https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-downloads-are-approaching-a-tipping-point/
This piece on the News of the Week got me thinking about the presentation that Anoop Desai from EA gave back at the beginning of the term. While we aren’t quite yet at the point where games are offered as a streaming service via a cloud system (similar to what Netflix did for television), there’s no doubt that we’re on the road to ever greater digitalization.
Discs have already basically been entirely removed from the PC gaming market. My computer doesn’t even have a disc drive – I just download all of my games through online markets like Steam and Origin. Now it looks like that is becoming the case for traditional consoles as well. I wonder if they’ll stop including disc drives in consoles at some point. If Apple was willing to remove something as physically small as a headphone jack from the iPhone because they reckoned it was worth it for optimizing other features, then maybe Sony and Microsoft will think the same of the disc drive. After all, removing the disc drive would free up a lot more space for raw computing power.
On the other hand, there was something so satisfying about running to the game store when something new and exciting was released, and having the actual physical copy in your hands…
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I know what you mean about the excitement of that first day launch; it was great.
With regards to the disk situation, those of you with an Xbox One will know that the console is currently in a weird disk ‘limbo’ where, if you have bought a game on a disk, you must insert the disk into the console, which will then install the game onto your Xbox. However, the kicker here is that you must insert the disk every time you want to play the game thereafter, despite the game being downloaded on the console. The disk has thus become a verification ‘key’ in this regard, i.e. Microsoft is checking that you actually own the game, as opposed to just downloading a friend’s copy.
It’s very unsatisfying, as I originally thought we were beyond the hassle of having to get off your comfy couch to go change a game disk.
But to come back to the business problem, I almost think that this is a ploy by Microsoft to persuade people to buy the games in their online marketplace, which is 9/10 more expensive than disk versions of the same game. Steam made games less expensive by putting them online for direct download, whereas Microsoft has surely made a conscious business decision to raise online prices…
Microsoft had also been pushing the Windows Store for PC – I think the reason the price was set higher was because they were offering cross-platform rights for every purchase; i.e., buy it on the Windows Store, get to play it on both PC and Xbone.
The initial excitement of the console exclusivity barrier coming down has worn off, for me at least, due in part to the price going /up/, which seems to be a backwards decision if there ever was one, and in part because Microsoft has been unable to bring many major releases that were console exclusive onto the Windows Store for PC.
More interestingly, this was all part of Microsoft trying to roll out a new Universal Windows Platform and Universal Windows Apps – more efforts by Microsoft to try and “wall their garden”. See http://www.pcgamer.com/why-pc-games-should-never-become-universal-apps/ , and https://www.howtogeek.com/243012/why-you-shouldnt-buy-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-and-other-pc-games-from-the-windows-store/ .