EA CEO John Riccitiello was recently quoted in an interview as saying 2011 will be the year that digital distribution surpasses retail sales this year in overall revenue. If his prediction does indeed come true, then this is the official changing of the guard. Now that doesn't mean 2012 will be the year we go totally digital (I mean c'mon... the world is ending) but it certainly will be the year that companies start looking at the costs of manufacturing hard copies of games vs the cost of just distributing the title over the web...if John is right that is. Now I will certainly admit I enjoy digital distribution, I absolutely love steam, but A lot of factors need to be looked into before DD is officially the primary way we get all our games. Also for reference Riccitiello wasn't only referring to us getting full games via download but also free games that make money off of micro transactions like Lord of the Rings Online. So what has to factor in before this becomes the norm you ask? Lets take a look and find out.
Microsoft and Sony have actually been offering services like this for sometime. Sony has actually been doing this since launch, taking games that either focus on heavy online play, or lesser known lower cost titles that might not sell as strongly in stores. Sony will offer them on their network for a flat cost and you purchase it and download it right to the hard drive. Microsoft offers this service for titles after they have been around for a while. Neither service has really offered it for new titles on day one. The average game is about 6.8 gigs, with download times reaching up to an hour or more (based on your internet speeds, bandwidth usage, etc.) and as far as hard drive space Sony currently offers a max hard drive of 320 gigs, while Microsoft offers 250 gigs. Each of these are good hard drive spaces with offer roughly enough space to hold 40 to 50 games. Though with these systems you also have to factor in game saves, DLC, arcade games, movies, and music. So cut that down to about 30 to 40 (closer to 25-30 if you are a hardcore gamer), over the lifespan that you own the system. There are people that would never reach this mark but it's just to give you an idea of numbers and such. So starting out hard drive space currently offered by the companies are sufficient.
Now lets look at install base, I currently only have numbers for XBOX 360 so we will focus on that. Digital Distribution would require your entire user base to be online and using the service. 360 currently has a global user base of 50 Million XBOX 360 owners (numbers straight from microsoft) Ideally you would require an XBOX Live membership in order to download these games. Currently Live membership is at around 30 million, now while that is over half the install base that would still leave 20 million with no way to download games (either from lack of home internet, lack of interest, so on and so on). A fact that shows while gamers are certainly ready for the digital age, there will still be plenty preferring to purchase games through stores. Though to me this isn't the biggest issue, the main issue really is download times. While I did state earlier that the times can vary from issues that are on the user's end, Microsoft can still do things to speed this long. Peer 2 Peer can be an option, just look at how fast you can download 6 gigs when its coming to you from multiple sources at one time. Streaming can also work as you can download enough information to put a license on your system stating you have made the legal purchase to play this game.
The reason download times are so important is for when the day comes that you have purchased more games then you have space for. Do you really want to cycle through deleting a title you currently don't play to go through the hour or more it will take to download Burnout just because you want to crash a few cars for an hour or so? I doubt it. Not to mention games that would usually take multiple discs (like Final Fantasy), a game like that would be upwards of 12 - 18 gigs. Also once MMOs become common place on consoles you are looking at hard drive space dedicated to the game, patches, expansion, etc. Download times are gonna be a key factor, and if you think my descriptions of 360 download times are bad you have never experienced Sony's cumbersome system. Not only will you be waiting for the game to download but then you have to wait as it follows up with a long install time. Even Nintendo incorporated an download/install feature on their online support and we all know online was merely an afterthought for them. Digital Distribution i by no means impossible but I think it's a little more to it then just flipping a switch. It will change a lot of things and a lot of ways businesses that specialize in game sales work. You can pretty much start making a coffin for GameStop once DD becomes the norm. Bye bye used sales and bye bye stocks of games waiting for hungry gamers to flock in and purchase.
This isn't an article challenging John Riccitiello's opinion as it is more of an outlook as to "huh..what would have to change if he's right?" So now that I have said my peace I leave it to you, was there something I missed? Do you agree or disagree? This is a good topic to have our first real reader feedback on. So post your own comments regarding this issue and let me know what you think. I will label this appropriately so you can link right to the article and comment away!
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