@Archaotic:
I don't care about the physical disc, but given how MS treats people who lose their XBLA content, I really would rather have a disc. digital distribution is more efficient though. No discs to take up space or get scratched up, and everything is located on a hard drive and is hard to lose. I like that MS is talking about backing digital distribution, but they are one of the worst equipped to provide it.

TheEngineer

@PooPooKaKaBumBum: C) Bandwidth limitations

Some ISPs (cable) limit people to 60 gigs a month in my area with $5 per extra gig... Why should we pay insane prices for bandwidth because they want to save costs on disks? If anything this will lead to people not buying crap so they can wait for

D) Time to download

Who wants to wait to play a game they just paid for?

Iron_Dragon_2.0

I like things. Things make me happy. I can look at a shelf full of things and feel content. Downloading something doesn't do anything for me.

dry-roasted-peanuts

@dowingba:
I'm guessing you are from Australia? Most countries have taken a big step forward in this aspect and you will find that it's only Australian ISPs (particularly Bigpond) who have been fucking people over.

BlindedFTW

I wonder how Toshiba and Microsofts relationship will be from now on.

TT

physical copy is something people are use too, the majority of the population wants somethign when they buy something they don't want a file that is an icon on their desktop or console. They want it to be a cd /dvd/ plain ticket / toaster. I believe digital download at some point in the distant future will be possible. Technology evolves rapidly but before it becomes cost effective your looking at possibly 10 - 15 years down the line.

gnudna

I love how MS thinks ISP's will never get their way and content providers can just continue to rape bandwidth at ISP's expense.

What would happen if a majority of ISP's move to the charge per byte model you see in other countries? Someones going to want to waste 4-18GB on a movie they can watch once? Excuse me, as many times as possible within 24 hours after pressing play?

d1gw33d

@HoxtonHero: oh don't worry mirosoft is apparently deep into planning of everything.

Raziel3333

Man, he sounds just a little brat who just got spanked. "That didn't happen to me! Nuh uh! *sniffle*"

Redriadrum

Digital distribution will then be replaced by the data being beamed into your brain.

HoxtonHero

Someone needs to tell MS to go die already. DD will NOT replace disk formats anytime soon.

Amazon_Chris

@Archaotic: Yeah I like having a Phiysical copy of the thing that i buy. Just so if it doesn't work i can take it back. I don't want to wait for an update to fix the problem.

Jopan

Oh geez, not this "digital distribution" crap again. *bangs head on desk*

Jest

I hate the Xbox's DLC. If my system fails, and I send it in, I can't even use it onthe new one without *****ing to MS for a couple of hours. And another thing, I don't want to spend $5 to rent a movie for 24 hours. I would rather pay $20 more to buy it on Blu-ray or DVD and watch it whenever I want.

Amazon_Chris

pfft i'll take a disc over a harddrive that will proubly grow old and crash at somepoint just so i'll have to redownload it and buy another harddrive yeah no thanks i'll just go out and buy my dvd's thanks.

Raziel3333

1) Digital distribution won't take off in the United States until we up the bandwidth capabilities all over the nation. If everyone changed to Digital distribution, the network would buckle under the strain.

2) Digital distribution won't take off until hard drives become much, much cheaper and much, much more stable. I'm talking solid state hard drives to ensure they won't crash and loose sixty movies you've paid for and saved.

3) Number two relies on them actually selling them to you in the first place. My guess is that digital distribution will end up much like the current incarnation of Napster, where you have a subscription that lets you download as much as you want or a certain amount, and if you cancel your subscription, the downloads end up useless. Basically, you're "permanently" renting movies.

Sorry, Microsoft, but I think you're a bit ahead of your time here.

PapaBear434

i hate digital downloads, if i wanna watch something its netflix FTW, i even get blu ray from them, and if i really like a movie ill buy it.

npa190

Does anybody know how many home run microsoft actually get compared to the number of failures? any takers on those numbers.

Other than Windows Operating system and its Office suite Microsoft has literally failed on every other project.

For those thinking Microsoft is the This Company that prints Money Remember int he world of Publicly traded companies. there is a thing called stock Holder.

Vista which was 7 years in development is at the moment a Failure.
Office 2007 is at the moment the worst office suit when it comes to supporting it older office file formats.

