Ben-DutkaIf you're not ready to make the leap to digital, you had best step up and join the crowd.
Capcom thinks you will, anyway. In speaking to Gamasutra , senior vice-president of Capcom Entertainment, Christian Svensson, predicted that half of the company's revenue will come from digital sales by 2017.
"I’d like to say that within five years, certainly well north of 50 percent of our revenue will be coming from digital, and significantly higher than [50 percent] of our operating profit will [come from digital].
And certainly sometime before five years from now, every game will be digital and retail day and date [same release]. On some platforms that’s already the case, it is on Vita. In Europe, the PlayStation 3 is already that way. I wish it were that way in the States as well. But I’d say that’s an inevitability. No one is really fighting that, but the question is when that will occur."
However, there's no doubt that retail stores will still be around; as Svensson said: "Retail will always have a place in our future." He did add that the "value proportion of retail and publishers will change," though. Signs of the ongoing digital revolution are everywhere; the Vita is indeed a good example, as all games are available digitally and physically. Don't you think Sony might do the same for the PS4…? Seems logical.
I'm not suprised by this, especially with all these games recently in the UK not being released in GAME on launch day.
In all honesty, I think it is a good step for portable gaming. you don't want to be carrying around UMD's all the while and look already at the Vita, it's not compatible with UMD's so all them titles are now redudant.
But when it comes to home console gaming, I like to have a collection on my shelf. It makes me feel like I own the game properly, downloads just dont feel as authentic. What I really fear is Onlive's cloud system, where we'd be dependant on there servers. You could buy a game and a few years down the line they could just take it off the system and you wouldn't be able to do a thing. I look at all my PS1, PS2 & PS3 discs and I can feel safe that nobody will take them away from me… unless i'm robbed…
The titles on UMD are only redundant if you give away your PSP… 😉
I think The OnLive style of system is really not the way to go. Even if it's just a download, I still want to own my copy of a game.
"Everything digital"………….hah,ha,ha,ha.ha…….what an idiot.
The World outside of a few very small size Nations has SLOOOOOOOW internet thats also expensive so waiting 50 hours for a single download versus a five minute walk or drive to get a blu ray disc is a no brainer.
Idiotic download only adherents with the same song and dance since the days games came on CD discs!!
Oh yeah just hook it up to the internet??
I.e. Brazil at a village when asking wheres the nearest internet connection and was told its next to the ATM machine.
Wheres the ATM machine??
Oh it comes in every Tuesday on the riverboat.
Colombia:
Nothing says slow internet like chopping two miles of jungle for a few lan cables to be strung.
Mexico:
Tel mex also called Hell mex due to slow internet and high prices.
Australia:
Ouch! slow and slower are your internet choices there.
Most places have a 100 kilobyte per second download speed so trying to get gigabytes on that is a pipe dream unless you have days and weeks of wait time.
Last edited by Russell Burrows on 3/6/2012 12:04:29 PM
lol, been singing this song since Microsoft tried to convince the world that BluRay wasn't needed because download would take over the world…Of course they were also simultaneously trying to convince everyone that HD-DVD was better too…Twin prongs of a failed strategy.
The concept of all games being available digitally is a little scary. What if the console maker decides to get out of the video game business or in the future implements a new way to deliver games. How long is that company going to maintain your current digital library? Gamers with decent size libraries would not be able fit all their digital games on the console HD. Would multiple hard drives be required? At least with the PS Vita you can have multiple memory cards and can swap them in and out quickly. Though the current memory card costs make this a fairly prohibitive prospect. At least with physical copies you know you can always play your games as long as you have a corresponding or backwards compatible working console.
I see why devleopers want all digital ASAP to work towards eliminating the used and rented game market.
plus don't forget that most developers will continue their practice of gouging us on D/L games by charging us the same or almost the same for D/L games as they do on full disc versions too, even though they have no more shipping & packing overheads now.
Capcom. Less time spent on how to deliver games, more time spent on how to make games.
That's assuming Capcom is still in business then.
This.
Im with world, thats assuming they are still in the industry, bandwiths across the world increase, and you lower the price cause I'm not buying anything that cost the same as the physical retail product does and maybe I'll see this happening.
Is this so they won't be caught with releasing DLC stuff that are already on the disc? The mind boggles…
*facepalm*
No one can argue if the DLC is really DLC if you have to download the entire game! Well played Capcom.
Hope the fast internet connection company's come down in price.
If so, I expect a decline in quality of our games in the future =
Exactly. Think Amy and I Am Alive…..
probably will be, almost every game releasing at retail now is available for download!
just a shame ISPs are still in the past charging a arm and a leg for what wont even get you half a game!