam deals, and I know that used games are a drain on console profits. However, I'm not going to pay more for something that I'm not 100% confident in. When I buy a Steam game, I know that the game will be there for me, whenever I want to download it and play it. While some have said that Steam's eventual shuttering will mean the end for customer purchases, I have no doubt that Valve will find some way to safeguard said purchases, or face risking a consumer backlash worthy of a class-action suit.

Now, some have said (including Ryan, I believe) that Steam did take a bit before it gained consumer acceptance. I still remember the backlash from the Half Life 2 debacle of 2004, which was perhaps the wrong game and wrong year to debut such a system. I may be wrong, but Valve's revenue streams undoubtedly comes mostly from keeping Steam healthy and well-liked, at least to a degree, by its customers. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a wide range of divisions and technologies that it could, at least in this consumer's mind, close at any time without a huge hit to its profit margins. The same cannot be said for Valve. So when Microsoft says I need to check-in every 24 hours (when that "feature" was still in place), I really can't trust them to keep the servers up and running at every single moment of every day. There is a well-deserved lack of confidence in Microsoft's ability to service its customers over a long period of time, and there's no reason why I, the consumer, should trust $500+ to this pseudo-prophet of the digital age.

And come on dude. Of course gamers feel entitled--they're the ones plonking down $60 for a game. Maybe $60 comes easy to you, maybe it doesn't, but the point is that companies are responsible for pleasing the customer, not the other way around. I'm not going to pay a substantial amount of money for a game that I don't really own. Am I really being selfish when I want a guarantee that my game will be playable whenever and wherever I want? Am I really being selfish for not accepting draconian measures for the sake of a digital future that really benefits Microsoft and not me? In a word, no.

Listen, I see where you were going with this blog post, and I admire your decision to post what was obviously going to be a polemic. Your argument, however, strives to present the future in a positive light while ignoring the downfalls of such a premature system. We're talking about more than just a few disgruntled hardcore gamers, but about the future of digital rights management and conversations and laws about such topics. To blindly accept such systems would be bad not only for gamers, but the consumers of digital content of all types. The systems were too restrictive and too untrustworthy to be put into place.

Like I said, I'm accepting of the digital future, but not at the expense of money and confidence. If Microsoft wants to give me the future, fine, but if it wants me to buy into it, it better present a foolproof, consumer-focused system that makes it worth the money and potential frustrations that might arise as a result. We'll get there, but the XBONE's original policies were never going to be the right way to get to them, regardless of inconsistencies in presentation.

@bgdiner: At this point, trust me, I'm sort of regretting making this blog post. I feel like I didn't make it clear in the OP that while I think there are potential benefits to going digital, I fully admit that it was premature, and that Microsoft's plan was poor, uncoordinated, and had glaring flaws that needed to be addressed.

I underestimated the amount of vitriol that could be brought on by attempting to suggest or speculate that anything positive could come from a plan similar to Microsoft's, especially now that people can rest easy knowing they aren't becoming a reality.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone's sensibilities here. Please understand that this piece was purely academic. I'm not pissed off about anything, and I hold nothing against people that took action against these policies. The consumers have spoken with their wallet, and I find it inspiring that we have the power to steer our destiny like that. While I may have not given the impression in the OP, I'm overall still satisfied.

We're probably much better off going fully digital when more people are ready for it and with a plan that doesn't appear to have been so hastily and haphazardly thrown together. I'm confident that we'll still get there, and I have the patience to wait.

Hits the nail right on the head. The games industry is floundering because big publishers follow a "too big to fail" model when it comes to development teams and budgets. Instead of trying new types of games, and no I do not mean mobile games, Demons Souls is a good example here - which could potentially return huge gross profits - they continue to stagnate on the same old strategies. Then they blame their bloated spending vs. return on consumers, when it is not their fault. Piracy and used games are not robbing millions of sales that would be needed to save failures like Hitman and Tomb Raider, which "only" sold 3m copies.

Japanese companies seem to get this better than Western ones. A game like Catherine can sell just 200k in its first NPD month and it's a celebration for Atlus. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I really do wish Microsoft did a better job explaining their vision of the futrue. Because before their policy came out and how restrictive it sounded, I was seriously thinking about jumping to team Xbox.

They showed us all stick and no carrot and basically told us to not worry there is a carrot but o man do we have a big stick. Like say hey Netflix and media services like it are no longer locked behinde a Pay wall, that would of made Xbone one of the best all around set top boxes most likely due to a breath of content.

the whole "select retail partners" thing is what really irked me. Good on GameStop for getting that deal but that's still pretty shitty. If only they had made a fully digital console with just a Blu Ray drive for movies, though that doesn't seem that economical.

If we want video games to be a healthy industry, something has to be done.

I stopped reading after this. I will never accept that the consumer must make all the concessions so that assholes like David Jaffe and Clifford can continue to make derivitive games with bloated budgets and little-to-no replay value outside of deathmatching.

Notice how you never hear anyone at Nintendo complain about this, or why the people at 2K make a point of not whining like little girls about the existence of the used market. That's because games from Nintendo and 2K, among other responsible developers make great games that hold their value, not because of restrictive mechanisms, but because of fantastic gameplay.

To be honest, throughout this whole ordeal, I've grown to hate David Jaffe and Clifford and their likes. These are people who've long since stopped making great games and switched over to making showcases for graphics tech. The industry is in trouble, not because of used games, but because most have followed Clifford and friends down the bottomless pit of photo-realism. EA stated openly that they needed 5 million copies of Dead Space 3 to sell. Square Enix called 3.4 million copies of Tomb Raider a "dissapointment." The problem is the bloated, borderline-hedonistic waste that plagues most AAA publishers, and I refuse to be punished for their sins.

And so long as Clifford and friends continue to treat consumers like the problem, I will resent them. Any consumer with any sense should do the same.