Moore talks digital distribution; disc-based business model 'a burning platform'

The only reason publisher's badmouth the disc-based model is because of their distaste for the used games market, which in turn comes from their inability to put out games with lasting value (if people didn't feel like selling them so much, the used game market wouldn't be so vast)


Consumers will continue to want that control, i bet, at least until the average game has enough value to be worth keeping.

'a burning platform' in more ways than one :p

10 Years sounds about right....and he is most likely right about MS doing the first all digital only home console....why?? because for the forseeable future XBL Marketplace will continue to get full titles on there sooner and faster than PSN or WiiWare....but uhhhhh they will then be charging $200 for a 2TB HDD.....as we all know in 10 years 2TBs will cost the same as 40GBs does now($30)

Don't forget that every major broadband internet provider is figuring out ways to limit bandwidth and charge you for excess usage. Might want to factor that into diskless based distribution plans in the future.

Hmmm, definitely not into the idea of download-only games/consoles.

Well, I think digital will become the future. But along with digital will be new ways to distribute like timed rentals, demos along with every game, trials, etc.

I don't really get why some one would want to buy games and not play them just to complete their collection. I don't really get collections at all. Most of the time no one sees them execpt the person who is doing the collecting.

Also, there will probably always be a need for disk based distribution because games at some point might get up to that 50GB mark with uncompress audio etc. and with ISPs capping bandwidth.

I always buy physical media if at all possible (with a few notable exceptions, but even then the DLC / game has to be really, really, really good for me to even consider it). The day video games go digital distribution only is the day I stop buying video games.

The only exception I can see is if developers don't wrap their game with any DRM - as in, I can download it, burn it to my own disc, and install it without any reliance on a centralized server. Then I don't mind as much - but I'll still willing to shell out a few extra bucks for a commercially made disc.

All/only digital distribution is such a bad idea from a consumer's standpoint.

Good luck downloading Blu-Ray sized games from many ISPs with their horrible caps here in the U.S, Canada, etc.
Makes me want to move to Japan, HK or South Korea.

Of course corporate big man Moore wants digital distribution; that means a fatter bottom line for him and his ilk.

Digital Distribution can be a pain: My PS3 decided to stop reading discs of any kind this weekend. I am sending it in for repair and could back up my data to an external drive. But I have to re-download my non-disc games. That will include all updates for every game I have and I have to load that all up before I can restore my saves. It is literally going to take me a solid week of downloading to get back up to speed. So the moral is, we have to have solutions for things like this. That's why I love that the xbox lets you take the hard drive off when they service it.

Unless a dig. dist. system is like Steam (install as many times as you want on any computer, linked to your account forever) count me out.

I love digital distribution through Steam but only because the prices are reasonable (sometimes even a steal).

There are pros and cons to having a disc-less distribution system. The bigger problems I see going into digital distribution are the possibilities of hardware failure both on the distributor and consumer side. Like some of you have mentioned I personally like to have a tangible product in my hand so that in case something goes wrong with an install I can wipe the slate clean and just re-install things from a physical disc. I don't want to have to deal with servers being down or a network going down to re-download a large file and only be interrupted in the process. It'll be a few more years before technology catches up with the ideas at play. I'm not opposed to digital distribution but they need to invent good methods of providing back up to that invisible thing we pay to download from the ether that we call the internet.

I do have to say though that downloaded full-games I do prefer over the disc based versions. Reason being is that the downloadable versions came out after the disc versions, which I already bought. If I had the downloadable version, I could play anything from my library without having to swap discs.

Now that might seem a tad bit lazy, but if I just want to play one round of warhawk before I have to go do something else, or jump in a quick game of burnout, the disc version just takes that little bit extra that makes me pick an arcade title. It would be far more convenient to just pick a game from a list to play, kinda like steam, rather than requiring to put the disc in.

There's gotta be a way to get the best of both worlds without having to buy the same game twice.

Man. Screw Digital Distribution. I'm not buying any console that's digital without a disc. Other companies just want it to save them money on producing a physical product. If digital distribution is all the rage, then why aren't gamers jumping all over the PSP Go?

And Peter Moore says, "Yeah, Microsoft would be the first to do digital distribution." I thought you left all that behind to take EA Sports in a new and improved direction to thrive on the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Things just seem fishy. Two guys leave Microsoft, the HUGE corporate giant to go to EA, rumors of Microsoft buying EA and finally Peter Moore stating he thinks Microsoft will be the first for digital distribution. Loyalties anyone?

Well, I hope Microsoft does go first and they choke and they bite their own tongue off for being an idiot and being cheap. A vast majority of gamers still demand a physical product. Gamers purchase small games for digital download. That's about as far as they should take. There should always be a need for Disc Based games or some other form of physical media. A gamer doesn't feel like he OWNS what he purchased when he downloads it. Pirating games seems as though it would be easier when in a Digital Distributed form anyway. It seems more likely.

The day the physical disc leaves the gaming sphere, so do I.

Or maybe I'll just say "Goodbye disc, hello custom firmware."

Apple is already doing full digital downloads on the iphone and I think google's Andriod is going to have something like that too, if not already.

I won't be paying money, especially not the current going rates for digital only games.

Not while a company can just switch off their DRM servers the moment they release the latest version of their console and make your previous console completely useless.

I'm going to crack up laughing at the three people who bought the PSP Go when Sony screws them in one of the innumerable ways they can with DRM.

Digital Distibution..

Goodbye game cases and artwork, nice special edition versions.

Goodbye to renting games and actually, you know, trying them out before you spend full price on a game.

Goodbye to selling games on ebay, or trading them in for newer games.

Goodbye Christmas sales of physical copies of games for kids.

Goodbye majority of choice for gamers to rent, sell on, trade in games.

Hello extra bandwidth charges and going over monthly capped limits resulting in extra cost to the consumer.

Hello to buying new digital storage mediums to store all these games. Or in absence of that, hello to re-downloading games each month because you don't have HD space to save them all.

Hello to more firmware updates that break third party support for storage devices (MS are patching out 3rd party mem cards already)

Yeah, the future of gaming really looks like something I can get on board with. /sarcasm

I still have boxed C64 games. Fuck digital distribution.

I have 30 xbox 360 games sitting on my shelf. Lets say, at roughly 4 or 5 GB a game, that is at least a 200gb HD I need to store the equivalent amount of games. If the money saved by the consumer is equal to or greater than the price of a 200gb HD plus any extra bandwidth charges incurred if I go over my monthly limit.. then I'll get on board.

I think we all know it wont be saving us that kind of money though.

The only benefit to Digital Downloads is removing the DVD drive. The largest drawback is the death of the game collection, game rentals, and the abiliy to trade in a shit game for a good one.

I know which one outweighs the other...

No way I'll be supporting that BS. I don't mind if they have the option of Disc or Digital but if it goes all digital I simply will not buy the game. I want a physical disc that I do not need an internet connection to get. I can also sell my disc for whatever price I deem fair to whoever I want. They want all digital so that they can control (or kill) the used games business and rake in more profit. This will also save them millions in printing costs for manuals, pressing discs, and packaging. They have brainwashed everyone that all digital is the way to go, but the ones who benefit the most is them.

i just love those doubters and haters who are happily embracing music downloads and netflix streams thru their computers, xboxes and hulu members. This is giong to happen no matter how you disagree. Cloud tech is going to clean my desks because I hate having these physical objects all over my room. trust me, I tossed all of my CD's when mp3 player was invented. i havent bought a single CD since 2002 when ipod emerged. Digi distro is the future.

books are also being distributed now via ebooks and kindle.