MS touts digital distribution over 'historic' discs

All of Microsofts Digital distribution talks scare me.

Do you want your next console to be the gaming equvilent of the Ipod? Only you can't use something like limewire to get music/ vids for free. You have to pay for all the content. And once your console breaks, or you get a new one you have to buy all that content again. I don't think any of us want that.

I don't think ANY of us want to lose the flexibility of a disc.

Whats better? Waiting hours for content to download from the net, or putting a disc in and having access to it instantly. Whats better, having the ability to lend games to friends, or not having the ability to lend it to friends? Whats better, having to pay hundreds of dollars to repurchase content after your hardware breaks down, or is replaced, or not having to?

Screw Digital distribution. This guys an idiot, and makes me hesistant to buy anything from Microsoft ever. Its bad enough Vistas OS locks onto one computer. If digital distribution succeeds, the consumer will lose.

it's called the N war boys and girls... it's going to be great...


http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/feature/the-infinite-video-format-war-is-coming-261290.php

Well with that rationale, PPV would have outpaced DVD rentals a long time ago don'cha think?

i think theres a big difference between watching a movie and listening to music....

just a though

Comparing DVDs/ blue ray to Digital distribution is not even remotely the same as comparing DVDS success over VCRS. Or Ipods over CDs.

1. Most people don't buy from Itunes. They download the content for free off of the net. Even if they are dumb enough to buy songs off of Itunes, they have the benefit of only buying the songs they want. Instead of an entire CD. The ipod offers a more flexible and accessible way to access content then CDs. This is because of the UI of the ipod, and the sales method.

2. DVDs , VCRs, blue ray, Hd-DVD , Beta Max , etc are all methods ofstoring software on hardware. Digital distribution is a method of deliving content via downloads. When the DVD over came the VCR, it did so because it was better. The consumer benefited, because they could have better quality, more accessibility, more content, etc. The DVD was better then the VCR is every way. The blue ray is better then the DVD in every way.

The thing is, their are NO benefits for the consumer to adopt digital distribution. Not only is digital distribution not better then hard copy in every way, its closer to being the reverse.

Instead the consumer is given a less flexible and less accessible system. Where the distributer has even more control. Where theres a decent chance they will have to rebuy there software atleast once. Where they have long download times as opposed to simply putting a disc inside a tray.

Give me one bloody consumer benefit for digital distributioned games over hard copy.

Theres so many indicators this is a bad forecast. The biggest indicator is that most of the people here have expressed what a bad idea this is.

The only people that benefit are the people delivering the content.

It's nice to see that Microsoft believes digital distribution is the way to go, in spite of the fact that "not everybody wants a hard drive".

The brutal console wars rage on, ravaging the hearts and minds of consumers everywhere. Microsoft, consumed with jealousy over last generations' results trudges on, striking down everything that gets in the way of its quest for dominance. Sony, once the undisputed master is just as relentless; the whole world can burn as long as the Playstation brand might rule the rubble and charred remains. The clash of these two titans will surely shake the foundations of the very universe, if not destroy time itself. Weep ye all with me!

Meanwhile, dumptrucks full of cash continue to request permission to unload at Nintendo HQ only to be told, "Maybe later."

Wow, it's stunning how worried Microsoft are, what this this nonsense, and the BS about supply issues being ther reason they got reamed for the last 2 months in the US (and 8 months in Europe).

Until it is possible to download hd quality movies very quickly there will also be an actual disc. Think how long it would take to download a 1080p version of king kong or lotr. Microsoft should invest more time/money into getting better servers for games

lol I can always count on articles like this to have so many comments.

Why is it so hard to understand that most people do not have fast enough internet. If Verizon and ATT and others when advertising say our connection is 100 or X amount of times faster than dial-up, then there is NO way Digital Downloads are on the brink of mainstream, and that is what it is going to take. Not to mention disc media can have uncompressed video and audio. For the rest of America, who the majority is without a broadband connection let alone a connection stable enough to support Digital Downloads, there is still a long way to go. Of course this will change with time, but to call an entrenched media, physical discs, historic is plain silly. Wal-mart has DVD players for $30. That's not going away anytime soon for America. We on here are just a fraction of the world. Sometimes people seem to forget that.

PANCAKE NIPPLES thats all im gonna say about it !

Has anyone thought maybe people will wake up and smell the coffee, film is a dated medium where video games are timeless much like music (I'm not a huge fan of music myself).

