Digital Distribution on Consoles

Of course, piracy on consoles isn't nearly as big as it is on PCs. However, do you guys think that digital distribution for all games (no more retailers) could limit piracy completely and give companies like Microsoft and Sony the most money possible? On consoles, it'd be much harder to find out how to pirate, because you don't have an Operating System to work with, you only have the Xbox 360/PS3 hardware.

There are two problems with Digital Distribution on consoles:

1. Bandwidth - You'll have to wait awhile to download these games when you could just go to the store and pick them up.
2. HDD space - The size of the drives hasn't quite gotten there. I mean, a Blu-ray game is sometimes 25 GB (or more) and the PS3 only comes with an 80 GB drive. On the 360, the smaller game size may benefit it, but you're still going to feel the squeeze.

All I know is that if gaming became digital distribution only and no more physical media was produced...I wouldn't be gaming nearly as much as I do now.

"All I know is that if gaming became digital distribution only and no more physical media was produced...I wouldn't be gaming nearly as much as I do now."

"Kush said:

"All I know is that if gaming became digital distribution only and no more physical media was produced...I wouldn't be gaming nearly as much as I do now."

I agree, that is the collectors mindset."

Well I will say this, if the consoles had a service like Steam, I AM SO IN! However, that would have to mean UNLIMITED ACTIVATIONS AND INSTALLATIONS. If they put a limit on it like they do now, no thank you. I have almost 180 games on Steam because of the unlimited installation and ease of just click and play that it affords. Wouldn't mind to see that come to consoles.

I think digital distribution for all games is inevitable as long as there are hard drives large enough for us.  I doubt it will totally replace a physical disc anytime soon, but I totally see a Steam-like service on most next-gen consoles.

Digital distribution has the limits of sapce where I don't want to DL a 25 gig file to play one game. So the biggest blockbusters games that I know takes up a lot of room will remain disc based while the smaller games can be digital.

Hell even if PS3 games can be cracked now, I don't want to dl 25 gigs over the torrent for it. At that big of a space, I rather save up a little or rent the damn thing.