Sony's totally got their finger on the pulse of the industry. Rumble was so last gen . . . until it became next gen again . . .

I will always prefer to buy a physical copy over a downloaded version any day as stuff that I DL on my computer feels like I don't really own it, hence why people pirate stuff.

I like my goods tangible bitch.

As much of a technophile as I am, I will always want/need a hard copy to hold on to. Plus, the actual physical act of going out and purchasing something, holding it in your hand, and saying it's yours is as much a part of gaming as the playing the game itself. Plus, I see this becoming something that would end poorly for the gamer. What if you want to get rid of some stuff on your hard drive? Could you sell back your right to own that game to the developer? Do you go the way of Nintendo, and allow you to re download it?(I can't speak for the other two because I don't have a ps3 or a 360)

Digital gaming may become more prominent, but until networks become capable of withstanding that much bandwidth consumption, I don't see it happening for a very long time.

in the year 2525...

Of course they want you to download games. You can't resell them at gamestop.

Digital distribution is just a new way to give people less and make more money doing it.

They should release games both ways. Just make sure the download copy is cheaper, because it is actually worth less. (Unless you share with 5 people, though...)

Personally, I like having the discs. I like building a collection and being able to look at all my game on a shelf, same thing with movies. I have well over 700 movies on dvd and blu ray, that would need way more HDD space then I'm willing to purchase.

Digital downloads CAN be well done. Just look at steam. I feel completely safe with anything I buy off of there. I never feel like I don't want to uninstall a game for fear of not being able to reinstall it later, or losing the downloaded files. As long as digital distribution continues along that model of centralized storage with a database of who can access what.

Instead, you see EAs digital distribution which just makes you want to punch someone in the throat. They want to charge you $6 more just to be able to download the game for up to 2 years after purchase, and only 6 months if you don't pay that extra bit. For what? They aren't creating a copy for you, they aren't doing anything different than they normally are other than 'licensing' access to their database for a longer period of time. If THAT model of digital distribution continues, there's 0 chance it will survive against physical media.

Quite frankly, licensing issues aside, I think what we have right now is just fine. Smaller games that never would have received physical distribution receive release through services like Steam and Xbox Live, which is more than I could ask for. I do prefer a physical copy of the bigger games I own, though.

Movies haven't gone in that direction yet, so I think it will be a long time before this comes true. It could happen, but I can't imagine it will any time soon.

ummm so 8gb wasnt large enough for sony games... so they expect us to download 25gb of bloated games now?

WTF

Is it me, or is the UK division of Sony starting to beat out the other branches when it comes to boneheaded statements?

Direct download won't be up to snuff until we all have super fast wireless broadband access for a low price.

Until then, I'd like to have a box thank-you-very-much.

I think the gaming industry wants to close that 'trade in' culture. They see it almost as a scam, not far off pirating. DLC isn't the way to go, though. I've had too many hard drives fail on me to even consider a downloadable version when a hard copy is available.

40%... that's not that much

This isn't a quite fair annalysis of the statement. We can't condemn Sony for looking ahead. Just because they back Blu-Ray now, doesn't mean they don't think that gaming will grow later. It's obvious that they will support their media choice, but it's good to know that digital downloads are in Sony's mindset for the future, as the industry grows and changes towards that type of new media.

So now they finally admit it!? Did they consult with Aaron Greenburg finally?

@mix Agreed. I like having pristine cases and the instruction manuals for my game when I can. I don't mind downloading games online that are quick, pick up and play (i.e. Everyday Shooter or Fl0w) but I wanna hold my MGS4 collector's edition in my hands dammit!

I dont like the sound of that. I like things just fine the way they are now. Smaller games as downloadables and big fancy games on a disc that i can take wherever i want. Or maybe going the Warhawk route and have both so at least we have a choice. But having games restricted to my console alone does not sound good to me. Especially with the number of games i buy, i would run out of space in a month.

We can all dance around this topic going back and forth, but lets get a couple of things straight.

1) Sony said in the FUTURE. Meaning by that time, the broadband infrastructure will be dramatically improved, there will be dedicated databases of telling who bought what and so on, disk space will be much cheaper for the gig, and ghetto neighborhoods will be bucking from free public wifi that the white kids bought.

2) The same people who prefer owning a physical copy will be old men yelling at the "Damn kids" for being on their lawn. I'm sure our great grandfathers would have scoffed at the idea of newspapers being on the internet, what difference will it be when our children's children will be spoiled by the fact that they have the choice to become social rejects by staying at home and downloading their videogames.

3) Sony is obviously trying to spend less money on hardware, cause we all if they got rid of the BD-Drive and made it an add-on instead, the system would be MUCH more affordable. And besides we all know software is the real moneymaker now.

So add this all together and in the end, it spells doom for all of us old school disc keeping old men.

If a new games has identical features on both distribution methods, I will still buy the physical copy. I like my security. The only time I collect digital games (VC, XBLA) is when the rerelease is significantly improved over the original in some way (Rez HD) or compensates for its non-physical form by losing the weaknesses of the original copy (games on VC display in progressive scan, which is important for HDTVs, and don't have battery saves that die). Otherwise, I'd rather have the physical copy for security and collector's sentimentality.

I seem to remember someone saying we needed Blu-Ray for next gen for all the extra data HD needs could that have been Sony! I mean sure there is a hard drive in the thing and bigger ones can be added but really how big can games get and still not be a total pain to get and manage. I know they are talking about the future but they really need to sort there bandwidth before they start trying to sell this idea. It takes me normally 30 mins minimum every time they do a patch. And downloads are often painfully slow for me .

I also like having physical media to collect. I know I'm probably not the average consumer but if all games were downloads I would probably buy less as I would buy the games as I wanted to play them as there is no joy in collecting bits(well at least those bits)

I can't wait for this to happen!

Death to physical media, they only serve as a way of backup, the future will be based on the paid or free contents selled only from the internet, this way we can have better and realistic prices, not mentioning the fact that everything should be centered in (and from) one single place/source in your house.

Inserting and removing discs to play games, hear musics, watch movies, it's ridiculous, unfortunatelly a few people realize that (those who don't live in the past), the majority is masochist, that's why they can't see the beauty of this thing.

Wow! 40% of PS3 owners download digital games? I wonder what percentage of PS3 owners buy games on disc and which format makes more profit!?!

Sorry, but digital distribution is one avenue, not _the_ avenue.

While I agree that I prefer to own physical copies of my games, I wonder how many people would be open to the idea of downloading a game with an image to stamp on a disc, an instruction manual in pdf/printable form and a dust jacket for standard dvd sized case??

While this leaves out other media (umd, ds cart, etc), it seems these are likely to go the way of the flash drive anyway.

I personally prefer to have hard copies of my games but then again I don't mind downloading the odd few but given the choice it completely depends on the game in question. Longer more hardcore games where I'll be playing for maybe at least an hour a time I will always buy the hard disk version