Apple is gaining momentum.
Linux is taking over the server market and starting to gain momentum on the desktop see fedora.org or ubuntu.com. its free btw ;)
OpenOffice.org is giving away for free an MS Office replacement.

Microsoft at some point has to count its losses. and their record in the past shows that they just drop things and call it a day.

PS: I know im off topic but i really hate Microsoft as a company, as it has no values or respect for people.

The world is changing but Microsoft is stuck in the early 90's.

gnudna

Cool Microsoft!
I can't wait to download 15Gigs on my DSL.
Sign me UP!

Those guys are such innovators, don't you just love their great ideas?

Patient

"The horse that we're fundamentally backing is the one that says the future of entertainment content is online digital distribution."

Which is why they initially backed a physical media first?

Sometimes the shit spews out of executive's mouths so fast they don't even realise they should be wearing a face diaper.

I'm with everyone else in this thread.

Digital distribution will never work because of

A) Hard drive space

B) Anyone who has half a brain will refuse to be fucked in the ass by completely restrictive DRM.

Any console solely distributing games digitally better have a 1tb/sec download rate also, because people are not going to a day to download a game when they can go to the store and buy it then and there.

If MS really thinks this is the future of gaming, they have their heads futher heads further up their ass than Sony (who are just plain incompetant), and Nintendo (who are just plain clueless).

PooPooKaKaBumBum

Well, shit... Now i gotta download huge HD movies and wait hours before I get to see em? not every country gets internet like South Korea you know.

rich8606

Digital downloads will become popular then die thanks to broadband companies doing tiered internet.

i am all for them but i am about to have to pay because i use my internet like i am in 1995

Zaos

Well i don't know if i am the only one but i love that i have every episode of MASH on DVD in a vault under the ground guarded by a 8 headed dog.

If i fell like watching mash i can with in seconds instead of having to download.

I like to have the Physical media.
Also 1080P is pretty....

CrimsonAngel

*tossing and turning*

MS Points Purchase
-100,000 points
-500,000 points
-1,000,000 points
-Convert full balance of bank account

GAH!! *breathing heavily*

Xiedo

As long as I have the choice I will never pay for digital distribution. I don't care if it costs more to buy pysical media, I will never pay money for something that I do not own. Please people, do not give in to this. How long do you expect companies to hold on to transaction records in case you lose your movies or games?

Also, you can still go back these days buy classic consoles and the games for them. If we embrace this option years of future classics will disappear because they will not exist in physical form. We will no longer be able to trade in or resell our games. Just because something is easier doesn't make it the better option. Just think about it...

Rieth

@reptile168: I wouldn't say all of that now. IT'S JUST A FUCKING DISC ALL IT DOES IT STORE SHIT. I end my arguement with that simple piece of tech fact. The hardware will eb better in the longrun than dvd due to a 2x drive competing with a fucking 16x drive. Did you ever consider that? Honestly. Some of the people on kotaku. Let me point at myself for a bit here as an example.

NessD12

People and businesses who believe in HD Digital Downloads are oblivious to the fact that it is one of the most moronic ideas in the history of technology. Supporters of HD Content Downloads recite the idea as though it is the next Holy Grail. Too bad they didn't think too deeply into it.

There are three obvious reasons why HD Digital Downloads WILL NOT work:

1) Bandwidth limitation - A percentage of the population is limited to dial-up.

2) ISP restrictions - Most broadband users have download limits. A Bluray disc holds 25-50GB. A large majority of the population would be exceeding their broadband limit far too quickly.

3) Time - It takes too long to download HD content.

Having HD Content on Hard Drive without a physical-copy is a limitation by itself. Not being able to lend it to friends, or sell the content greatly reduces the buyer's ownership rights.

Microsoft is an old company that needs to re-innovate itself rather than buy and lie their way into monopolies ([www.groklaw.net]). In conclusion, HD Content Download is stupid.

KageMonkey

I'll always support a disc format.
I want to have a physical copy of my game.

Yazuka

"The horse that we're fundamentally backing is the one that says the future of entertainment content is online digital distribution."

Then why the fuck did they ever bother with HD-DVD. To waste everyones time?