Hard drives are prone to failure. I want my stuff on a physical,tangible item that I can move from place to place or bring to friend's houses. This is the same reason I use VCR's to record things and not Tivo. I'm not going to drag a giant tivo box over to a friend's house to show him a cool tv show when I can just bring a tape.

Not to mention I cry at the thoughts of downloading a 8 gig game (nevermind blu ray's huge storage).

You know, that bullshit might hold more water if the biggest hard drive they offered wasn't a tiny 120gb and if it didn't cost 180 fucking dollars. Digital distribution isn't going any god damn where with pricing like that.

MS still has a god awful HDD size for a modern digi distro service, as well as disc games to boost space the 360 is unfit as it is to do gaming moving forward.

MS needs to drop the limitations on devs and get 360 HDDs to the consumer cheap (40$ for 60-100GB).....

DD is not in the argument of whether it is being better then the Physical format...Well...It is... It is just that it lacks and pales in comparison to the Physical Format. Hi Def will take the lead if it did not cost so much money even if Sony has a monopoly in it, although some tell me "BR does not belong to Sony" well they sure are making a profit off the Hi Def regions.

You can repeat the argument all day the DD will take the Flag Sooner or Later but when I can not Sell it, Or if my entire Hard Drive breaks and among other things. We have a problem. So they should try perfecting DD even more so with the Xbox. Even then it all the optimism for it make it a dream and even IF. You are comparing actual Sex to Phone Sex. Hmmp...Maybe they should try Virtual...

digital distribution may very well be the future, but right now, i would much rather buy a physical disc and rip it to a digital format just to have a back up. i dont think digital distribution can take off just yet, i mean it's 2008 and i can still barely get a high speed connection where i live, i have to settle for this unreliable satellite internet crap (and i realize im most likely in the minority on that fact).

space is also an issue, i dont want to download a movie on the internet and then have to go back to SD cause i cant fit it all on my hard drive. and the fact the DRM may not let me burn it to a disc wont help either.

i also dont think digital distribution will be practical until we get ONE unified DRM standard. there is no doubt that DRM is necessary but why would i want to buy a file if there is a good chance it wont play on all of my devices? im sure there are standards they have to follow but does every record/movie company need to have their own custom DRM?

Microsoft is right that digital distribution is the future but i think 12-18 months is a little too hasty. physical media and digital media will certainly co-exist for a while to come.

Absolutely right. I mean, iTunes killed the CD half a decade ago.

Oh no, wait a minu

Yawnn, It took me about 20 minutes to download At Your Door on xboxlive, its a good movie with a very strange twist at the end. the movie was 1.4 gigabyte. I was surprised that the movie download so quickly, i just have a typical cable connection. I know many of you average joe are still simular to cave men. Many of us like revolutions and some of us dont, some of us are men of change and some of us dont change. Some of us want movies on a disk and some of us are now begining not to want a movie on a disk, both disks and digital distribution have strengths and weakness, but both harddrive and disks suffer from failure, its a more likely chance of a disc not reading compared to a harddrive breakind down. Itunes is now nailing cds in the coffin but at the sametime people are buying cds, jobs and gates are trying to bring digital distribution of movies, but studios trust sony and blu ray instead of trusting apple and microsoft. Digital distribution for movies is still in its infancy but it will take off. Sad truth is that physical media is becoming less and less popular, besides physical media makes a mess in your livingroom and bedroom. I do like DVd and blu ray is ok, not a fan of blu ray though. I do perfer to watch movies through pipeline like Digital distribution and On demand from cable, I'm also looking forward for movies from steam. Overall I'm just happy to have more choices on how to watch movies. you guys need to stop being ignorant, blu ray wont be around forever, blu ray will go the way of the dodo within a decade or less, digital distritbution, on demand will be around for decades or centuries for that matter.

Downloading HD movies is already happening now it only takes me 1-2hrs to download HD movies.Also, comcast is launching a 160mbps service which only take 4 minutes to dl HD movies.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/30/comcast-ceo-sees-160mbps-internet-in-2008/

AHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...... HAHAHAHAH! Thank you MS! Laughter really IS the best medicine.

It's funny ya'll are laughing at DD, but I own a Mac, and all I do is download Music, Movies, TV Shows (Adult Swim BTW) and even games for my Nano. Ive rented movies off Xbox live and lets not talk about iTunes. iTunnes alone is making a killing off music downloads.

Hardrives are getting cheaper price per GB and computers are shipping with larger HD's. Then apple of course has iTV and Time machine to help with backups.. This dude is not off track... It just might be too early, but DD is where I'm heading.. Matter of fact I'm already there.

