Topic: Will download games kill retail?

In a way I hope digital distribution gathers pace, but not at expense of real shops primarily because people work there and some customers cherish having real boxes, etc. It's nice to be able to buy old stuff at any time without getting reamed on Ebay.

Nintendo's policy on this, however, where downloads are bound to consoles (Wii and DS) rather than to persons is completely retarded. It means you can't (yet) transfer your stuff, either between existing console or conceivably to future generations of consoles. They need to look at and learn from Steam, I think.

Answer: NO

Why: Because Retail games will always be able to hold more space and that having a several 8GB games on a console will fill up the memory pretty fast.

Note: I know most games are around 5-6GB, but gaming will eventually get to 8GB because technology is advancing extremely fast.

A 250 gig harddrive (a la forthcoming PS3) will hold quite a few 8 gig games - around 30 in fact.
Besides, memory is the cheapest compenent of any system, and it's not even an issue if you can delete and re-download at any time.

Maybe in the long run, but not at the broadband speeds we have in the UK right now, I think it will take a pretty big jump in speeds before downloads take over, and it will have to happen in enough countries to make it worthwhile, so probably not even next gen then.

They most likely will, but I don't see that happening for at least 5-10 years.

I would expect to see CDs gone from retail stores before video games, to be honest. music has been going the digital route for longer than video games, and still there is demand for a physical, retail copy of the music people buy instead of a download.