VishusBurn

@PissedPS3Fan:
I was gonna write many of the same things you said, but you saved me the trouble. Quoted for truth, my friend, quoted for truth.

ca$h

Plain and simple i work in computers download is second word out of my mouth. But i know one thing very clear. Considering Most internet companies are throttling their internet to make money even though they advertise these crazy speeds which are all theoretical.

Digital distribution is not something Microsoft has invented or will ever invent. Digital distribution is the downloading of information. It's been going on before Microsoft was even a company. Aka for those that don't know the internet has been around since the 60's if not earlier just not in its present commercial form.

Also as many have mentioned if you want me to spend my hard earned dollars i better have something to hold and it better have a cool photo.

gnudna

Microsoft.Consider the fact Metal Gear Solid 4 is using all of a blue ray disk. Now consider that a blueray disk is 50GB+ large. Now consider that the next gen consoles will have better visuals and require more space to store all the files.

I cant wait to download 60Gig games on the xbox 720! I it comes with a 5tb standard hd

lifeinthefridge

Digital distribution is not the answer in the next 12 to 18 months. Especially not for a console. I think Microsoft is going to be very disappoited when they fuck over their market position that they've worked so hard to wrest from Sony.

I believe it was said last summer (?) that Microsoft only backed HD-DVD to prolong the format war so they could plan their digital content service. Thanks a fucking lot Microsoft, for being total cock-blocking douchebags. Now that Blu-ray has won, do you think people are going to make another jump to unproven technology within the next year and a half? If you do you are so full of yourself it's not even funny.

/rant

PissedPS3Fan

what i don't get is if they've been planning digital distrubition for years why back HD-DVD at all. could have let Toshiba fight it off with BD Group while spending all the money you did getting HD-DVD add-on's made into further getting digital content

Bleentastic sees bandwagon and jumps

Boycott Microsoft and it's head-up-its-ass idea of Digital Downloads. Seriously, has anyone from Microsoft ever heard of Kotaku? Perhaps they should, and then read this post, and then all of the comments saying that NOBODY SUPPORTS DIGITAL DOWNLOADS (AND STOP SHOVING THE FREAKING IDEA DOWN OUR FREAKING THROATS).

thespyderboy

@Maldron:
Michael Bay being right? Anybody noticed their local section of Hell starting to get a bit nippy lately?

Archaotic

Also, digital distribution will never be the "winning" format. It'll probably be around in one form or another forever but it won't replace DVD or Bluray or whatever.

Why? Because most cable internet providers have a bandwidth cap. And over the years, those caps have been getting lower. Seriously, read the fine print on your ISP's website. Chances are, you have a cap that you didn't even know about!

Now, if everyone were to start using "digital distribution" to replace their physical media products, well, we'd all be pretty fucked for internet access then wouldn't we?

I've maxed out my bandwidth on more than one occasion without even downloading movies or games. And my ISP doesn't simply charge me for overage, they actually shut down my internet until the first of the next month.

Maybe if ISP's stop trying to act like Cell phone providers and stop nickel-and-diming us on bandwidth, while desperately trying to convince us that bandwidth is a commodity that actually costs money, then digital distribution will take off. But that isn't the trend we've been seeing for the past decade or more. It's been the exact opposite.

dowingba

they didn't back the wrong horse (it was, after all, the complete, better and healthier horse). They just couldn't fight the trojan horse PS3.

reptile168

@Miksho: oh noes!
@daizyujin: 2 bucks is a lot for south park especially since they legally let you watch all episodes for free at their site.

read the article and all i can really say is, as great as digital distribution might be it will still suffer from hardware failures. so although we lose the disc we still have to back stuff up, and up, and up, and up, and... yeah

to be safe anyway.

kashraz

Michael Bay can now say he called it. Mostly.

Maldron

@TheEngineer:
No, because a sticker is easily lost and doesn't have anything to do with the game itself. A sticker is a contract, a contract Microsoft can alter the terms of or nullify entirely at any given time. If I buy a physical disc, I have the game itself in hand and it's a lot harder for them to change the terms of my use of it. Not to mention I just like having actual physical possessions instead of intellectual possessions.

