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When Gaming Goes Download Only, My Gaming Days Are Done
I found this article today and I really agreed with it and I remember the podcast crew talking about this with the thing from Bioware over Mass Effect on the PC. Take a look:
Read the rest of the article here.
There’s talk from multiple camps about the possibility of digital distribution digital distribution overtaking retail completely, and that doesn’t sit right with me. Take this quote for example:
Microsoft says there is ‘no question’ that the sale of downloaded games will overtake the sales of games at retail in the coming years.
According to David Gosen, Xbox Europe’s VP of strategic marketing and Live, “There’s no question digital will overtake physical. It happened in music and will happen to our industry.”
He was talking as part of his keynote speech at Microsoft’s UK Gamefest developer event in central London today.
Gosen told attendees that “convergence is happening” in the industry as consumers turn to games consoles to deliver content digitally, be that games or movies.
You can take that how you will, and I fully expect that you’d read the article yourself, but my take may be a bit different from yours. It could be implying that profits from digitally distributed games would be higher than those from retail shops, and if that’s what they’re trying to say, forgive me for blowing things out of proportion.
In my opinion though, this article basically implies a bit more than digital distribution for games becoming more popular in the future. Specifically the assurance that downloaded games will overtake the sales of retail. The idea that digital music is selling higher than classic is pretty funny, considering that recent sales put digital music sales at 15% of overall music sales:
Digital sales, however, continue to grow dramatically. Digital album sales are up 34% to 31.6 million units, which represent 15.5% of all album sales.
No, I won’t disregard the fact that downloads are rising dramatically. That’s all fine and good, fantastic even, but the fact remains that digital music isn’t selling more than physical music, which makes me wonder why the spin was attempted.
Having experienced Xbox Live myself, I fully expect that Microsoft would be pushing the service as the de facto for the idea, but the thing that worries me most about this article is the implication that full, retail games will be distributed through the service. Technically, that’s already happening with the Xbox Originals feature of the service, but for current or future generation games? I think not.
Personally, while I enjoy Xbox Live as much as the next gamer, I don’t love any service enough to give up physical copies of games that cost any more than $20. There are too many factors involved that don’t work for the consumer.
Microsoft says there is ‘no question’ that the sale of downloaded games will overtake the sales of games at retail in the coming years.
According to David Gosen, Xbox Europe’s VP of strategic marketing and Live, “There’s no question digital will overtake physical. It happened in music and will happen to our industry.”
He was talking as part of his keynote speech at Microsoft’s UK Gamefest developer event in central London today.
Gosen told attendees that “convergence is happening” in the industry as consumers turn to games consoles to deliver content digitally, be that games or movies.
You can take that how you will, and I fully expect that you’d read the article yourself, but my take may be a bit different from yours. It could be implying that profits from digitally distributed games would be higher than those from retail shops, and if that’s what they’re trying to say, forgive me for blowing things out of proportion.
In my opinion though, this article basically implies a bit more than digital distribution for games becoming more popular in the future. Specifically the assurance that downloaded games will overtake the sales of retail. The idea that digital music is selling higher than classic is pretty funny, considering that recent sales put digital music sales at 15% of overall music sales:
Digital sales, however, continue to grow dramatically. Digital album sales are up 34% to 31.6 million units, which represent 15.5% of all album sales.
No, I won’t disregard the fact that downloads are rising dramatically. That’s all fine and good, fantastic even, but the fact remains that digital music isn’t selling more than physical music, which makes me wonder why the spin was attempted.
Having experienced Xbox Live myself, I fully expect that Microsoft would be pushing the service as the de facto for the idea, but the thing that worries me most about this article is the implication that full, retail games will be distributed through the service. Technically, that’s already happening with the Xbox Originals feature of the service, but for current or future generation games? I think not.
Personally, while I enjoy Xbox Live as much as the next gamer, I don’t love any service enough to give up physical copies of games that cost any more than $20. There are too many factors involved that don’t work for the consumer.
Read the rest of the article here.
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