Phil Harrison is full of wacky ideas. Like the idea to jump ship from Sony to Atari. Nevertheless, the aerodynamic Brit has made the bold claim that the next generation of children will refuse to buy discs.
"There’s a generation of kids being born today and probably already alive who I’m pretty confident will never buy a physical media product," claims the Infogrames president. "They will never buy a DVD, they will never buy a CD, and they will never buy a game in a box."
I'm going to have to raise an eyebrow at this quote. Not only for the rather bizarre theory that a generation of kids will suddenly just refuse to buy physical media, but also for the fact that it's unlikely consoles will be advanced enough to provide the kind of full-length products we expect to see at retail.
As far as I'm aware, bandwidth is not yet at a level which makes a purely download-only console work for this generation, never mind whatever technological advancements and file sizes the next generation brings. Perhaps we will make huge technological leaps soon that will allow HD gaming to be downloaded efficiently, but I have to side with those who believe it'll be quite a while for retail games to die.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
9:50 AM on 12.04.2008
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Seriously do these idiots even think about what they say before letting it run out of their mouth? This is as stupid as the hate-wagon against second hand games.
Still, that said, I love Steam. :)
Lets be clear, the best of the best internet providers in the world can provide a tiny fraction of a percent of people with the ability to download HD digital media more frequently than their own birthdays. Those fortunate to be in that situation are still limited by something called BANDWIDTH CAPS!
Fucking retards... They landed on the moon in 69 and we were supposed to be living on Mars by now. Im sure on Mars, HD media will be download only...
Without physical media, how can you lord your possessions over your friends?
Jim I'm pretty shocked you made a statement like this. Why don't you think that badwidth is not at a level suitable to download games. As long as you have a decent high speed Cable/DSL connection you should be able to download at between 250kb and 750kb/sec. Most games these days are between 2Gb and 5Gb in size, so downloads should take between 2-5 hours. You can easily accomplish something like this over night.
If you need a good example of a download system that works you need to look no further then Steam. They have proven that a download only system can work. Most of my games I pirchase these days are from Steam and I easily get bandwidths of up to 750kb/s on a Cable connection.
Now I'm not here to argue whether physical media will go away or not, but I don't think it's fair to say that the infrastructure is no in place for digital only media.
Come on man, get real. >_>
I also disagree primarily with his statement b/c I see us having a massive energy shortage in the next 10 years for a variety of reasons, which makes cheap server banks impossible.
Do some of you have a hard time reading English? Obviously Harrison is talking about events way down the pike, not current consoles as he says "kids being born today" i.e. not playing games yet. Also he isn't talking about anyone "refusing" to use physical media, he is saying that they just won't, the same way none of us are using dial-up modems or VHS tapes. This quote is just a fairly conventional prediction of the future of commercial media distribution, like Steam and iTunes already are, so save the drama for your mama.
1.) Sure to be locked down by DRM or other bullshit policies thus impeding on Fair Use (To see an example of this in todays market, you need not look any further than the PSN's movie stores "own it" option)
2.) Buh Bye Used and Rental game market. Thats right, you just paid 60 bucks for a rushed game that could be considered shovelware and you have no way of getting any return on you being a nice consumer and taking a chance on a game. You would of tried it out but there is no way to rent the game. (sure you can do DD rentals I bet but lets face it, if devs are bitching about used game sales, then rentals are a thorn for them too)
3.) Stifle innovation. Games are 60 bucks right now. Anymore when I want to play a game I need to REALLY think about the games I want to purchase. If its not going to be AAA I pass. Which leads to customers taking less risks in purchasing which means we get even more generic FPS's or what ever the flavor of the month is (*cough*rockband*cough*).
I'm all for DD if it gives me the same freedoms I have with optical however I don't see game industry top brass (brass that is slowly falling victim to the same greed as the RIAA and MPAA) allowing that to happen.
People always look at digital downloads merely from a technological standpoint as if we're all guaranteed to jump to it as long as the technology becomes ready.
They completely ignore consumer behavior and what consumers are used to and WANT. Consumers like to go TO the store and buy something, which they then PHYSICALLY HAVE in their hands. That's not going to change overnight.
The same way you show your friends your cool new britney spears album on your ipod. Just because the media is digital doesn't mean it's not portable. The games could download onto a removable harddrive.
Come on people, aren't we supposed to be the first generation to embrace technological acceleration? No one is clinging to discs as the established format of media, DVDs have only been common for like 15 years. Most of us have already replaced our audio and movie collections with stolen internet copies. What about paper as the established medium? Sweetbucketloads of magazines can't survive in this digital age. Information is too readily available online. 20 years ago computers were a joke and people just like you, people saying "no, people like paper too much to let it go" are staring at the sun dumbfounded now"
Internet speeds have already been dealt with so I won't suggest anything there. Except fiber optics. That's coming, so maybe just keep that in mind.
And again this will be a gradual change. Information from one company will probably be released on both DLC and discs for a long while. Paper does still exist, after all.
It's called being a collector and it's something that I enjoy. I absolutely cherish my collection of music cds, dvds and games. I will never "embrace" digital.
So don't tell me that physical media is going to die. That will never happen. With bluray now going up to 100GB you would need a enourmously big HDD already built into the console to support this. That in return would increase the price of the system and therefore make it less attractive for the consumer which would lead to less consoles sold.
No company would risk that. Besides why would he think that a future generation of kids would suddenly loose the concept of ownership? If I can think of any group that is most obsessed about hoarding property, it would be kids. They need the box and the disc just because they can show it off and brag about it in front of their little friends who are equally stupid.
And that kind of thing doesn't work with a little entry in a database.
On console, however... maybe later.
It is nothing but a convenient thing for some people some people are to lazy to practice their rights: Voting, Arming, Owning. Ect,. granted a majority of these are young kids to young to realize that you have to practice your rights to keep them.
It's nothing but a wet dream for Publishers who wish to save money on discs.
@Cube
So, what you're saying is that you hate yourself?
Really, bandwidth isn't a problem. When I format my hard drives and have to re-download all my games from Steam, it only takes about a day to get all the games I'll want to play.
I'm already replacing retail game purchases with Steam, so bring on the digital revolution! I've been waiting for it.
Seriously, doubleyouteeeff folks.
Because I dont know if he knows, there are still a LOT of people who do not trust using their VISA on internet sites, this is keep this way in the next 10 years.
Maybe in 25 years that is true.
Shit by then I am already 45 years old : O
And still playing SMASH MELEE YEAH!