When GT5:P was released in Europe it was about 50% more expensive to DL it then to go buy the physical copy.

Untill the download version reaches a price where its better value then having a hard copy then i will continue to buy from a shop.

Discs aren't going anywhere for a long time. Digital distribution is great for smaller titles, but traditional console games will primarily stay physical. There's too many collectors or people who won't trust digital copies for it to go away.

I'm still waiting for the paperless era so I can build stacks of those plastic notepad things from star trek.

Sony are like a rabbit with two heads, very quick at saying stuff and confusing us. Make up your minds, Sony.

DLC should be indeed used for smaller games, and while they think its gonna be the future, things like Japan's lack of broadband go against that, so physical media will surely have to co-exist with DLC. Prices need to be sorted out too.

At the end of the day, no matter what suits and analysts say, you can't beat having a physical relationship with physical product. The internet is a good delivery system for games, but with games getting larger and more complex, it would be more like suicide to place all your bets online and on DLC.

Exactly.

That's why MS needs to keep developing XBL to leap frog physical media. It would be great if they could offer streaming HD content right out of the box.

Hopefully xbox 3 will acheive this, sans stupid DRM flaws, RROD, poor build quality, seperate/overpriced peripherals. You get my point.

I'm pretty sure you could download and install a game on your PS3 in the same time or less than it would take to go to the store and buy a hard copy. Running video games off discs is antiquated technology. Give me smooth framerates and a quiet console any day. Not to mention, think of how much less plastic waste is generated.

Indeed, and they haven't even mentioned the DRM stuff they probably lump with DLC. If you count the way DLC is gimped when all you are doing is unlocking content already on the disc, and you'll see how this can expolit us all.

Sony have got to understand, after them torpedoing Lik Sang, not letting import our PSP games etc, in short we don't trust big megacorps and companies. They only have their interests at heart, and don't want us to own our games anymore.

If they work with us and meet us half way, that's fine, if not, I say fuck them, and give us our games.

40% of PS3 owners download games, eh?
And what percentage is paying for these downloaded 'games?'
I'm sure the figure includes those who download demos, and that's not nearly as impressive. Nice, Sony.

I like buying on disc better- unless they drop the DRM and you can burn a physical backup since hardware WILL fail at some point

If a company can guarantee that I will be able to download anything I've purchased until the end of time, I'll be happy with downloading all of my titles. Until then, they'd better keep pumping em out on disc.

xbox360 ... dvd for nostalia and 2tb of space for digitial distro.

Distributors and the companies who make the disc and packaging will be pissed off. It'll lead to people losing their jobs and companies going out of business. There will probably be strikes if they decide to go that way. Walmart once tried to cut out the bottler for coca cola so they could bottle it and sell it at a cheaper price and the bottlers for coca cola were not happy and ended up suing coca cola. I don't see digital distribution taking over discs. The infrastructure for the internet is too slow/poor in the U.S. and how will you play games at your friends house, carry your entire console?

disc-less is the future, eh? kinda like how PS3 was going to be a blockbusting success even at 599$? how's that working out for ya there, Sony?

srsly, i had been a supporter of Sony's many forms for many years up until this whole "We'll Tell You What You Want and How Much You Want To Pay" debacle. now i trust them as far as i can throw them (not their components).

Honestly, I hope they put HOME on BRD.
If they charge for it...

( I'ld buy it. )

I dislike downloadable media. Too much opportunity to be screwed over between DRM, server failures, hard drive crashes, etc, etc.

And how can I have a massive game room of Awesomeness+4 if I have no games to fill my shelves with?

First, we're gonna need bigger hardrives.
Second, the Internet must be replaced by "The Grid".

I for one would love having both options. as long as the download is tied to an account, and not to some system (I believe this is already the case)
Not being an US resident, digital delivery is always the preferred method for me, as I don't have to wait up to a month to get my games. ( Man, when the FUCK is my GTA IV arriving? ).
There's also the possibility of the media going bad (I take a lot of care, never happened, but the risk is there).
The biggest downside is that downloads don't usually end up in bargain bins, and take way longer to get discounts, if they get them at all ( see wii VC ). As for owning the physycal copy.. well I feel safer owning the digital ones. I can't find my quake II copy anymore, but if I had bought in some system a la steam, I'd have it, always

He never the said Disk based system would fail during this generation. Also, people like to have a choice between disk and download. Like Warhawk. I think the physical media system for portables will be gone when the next handhelds come around. I would love to have a PSP with a massive HDD that contains all my games.

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.