The all digital future is not plausible.

@Razorlution said:

Steam is a perfect model in which they should follow. Link all games to your account, have multiple systems, no problem, works as long as you use same account id.

You can access your PlayStation Store purchases on any PS3, it just requires some planning ahead since you can only have the content active on two PS3's at a time. If you're already at the limit and want to access your games on a third PS3 you have to deactivate one of the other two systems (done easily through the XMB) before you can access the content on the third PS3. Doing this won't delete the purchased content on the system you deactivated, you just won't be able to access it until you reactivate it.

Not sure if this has been mentioned here, but my biggest problem with full retail games going digital is the non-existent resale market. I don't know about everyone else, but with the exception of a few favorites, video games to me are like good books and meant to be shared. After playing a game to satisfaction, I often re-sell them on Amazon.com. To this end, I believe both Microsoft and Sony want to pursue digital-only distribution a lot more to squash the re-sale market, but unless they plan on selling their consoles themselves, they cannot afford to alienate the Best Buys and Gamestops of the world...just yet.

It's not the size that makes it a bad idea it's the fact that unlike say Steam, The prices for console downloads rarely ever drop or at least not much.

XBL has dozens of Games On Demand for $30-$50 that I could buy on Steam or EBay for $5-$10

Downloaded Ni No Kuni over night. 2 weeks? And I have the crap internet plan from my provider.

I'd hate a digital download only console. The UK PSN often charges £50 for new and popular games. A boxed retail game from amazon/game/shopto is never going to cost me more than £40, postage included. Plus my internet speed is awful and PSN is generally slower than downloading on my PC. I've actually bought quite a few games digitally on my PS3, but I keep having to delete a ton to make more space. If I had the discs I could just pop them in and play, but if I want to play Saints Row the Third I'll need to make some space and spend hours redownloading it.
 
If you've not preordered the game for release then PSN would normally be faster than waiting 2-3 days though. Hopefully boxed copies remain but DD become more widespread and efficent with time.

I would like to be able to go all digital, but since I have a 250GB cap a month and use most of it already it just won't work for me. Plus I only have a 12Mbps connection and downloading a 6GB game already take a couple of hours, I don't want to have wait longer and longer times as game get bigger and bigger in file size.

@JZ said:

Hmmmm whats the difference between the pc and a console, hmmmmm I wonder.

I seriously dont know what you are talking about? You make the claim that the digital purchase of game is not plausible/reasonable yet ... Steam is a perfectly fine example how that is wrong and actually a prefered method for many people. I hate to break it to you but consoles are nothing more than specialized PC's ... there is no difference worth noting on this topic. The manufactures just have to put bigger harddrives in those things and offer a service that at least approaches steam and there is your resonable DD-service.

If games go 100% digital:

Who will be selling these games? I ask because if a game does horribly and it's not selling, it'll usually go down to a really low price. However if the people who made the game are selling it they'll have too much pride and keep selling it full retail or 10% off which wouldn't do them any good. The game may be able to garner a small amount of fans but if no one ever buys it it'll just be that lame game that's overpriced. Also what if the only place to get a certain game goes out of business? Is the game lost forever except to those who bought it before that happened?

The issue as I see it is that Steam's success has come from making everything cheap. Since MS and Sony have no competition on their platforms, they have not yet seen a reason to do this. As such, a major advantage of digital distribution is lost.

Granted, their online services are also just terrible.

Where I live in Canada, all High speed internet companies have a download limit (mine is 110 gb I think) pass this limit they charge 5$ or 10$ per 1 gb.

I could not use an digital only service.

Canada should really allow more foreign companies in to drive prices down.

@GrantHeaslip said:

@SmilingPig said:

Where I live in Canada, all High speed internet companies have a download limit (mine is 110 gb I think) pass this limit they charge 5$ or 10$ per 1 gb.

I could not use an digital only service.

Canada should really allow more foreign companies in to drive prices down.

Do you not get TekSavvy where you are? I’m paying ~$50/mo for a 28 Mbps (3.5 MB/s) connection with a 300 GB cap (which I could pay a bit more to lift). You may not have access to the same speed where you are, but their cap is always 300 GB, their prices are lower, and you’re not stuck giving money (directly, at least) to one of the big guys.

Tanks! Its the first time I hear of those guys.

reasonable but be careful.

I can download 20 gigs in an hour or so. Depends if PSN wants me to or not. But, still, it's an option. Nice try, though.

As mentioned, the main problem is that of cost. The only reason Steam has been as successful as it has is almost entirely dependent on its huge and frequent sales. The consoles' stores very infrequently have decent sales, maybe the best of them coming from the PS+ service. Why pay $55 on a digital download when I can probably find it cheaper in a store in a couple weeks?

The other thing is that digital downloads worry me a lot on consoles.

