In The future, Do You See CD Consoles Being Replaced?

[+Random Terrain]

I can't wait until we get past this spinning crap. No more spinning hard drives. No more spinning plastic discs with games on them. Let's move on to something better.

[Ze_ro]

Digital distribution eliminates pretty much all of that hassle for them. They don't have anything to manufacture or ship. They can sell the product themselves for full price instead of wholesale to Wal-Mart. And like we've seen with Steem, there's no resale afterwards! The consumer buys it and is stuck with it for life!

This is exactly the reason digital distribution is imminent. Forget about storage space or costs, it's used game sales. This is a publishers #1 enemy right now, regardless of what any of their consumers think. This also helps them take a stab at piracy in the process, though people will always find a way around that.

 

Unfortunately, it seems the mass market doesn't agree with most of our concerns... XBLA, PSN and VC/WiiWare games seem to be doing well enough, and no one has yet sued the companies because they can't re-sell the games.

 

For what it's worth, I think solid-state hard drives (flash drives, really) will eventually be the norm on consoles (and probably on computers too)... though with a system exclusively using digital distribution, it'll take at least another generation before they become large and cheap enough to replace old-style hard drives.

 

--Zero

[Seob]

Vinyl is having a revival some what. I see more and more turntables popping up in the stores. I've read an article about a vinyl presser that is getting more and more requests.

 

Don't forget that software company's alone don't decide how we games are distributed in the future. The hardware company's, the console builders decide what media will be used. Don't forget that sony and other company's have invested a lot of money in development of the disc media. They want there share of money back. They get royalties on every disc sold. They don't just give that up that easy.

 

Don't think downloading will prevent games from being copied or hacked. There always will be people that will try to crack the game so they can play it for free.

 

I hope that i never have to deal with downloadable content only. I'm one of those "old" people that still like physical media, that want to be able to hold games in they're hands.

 

I just wonder what will happen to my games, when a company makes a bad move and goes bankrupt. Will i still be able to download my content when my console crashes.

[Vic George 2K3]

It's possible that some new storage technology may replace optical disks (CD and DVD) as the new gaming medium, but I can only wonder at this point what that new technology may be.

[7800Lover]

By downloading, I don't think so.

 

Another physical medium...maybe. It depends on whether or not they can improve on disc technology or something even better.

[crunchysuperman]

Eventually, I say when they're able to get high speed net to *everywhere*, including the boon docks that we have here in PA that are stuck with dialup

 

This is the reason it won't happen anytime soon. It has nothing to do with then "being able" - so long as it's left up to folks like comcast & verizon, the boonies will never have access, as it's not profitable for them to do so. It's going to take broadband being classified as a utility to make that happen.

[Video]

Well, 1TB disc drives can be bought for under $100 now, so space isn't really an issue (though you could only put 20 50GB games on one of those, they'll still go down in price)

 

Unfortuneatly, the success of DLC and virtual games has pretty much guaranteed the move to an all digital medium. Besides, the game companies can sell the game (or movie, or music etc) for more than they currently do,. and still undercut the cost of buying it in a BAM store.

 

See, selling through, say, walmart, the game companie makes a disc (package, everything) and it costs (minus the data) under 50 cents to make, that's for the WHOLE THING. Anything over 50 cents is pure profit, but, they also gotta pay taxes to sell the game, sell it for less than SRP becauise the store wants it's cut, and leave enough headroom for pricedrops in case the game fials for some reason, like it sucks. So they probably aren't selling the game for over $10j, when it comes down to it/ Cut out walmart, the government, all the bullshit, and all of a sudden, they can sell the game for a third the price that walmart would, and still be makeing like 4 times the profit.

 

It's comeing, it's already here in many ways (how many haven't actually downloaded something for one of their games, or a song just for convienance?) Don't expect it next generation, and probably not the generation after that, but if the world isn't strictly digital (with the exception of PnP devices, and "kids toys" with plug in or disc media within 20 years, I'll be very surprised.

 

Of course, there's still geezers like me, that will always hold onto physical media, but another generation or two of people will take care of that, and all our stuff will end up in dumps, except rare exceptions that will end up in those weird museum things nobody ever goes to except online anymore, or private collections, where oddly, the collection will be largely worthless for decades, or maybe centuries due to high product, and almost no demand.

 

As for the next few years, well, I bought a 16GB flash card for under $30 a few weeks ago, and it wasn't the cheapest I could get....still a far cry from discs at pennies (or maybe parts of pennies) apiece. But, it's more stable, still faster, and more piracy resistant for carts than it ever will be for discs. so in the future, it'll probably go to that, but what we'll get next befor that is probably nte next disc, like Inphaze or something, a 1TB holo optical disc or something like taht, heck, they already exist as commercial storage medium, but at the expected price drops and speed of game size increases, I could see that comeing to market in antoher 5 years, but absolutely no more than 10.

[iswitt]

Of course, there's still geezers like me, that will always hold onto physical media, but another generation or two of people will take care of that, and all our stuff will end up in dumps, except rare exceptions that will end up in those weird museum things nobody ever goes to except online anymore, or private collections, where oddly, the collection will be largely worthless for decades, or maybe centuries due to high product, and almost no demand.

 

 

I am looking forward to there being a surplus of cheap gaming media. I don't care how much my collection is worth, just that I have a collection!

[Seob]

Maybe dlc is a way to prevent people from selling there copy. Look at gta iv the dlc comes about 1/2 a year after the game came on the market. Normaly a lot of games went into the discount basket at that time.

[Segataritensoftii]

It's pretty much inevitable that downloads will take over. They're much cheaper to distribute.

 

However, what really irks me about all download games is not so much that they don't have the nice tactical feel of boxed disc/cartridge media. It's more that they're less likely to be preserved than content on said discs or carts. It worries me that these games could basically be lost to time when the company either goes out of business, or moves to a new system. If (when) everything goes DLC, I'd still like to have a flash card slot to back up my games, so they can be played by future generations, instead of being lost forever. And if the whole system becomes rental or cloud based, that's even worse.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Segataritensoftii

[AtticGamer]

Future DLC only consoles could include a disc burner so you could burn your copy of the game and download artwork from the company's website and make your own box and manual. The game burned could include some kind of copy-protection system.

 

Another option for the eventual niche of physical media enthusiasts is to have the physical copy ready for order on the company's website probably for a little extra cash.