IMHO – physical media in gaming is doomed

Apple iPad and Infinity Blade: Dungeons

Physical media has been a major part of gaming since the days when you’d whack a cassette tape in your C64 and subject your lugholes to ten minutes of horrific screeching in order to play Dizzy. DVD and Blu-ray means we’re well past that stage now – and amen to that – but increasingly we’re getting the feeling that the future of gaming, even the near future, resides away from physical media.

Sony PS Vita

The signs are all there. Game, for so long gaming’s primary representative on the high street, is staring down the barrel of the administration gun. The PlayStation Vita has ditched discs, with games supplied on solid state storage or via download. And the Xbox 720 may follow suit and do away with the optical disc drive.

Valve’s Steam service, providing game downloads for PC and Mac, is so popular that founder Gabe Newell is a billionaire – and Valve may yet make its move into gaming hardware. Microsoft and Sony seem ever more keen to get gamers shopping for games and DLC through their online stores.

Apple iPad

Meanwhile the app-driven iPad, along with other mobile devices, is now in a position to challenge consoles as a gaming device – though we feel that Apple needs to up its game to appeal to hardcore gamers. Then there’s OnLive, a cloud games console that streams games through your broadband connection.

It makes perfect sense, if you’re a games developer, to want to distribute all your games through downloads. Why? Well, it effectively kills off the second-hand market – meaning that rather than pick up games through eBay, from friends or from bricks and mortar shops like GAME, gamers will have to buy new games all the time. The publisher gets paid top dollar for each new purchase – and online activation also makes piracy trickier.

OnLive

What’s good for the publisher isn’t necessarily good for the gamer, though.

One reason the shift hasn’t happened sooner is the state of broadband worldwide. Even in countries where fast broadband is prevalent, such as the UK and US, not enough people have fast broadband to make downloads a universal possibility. And then there are countries like New Zealand where fast broadband is a rarity.

As soon as broadband gets where the publishers want it to be, the gaming world could see all physical media become as distant a memory as those creaky old cassette tapes. And we, the consumers, might wish it was still around.

Comments

Hoof Hearted

40 weeks ago

I do buy full price games, but less often nowadays as my salary doesn't go as far any more. I have bought second hand games for around a fiver. Usually games that I wouldn't usually consider buying at full price or even half price. I'm only curious about them. These are increasingly difficult to find for around a fiver these days. Their price seems to have sneaked up to around £15.

Recently any 'new' games I have bought were in a sale in Asda as I did my weekly shopping. I see a game normally over £40 being offered by Asda for just £25 and 'impulse buy' it. The mark up for games must be huge if they can afford to sell them for almost half price. The sale is usually for a few days only after which the game will be back up to full price.

If there is a game I really fancy, I often like to wait until the price drops to about half its original price. It doesn't matter if get a huge disadvantage in multiplayer. I don't do much MP anyway. I don't see many really good titles reduced on PSN (unless one spends £40 a year for PSN Plus). Any games on offer there seem to be puerile ones or remakes of games I once played onthe ZX Spectrum.

I don't see such opportunities happening for me if all will be download only. Must surely be anti-competative.

Then there is the time it will take to start up any game. A friend of mine has to leave his PS3 on overnight just to install a small update. It will be a nightmare for him.