I live in a large city and the best I can get here is about 10mbps from ATT U-verse because for some reason they advertise 24 mbps as their highest and yet say they can only give me ten. Time Warner offers higher but I had a bad experience with them involving them throttling various sites I visited in order to get me to order a more expensive service (not specifically me mind you, but throttling the speed for everyone in a bid to have more people get the most expensive option. That or they just don't care about traffic congestion unless you're paying for the best) so I dropped them. I'd go with Grande but they don't offer service in my area and that is literally all I have for options: shitty internet from a big name and better, much more expensive, internet from throttling big name. And price is a big deal for me since I'm effectively living under the poverty line so I can't just suck it up and go with TW like I'd do otherwise. :/

Oh, and I got a cap so...yeah. You guys basically live in magic internet land to me.

It really depends on your download rate, i got Ni No Kuni today, and after 5 hours its at 90% which isn't bad. My issue is i dont use my Ps3 much so it still has its stock 80 gig hard drive or whatever so im sorta pressed for space in that regard. I realize most people dont have 50mbit download rates though, but for a game like this where its going to be hit and miss in local stores i think its still faster then shipping it with normal shipping rates barring you have a half way decent connection.

Preloading solves this issue, also I have pretty slow internet (1 - 3 MB) and steam as done just fine with downloading 20 GB games and still getting me to play them that day.

yep, downloads suck. i have slow download speed it takes forever to download something. it took forever for me to download the witcher. still haven't played it yet, but it took like 4 days to download like 10gig thing.

The digital future is further away then people seem to think.

@Hunter5024 said:

The digital future is further away then people seem to think.

Well, it's here for smaller games (smartphones, 3DS, Vita, etc.), or at the very least it bloody well should be. Most of them are inconsequentially small.

But yes, ISPs are dicks in a lot of countries, so it still isn't quite practical for people to go around downloading 10-20 GB games onto their consoles all day long. But we're getting closer.

@BisonHero said:

@Hunter5024 said:

The digital future is further away then people seem to think.

Well, it's here for smaller games (smartphones, 3DS, Vita, etc.), or at the very least it bloody well should be. Most of them are inconsequentially small.

But yes, ISPs are dicks in a lot of countries, so it still isn't quite practical for people to go around downloading 10-20 GB games onto their consoles all day long. But we're getting closer.

To be more specific I should have said the "All-Digital" future. We can have them both, but physical media won't be replaced anytime soon.

Killzone shadowfall is 50 gigs fuck your digital future

I will smell my disk till the end of time

the motherfucking cloud, bruh bruh

Yea, on the PS3 specifically I dread downloading anything over 2 gigs, because even that seems to take forever and I live in NYC not in the boonies. 360/PC are fine and I'm sure Xbone/PS4 will be on par with PC from the get go. I look forward to my first 20gb+ download that isn't on PC.

So much this, we have a low cap here so I can't download many games let alone a 20 gig or even a 50 gig game (they just keep getting bigger). Not to mention I don't like the idea of paying $60 for something I can't physically touch, but that's just a personal Preference.

I'm the opposite in my part of Canada. I live in the country so I only get a 1MB connection, but there is no caps on it here in NB. As long as you stick with Aliant anyway. Even their fiber op is unlimited. Which is why I will never go to Rogers.

Etherway, I have been living this unlivable all digital future for the past 6-7 years thanks to Steam. As long as I can preload the night before I'm always fine as I can just leave my PC downloading all night and when I get up it's done. If games are going to balloon in size to 50gb then they will need to start letting us preload a couple days before as that would take a couple days for my wittle 1mb download.

Shaw is pretty good if you are in their area, i get 50/3 with a 400GB cap for about $80(shaw's known to be pretty lenient on overages).

Depends totally on where you live. I know people who can download a gig a minute. No joke. Is all digital plausible from a business standpoint right now? No. Will it long term be the future and will we one day have video games without physical media? Yes. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but I will be surprised if it doesn't happen in the next say 4-5 decades.

The all digital future is not plausible.

Great argument.

Internet will get faster, bandwidth caps will raise, pre-installs will happen while you sleep... the future isn't here, but you sound like the people whining that HD TVs are too expensive and not necessary at the beginning of this generation.

I'm in no position to download a 50GB game now... but who knows where I'll be in a decade or where the internet will be either. A decade ago I didn't even have ADSL.

@pandabear: well yeah we could be in space or all dead in a decade.

Dude your internet must suuuuuck

1TB / 50GB = 20 games. I have 350 games in my steam library, of which I have maybe 10 installed at any one point. Do you really expect to have every game you've ever purchased installed all the time?

@chiablo: I have 400 games on a wall in arms reach from where I'm sitting right now.

I download 20 gigs in about an hour or so. If they get pre-loading like Steam and other major DD's then it shouldn't be a big problem to take a week to download. As long as you have it by the release date it shouldn't be a problem. Additionally there are ways to offload the issue on to the CPU/GPU such as compression. You can compress a 50 GB download to probably a 20 GB download (might be stretching it) but it takes a while to then extract it. With Gigabit internet rolling out throughout America that would also mean that 20 - 50 GB would take that amount of seconds to download. (e.g. 20 GB on a 1 GB/s connection takes of course 20 seconds.) So for myself with all of these I will probably continue to be 100% digital. I haven't bought a serious box game in about 5-7 years. (I've picked up some bargain bin trash at walmart which I don't really count.)

