Topic: Will download games kill retail?

http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/320631/digital_software_down...

What do you think? Seems the industry is slowly moving in that direction...

Retail isent going anyware. Just look at music we still have vinyl and CD's dont tell me people thought they woudent be gone by now.

Really? Last time I checked Vinyl was, if at all, sold in the back corner of really large music stores - and, incidently, music stores now tend to sell more DVDs than anything else. I can't remember the last time I saw a shop that just sold CDs. There's still not that much of a push for people to buy digital movies.

Anecdotal, but I don't know a single person who still buys CDs.

Game stores only sell games. That model will have to change as more and more consoles come out that are download only, and more and more customers find it easier to buy digital copies of games. Game stores will either branch into other areas, go down in flames, or somehow find a way to be profitable on hardware sales.

Things are moving in a digital direction, but I still think we've got some time before we see it take over.

Vinyl is still being made just not for evry band out their like CD's and alot of people still by CD's. Music stors may be branching out to move more products but that doesent really mean anything.

Long story short? Yes.

It's not just the way the market wants to move. It's an intersection between market forces and technology. Broadband is a reality for the vast majority of video game players. Storage is cheap. Game consoles have these features built-in. Combined with the popularity of the used game market + the success of Apple's mobile device, downloadable games are the future.

There will come a day when cartridges and game discs will look just as antiquated as VHS looks today. (Shout out to all those who see DVD as just as antiquated. And not because you have a Bluray player. )

I hope not.

Why not? I like owning a physical copy of a game, don't get me wrong, but there's also a thrill in having a console filled with games that can be accessed with the press of a button.

It's like for like, IMO.

no. period. onlive cannot even be dignified as a fad. it will fail most non-triumphantly. and i will be glad. don't get me wrong, i love WiiWare, and i think it has an important place in the industry. but things of that nature will NEVER dominate.

Same here, but I don't see why we can't have both. Like you said, both are great. I don't see why one has to be the winner.

The problem with the Wii's digital distribution is that it can't be taken to a friends house like a physical game can.
You have to unhook your Wii if you want to take it to a friends house or lend the entire Wii to a friend if they want to try the game at their house.

Another problem is that you can't sell/trade it like a physical game.

If there was more flexibility with the digital distribution and high speed Internet everywhere that who knows it could eventually replace physical distribution.

I would love to see your in depth analysis about why that's the case. Because in reality everything about the market points in the exact opposite direction.

[quote]Same here, but I don't see why we can't have both. Like you said, both are great. I don't see why one has to be the winner.[/QUOTE]

There will eventually be a winner, I think, simply because it's impossible for two competitive formats to survive side-by-side. One inevitably wins (Beta vs Tape, HDDVD Vs Blu Ray, CD vs Cassette/ minidisc)

Are they competitive though? Not everyone has online capability and I don't think every gamer will ever be online. I would just like to see a digital distributed copy and physical copies of every game instead of minimal choices.

Considering that high-speed internet isn't available everywhere, I don't think this is happening anytime soon

As much as I'll miss physical copies of games, you can just see the digital distribution of all media becoming more prevalent and accepted. While we're a ways away from total digital distribution, you can see it coming. It's cheaper for publishers and even allows a lot of developers to publish their own games that normally could not afford to do so.

I'm curious to see how Sony's PSPgo does given its complete dependency on digital releases. Should be a good experiment.

It's definitely the wave of the future. I think it will be a while before enough homes have broadband that's fast enough to make it worthwhile to download titles of the size retail releases are now. I definitely think it's only a matter of time before it happens. PSPGo is probably going to be very niche though. My prediction would be that not the next generation of home consoles, (assuming it starts in 2011/2012ish), but the generation after that will be download only. I think you'll be seeing a lot of downloadable releases next gen that could have been legitimate retail releases this generation though.

I agree with all of this.

RE: the PSPgo, there's a news story just out that the major Dutch games retailer (name escapes me now) refuses to sell it. Retail not threatened by download-only consoles? Yeah, right.

Well once retailers stop selling video games due to download only, I'll have one less reason to shop at the evil Wal-Mart

I can't imagine that a single store's refusal to sell a console does much damage...in this age of online shopping, you type in the name of something and click the cheapest price--if there's one less price in the middle of that list it doesn't affect much.

I'm rootin' for you PSP Go! Go PSP, Go!

I think it's too early to predict that much as it's too early to predict online selling of goods through the post will kill retail, but it cannot be denied it's having an impact. The only big chain high street CD/DVD shop left in the UK is HMV and outside of GAME (and subsidiary Gamestation) you've only got independent game specialty shops and itty bitty chains like CEX and G-Force (or whatever it's called) over here.

I definitely think the industry is heading that way when they feel the infrastructure is in place to make the move. A recent Bonus Round at Gametrailers made a pretty good point about one remaining hurdle -- outside of broadband availability -- which is that downloads have no equivalent to NPD so they cannot make a determination as to how many copies of games they're selling online. Until the gatekeepers like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and Steam make that information public they're not going to give up one revenue stream for another lightly. Once publishers see that downloads are doing the business I expect print runs of physical games to drop and eventually only big titles getting disc pressings.