Digital Distribution on the Consoles

[Rynstex]

@FC360

Most of the country now has access to broadband, with speeds now pushing towards 100mb/s in some fibre optic areas How fast do you need?

If I had bought Civ V via Steam I could have played it at midnight on launch day due to the way the game(s) unlock, as it was being delivered I had to wait three days extra due to Royal Mail errors. Same goes for any new release, even with a 15GB+ download, most broadband connections now will have that done over night as soon as the game unlocks ready for play first thing in the morning.

Digital distribution has its flaws (pricing being one of them), but when the pricing is done right (Steam sales etc) its phenomenal. Let's take a look at what Steam provides, for free:

• Achievements.
• My game catalogue where ever I am in the world.
• Cloud gaming < - Will be the next big thing
• Community features built in.
• Automatic patching / updating.
• Multiplayer made easy
• Support for Indie developers
• Support for Mod creators

and on and on and on....

Games rarely come with manuals with talking about these days and as much as I like having the product in my hand, the more I look at my shelf I can't help but think it's one big waste of plastic.

Digital distribution is the future, retail will still exist but will have to work along side digital distribution channels such as Steam. In ten years time the only games we'll be buying to physically own will special or limited editions.

I'd love it if boxed games came with digital copies much in the same way some Blu-Rays do.

Edit: Mark beat me.

[Knikitta]

I would adore DD as I am mildly agoraphobic (fear of going outdoors) and I have an anxiety disorder which makes going into town or into a busy area excruciatingly difficult as it can make me very very ill (hospitalised level).

For any one like me that can not, or has a hatred of, the outside world beyond the 'safety' of our own home, DD is our lifeline to a world of gaming, and one which does not involve the never ending battle with delivery services and postage problems that seem to invade all our lives and leaves nasty scars.

[justbiglee]

Microsoft needs to do something about it quick with day one DDs and DD in general because when gabe rocks out on stage at e3 this year and offers proper steam on the ps3 that's the console war that we thought was won/stoped caring about won by sony at the last min.

I'd buy a ps3 back for that, and I think my xbox would get eventually neglected because of it too.

As for DD on the pc I just don't have the rig for it and I can't be arsed playing games on a pc, I'm a lazy gamer.

[Adam]

I find that on average every game is £5 more on digital download services then in stores, take for example Civ V which at the time I got it was £25 on steam and £20 at the shop.

That can be the case at launch for online in some situations. Looking at the Civ example in particular, thats a £5 difference right there that you would spend in fuel popping out to the shops in the car. Instead of spending that on KILLING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH FUEL (<---I Jest) you could have the digital copy you can keep forever

More relevant to the topic, my beef is that some companies (COUGH ACTIVISION COUGH) still think that they can charge the full whack, way way way post launch for a DD copy. I love how dirt cheap DD is, my Steam Library has a total number of 168 games attached to it which I've probably spent 70% less than what I would have if I had sought out retail copies of them. Steam proved that if you can supply it cheap, you can sell a lot (OK so Apple really proved that), how can the Console DD hope to get a foothold if they're going to rip people off?

@Lee -I would too

[Rynstex]

Steam is also rumoured to be pondering a pre owned system....

[FC360]

I have upto 8mbps and on speedtest.net I get 5-6mbps however when I download from steam I get max speed of 500kbps however when downloading via p2p I get upto 1mbps. I wish BT would hurry up with their roll out of fibre optic so I can get faster speeds or stop advertising speeds that customers are never going to get, but that's a completely different argument.

Anyway I have to say I do like Steam just not the way it installs a game however I'm willing to pay for that little inconvenience in exchange for having the ability to load my save files on any computer that has steam and has me signed in. It's just my internet speed that lets Digital download down but yeah download a game at midnight to play in the morning is alright assuming your willing to leave you computer on all night, I wonder if it would cost more for the electricity or the fuel in the car which then depends how far from the game shop you live.

To get around fuel cost of the car, I could walk upto my local Tesco and pick up the game from there or ask my dad to take me as he can drive to town and back without using any fuel unless he accelerates fast in which case he will infact use some fuel.

So all in all I say digital download is good if your willing to leave your computer on all night to download a game and you can't leave the house, or your not bothered about having a disc, manual and case, or if you do then why not get a game that's steam enabled so you have the DVD disc and can register the game on steam so you can download it, save the files on steam and download it anytime you want so if you scratch the game disc you can just download it. I have done this a few times when I can't be bothered to walk upstairs to grab the game disc lol.

I have gone completely off topic and kinda repeating myself, I am sorry for this. Delete this post if you wish

[FC360]

Steam is also rumoured to be pondering a pre owned system....

how the heck do you have a pre owned system on steam? this is very intriguing.

[Adam]

The idea I read somewhere was simply that they'd allow customers to return any games they had purchased for x amount and have that money put into the new Steam Wallet which they could then use to buy anything on Steam with. Great idea, not one I'd use as I've barely scratched the surface of my own catalogue

[FC360]

The idea I read somewhere was simply that they'd allow customers to return any games they had purchased for x amount and have that money put into the new Steam Wallet which they could then use to buy anything on Steam with. Great idea, not one I'd use as I've barely scratched the surface of my own catalogue

sounds pretty cool, I wonder how easy it would be to abuse this

[Adam]

They're smart guys, I wouldn't imagine that if they were to do it, you'd get any more out of it than you put in