YOU'RE SO RIGHT!! Therefore we should stop trying to progress technology because WE'RE ALL GONNA BE CORPSES ON THE MOOD IN A FORTNIGHT!!

I don't want an all digital future either, but it's coming in our lifetime. You talk about things like they'll never change ... but the Internet is on my fucking phone now. Think about it.

This guy knows what's up! Although since then my harddrive has filled up and now managing shit and erasing shit to make more room for other shit is a pain in the ass. Seriously, managing space sucks! This shit has been so awful that it actually made me strap a 2 TB harddrive to my Wii U first chance I got, just to make sure I don't have to deal with it again.

haha. this made me laugh.

on a serious note, it's possible to get those kinds of connection speeds depending on your living situation. I am currently on my college campus. My internet is 11MB/s on a slow day. Granted, this is obviously not the situation for most people, but with the advent of Google Fiber among other technologies that are sure to emerge within this console generation, neo new york will happen.

I get 5MB/s from comcast's middle tier. With Fiber you will get 1000 MB/s. It's not insane to expect gamers to have a min 1MB/s connection.

When your first sentence admits that the title of your thread is wrong, I leave.

Yeah but then file sizes will get larger and larger. My issue isn't with the download speed, it's the hard drive size. It's what, 500gb? If I buy a game I don't want to delete it and have to re download it later if I want it, I wanna be able to just play it right then. Most games I go back to are on a whim anyway, so if I have to redownload it I'll probably just say forget it.

Yeah from what I understand most of the United States is a bit behind when it comes to broadband speeds. Pretty much the cheapest plan available to me (10 euros a month) was advertised as 50 Mb/s and most of the time my actual speeds fall somewhere around 45 Mb/s with no restrictions on how much I can use it. If I wanted to I could easily go out and get a 200 Mb/s or faster connection, but I don't really see the need at least right now. I live in Finland and I get that many people don't have access to infrastructure like this, but things can only get better from people who live in Australia, the US and so on. The only real limits I can imagine being a problem has to do with hard-drive size, but by using a solid-state drive on my PC I've grown used to managing the games I have installed. Or then I'll just buy a 2 terabyte external drive which will give me enough space for 40 or so games.

Has noone mentioned Battle.net streaming yet ?

WoW is a 25Gb download, you can start playing it after 5-10 minutes of downloading.

I definitely see what you're saying. As a PC gamer with a 500 GB hard drive, I understand how annoying it is to have to reinstall games because of memory limitations, trust me. I'm sure that companies like Valve, MS, Sony, etc. are working on solutions to this problem. If I had to guess based on the way things seem to be going, that solution will most likely be rooted in cloud computing. In an ideal world, you would never have to download a game to play it, or at least only have to download a relatively small file to use the game. However, this technology doesn't exist yet (to my knowledge) and I have no way of knowing whether or not it's even possible.

That being said, assuming no radical changes happen over the next console cycle and files continue to get bigger and bigger, the solution seems to be "buy more memory". I understand that this is super obvious and probably not what you want to hear, but that's how it is. A 1TB harddrive right now runs you roughly 50 - 80 dollars from what i've seen. Assuming file sizes of approximately 50GB, 1TB gets you 18 - 20 games. If you buy your games exclusively during Steam sales or other promotions from digital retailers, 18 - 20 games worth of savings is more than enough to cover the cost of a new hard drive. Not to mention that as times goes on, memory becomes cheaper and cheaper and hard drive size increases. So while it's probably an ugly solution and one you might not ideally want, it is completely feasible until the next technological breakthrough happens.

EDIT: Also, if you are worried about the physical space that would be taken up by having X hard drives, then just do a little math. If you could have X hard drives that have 18 - 20 games on them OR 20X games complete with boxes, which would you rather have?

For the digital future to happen, we need much more bandwidth and faster transfer speeds. With things like Google Fiber coming out we are getting closer to that goal.

It's going to take a while. Maybe another decade even, but we'll get there. Just think of how far we've come just in the last 10 or 15 years.

@afabs515: oh for my PC absolutely buy more hard drives, i'm not arguing that (I'll have to get one eventually down the road). But buying another HDD for a console doesn't seem as feasible. Does the XB1 even allow you to add on one that's not proprietary? And even for the PS4 there's only 1 HDD slot and who knows how transferring data is going to work. Not to mention that at this point there are some weird growing pains. If I buy another 1TB HDD to hold games on that'd only hold what, 20 games? Then I buy another? No thanks.

The cloud computing thing is interesting because even if the info isn't being stored locally on your computer, it'd require Sony/publishers/whoever to run those servers themselves, which would cost them money. Then what happens? Does the rate for XBL/PS+ go up? Do they charge monthly for all games, based on when you play them?

This is what I'm expecting too. 10 to 15 years and we'll be ready but currently the idea is ahead of the resources. It worries me how everything is going online next gen. Look at GTA V. They gave themselves 2 weeks to see the actual size of the user base and set the servers up and it's still a full on mess (granted it's only been one day and it's easier said than done). I hope it isn't going to be the standard that everyone just has to assume that they won't be able to play on the first couple days a new game releases .