Satertek

This is where Vista's "Premium certification" will hopefully kick in. Retailer's are going to want that sticker on their system to sell it, and part of the requirements is a DX9 compatible card (DX10 by June 1, 2008). Now I don't know if an integrated graphics chip can be DX9 and give horrible performace (even the FX5200 is many times more powerful than Intel's integrated), so if anyone has an answer to that I'm all ears.

I've been a big fan of Steam from the start. Very nice not having to worry about CDs, CD keys, etc. And if I'm on a computer other than mine, I can simply login to my account and be playing Half-Life 1 mods in minutes, and Half-Life 2 games in a reasonable amount of time.

I can see why publishers want nothing to do with it, it essentially cuts them out, minus funding developers. And once a developer grows to a large enough size (eg. Valve) they can afforably ditch the publisher and strike out on their own.

I do think there needs to be some sort of standard for digital downloads. I imagine soon each publisher will have their own in attempt to stay competitive, which could get messy.