You know this whole argument is dumb right. DD will not happen for a while into the future. There are a number of reason why not. First of all the reasons is that DD will NOT phase out blu-ray for one simple reason, how many damn people have a computer hooked up to there tv or even want a damn computer hooked up to there tv. Because that is what it will take to make DD even an option for most. DD will not be won off Xbox 360 anytime soon, or Apple TV for that matter and stupid rentals on these systems don't count in my opinion as DD because you don't own a copy in the end. It is just like renting a movie anywhere really. There are 300 million people in the USA and only 9.5 million people own an XBOX that is such a small market share that can even contribute to DD. Oh ya and one problem most Xbox 360's don't have a big enough hard drive to support this revolution that Microsoft keeps trying to shove down peoples mouths.
The next issue is hard drive space I keep hearing people say there is enough space already to do this, but who are you trying to fool by this. I don't care if you have a 360 gig one or even more it is still not enough space to build a collection of movies. When full 1080p movies are 20gigs alone without bonus material, this space gets used quick. Myself with many other people have more movies (not all HD but one day will be)than any hard drive offers on the market right now.
Also with this said who the hell wants to use all there hard drive space for movies anyways.
one of the last things I also think is important is download speeds. Sure many people have broadband but they still don't have a fast enough connection to make downloading these files worth there time. Also it is too expensive for most people to get the fastest connection. In reality who needs the fastest connection mine is fast enough to play games online without lag. I don't need it any faster. Fact is space and speed are important and both are expensive. Bandwidth is also important but not as important as the cost for everyone to spend to make this DD crap even happen.
lastly a good portion of the world like our parents ages, are just not that techno smart and a disk medium is easy for them to run as they are used to this kind of technology. Put in the disk and it just runs with the same buttons on the controller they are used to. Along with the fact that a physical disk is just nice to have. Lets face it although music downloads is a form of DD this hasn't even replaced the CD format and these downloads have been taking place for at least a good 10 years. The fact is whether people want to admit it or not is that a lot of people just plain old like having a physical copy on hand for what ever reason. Otherwise the cd format would have died along time ago.
So in the end if anyone give serious thought to DD killing blu-ray is just damn ignorant to the world around them. I like the idea of DD but I am just saying it is still too far into the future for most people. We are not all rich like Bill Gates with unlimited Hard Disk space and super fast connection speeds.

"how many damn people have a computer hooked up to there tv or even want a damn computer hooked up to there tv. Because that is what it will take to make DD even an option for most."

Wha??? You don't need a computer for DD... All you need is an Xbox360 and a Gold Live acct.

And so what youre downloading a movie thats a rental. taking your ass to a blockbuster and getting a movie is the same thing. And not wanting faster download speeds?? Man, if thats not dumb and ignorant, I don't know what is then..

Yes tmacairjordan87, because everybody who owns a PS3 is illiterate and stupid. I know how to change mine but I chose not to because I don't have the money to buy an upgrade yet.

What I meant about the computer being hooked up to the TV is that the Xbox 360 and apple TV are not enough to bring DD to the masses. Sure DD might happen for a small amount of people but lets face it this will not have much effect on blu-ray in the future. Maybe 5 years from now but not the immediate future. And why I said it would take computers being hooked up to peoples TV's is because most people have a computer to do DD with were as like I said only around 9.5 million people in the USA have a XBOX 360 and not even all these people can use the DD functionality because they don't have enough hard drive space. SO WHAT I WAS SAYING IS for Microsoft to say that this will make blu-ray irrelevant in 12-18 months is dumb because it would also take people who have computers not just the xbots to make this happen. It is all about the numbers and I don't see that there will be enough pull to stop blu-ray from becoming the next format for now at least. But really in 12-18 months none of us will really have to argue now will we. I think blu-ray will still be around but I don't even care I was just giving a prediction. Regardless I still thing for DD to really make you need more space and a faster connection. And of course I want a faster connection but for the price I have to pay right now to get one would be stupid as my connection will last me for now. It fast enough for my online games but if it can come down to a reasonable price then sure I will get it. But most consumers a like me who just don't want it or need it until it become reasonable.

Ya of course DD will happen that is not the argument nor the fact that technology is progressing. This this always occur. The real debate is that you will probably not see a shift for the majority of the public for another 4-5 years. I think it is absurd to really think that in a years time blu-ray will be dead. Technology flow and continues to flow but to really think the majority of public will be doing DD and not buying a physical format anymore is just crazy. It would help DD to occur faster though if the rest of the world got those same kind of speeds at that nice price as synner suggest Europe has.