Archaotic

Why should I pay the same amount of money for air when I can have the physical item in my hands?
Unless digital movies and games sell for 1/3 of whatever the disk costs, Im not supporting the move. Downloading a copy of a file doesnt cost Microsoft a cent besides royalties, so those savings should be passed down to the customer.
You're not only gimped by not having the materialized product, you are also unable to share or resell the item you supposedly own in case you are not using that product anymore (DRM/contract).

ChewyChew

Isn't this just what Michael Bay said and was the primary reason why he told people to hold out to buy Transformers on Blu-ray?

CitizenInsane27

Seems to add even more credence to the conspiracy theory that they backed HDDVD only to prolong the format war in order to pave the way for digital distribution.

Pegleg Joe

They just admitted then that they purposely sold people something that they knew without a doubt would be completely irrelevant in less than ...1 year?

dowingba

The future is digital distribution, haha, yeah right. Will those digital distributions come with 1TB HDD coupons? Or how about a RRoD that kills all my paid for movies because of DRM?

The only way digital distribution will work is if the consumer is allowed to make a physical copy of a game onto a DVD or Blu Ray, I am unwilling to download a 4GB HD movie and end up deleting it because I ran out of HDD space.

otarumx

Aha, knew it! MS is using DD as a fallback for losing the war.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Xbox 720 uses DVDs and downloads instead of BluRay.

Blinkstale

I also don't see the point of anybody backing digital distribution on a console for movies and shows. I already have a service like that. It's called BitTorrent and it's free.

TheEngineer

...yeaaaah, no. As long as people like me are in the majority(and I do think we'll be for a long time to come) digital distribution will never take over physical-media.

Not to mention that not everyone in the world can download 1 megabyte a second. My country is still using some stone-age shit.

Vicious-chan

@Yobari: If they were really supporting digital distribution, there would only be the Elite.

mysteryboy2k

Sometimes people just like holding their software in their hands. Me being one of those people. I'll feel for you MS... i really do.

XWonka

I think I'll still have more love for physical media devices in 18 months than for some downloaded bits and bytes. It even takes the pressure of you to watch a movie within a certain timespan...

Al Bino

If the next Xbox console doesn't use disks, I won't be buying it. Digital distribution ftl.

thinkfreemind

@Archaotic:
What if MS sent you a sticker through the mail when you downloaded a game? Would that be good?

TheEngineer

yeah i'll end up downloading all my movies and needing extra hard drives --

then i'll take thefucking hard drives and put them in fucking boxes.

then i'll shrink fucking movie posters, put them on the fucking box and then but the box on my fucking shelf.

relax_guy

If I'm paying $ for HD content, I don't want the crap compressed out of it to make it feasible for download.

mast3r_blast3r

Well considering the fact that you still can't get 1080p content on Xbox Live coupled with the other fact that you can't BUY a movie, I maybe just maybe think he is talking out of his ass. Then again, as big a geek as I am, I am not really digging dlc much. Too expensive and a back door to entertainment companies stealing your rights. $2 for a stinking episode of South Park? No thanks. It is hard to justify paying for nothing but a license when I can get a physical copy for roughly the same price.

daizyujin

i love watching those 3 movies that fit on my xbox hard drive.

=O

If they were really supporting digital distribution, Live titles wouldn't have a 150Mb limit.

Yobari

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I will never support digital distribution for games if it means I have to relinquish my ability to have physical ownership of the titles. Without physical items in hand, DRM becomes God.

And I'm an atheist.

Archaotic

*Tim "the tool man" Taylor Inquisitive Grunting Noise*

NowJacker

If that's their big thing, they better make their HDD's a lot cheaper.

idkmybffgreg

SKYNET confirmed for 2011!

Miksho

@GodzillaVsJapan: Blu-ray read speeds are variable. PS3 has x2 BD some of the new players are x4. x6 BD player exists but not commercially.

Just a note
x1 BD = 36 mbits/second (4.5 mbytes/s)
x6 BD = 216 mbits/second (27 mbytes/s)

x1 DVD = 10.55 mbits (1.35 mbytes/s)
x16 DVD = 168.75 mbits (21.60 mbytes/s)

So current just above consumer level BD's are faster then the fastest DVD drives. I fail to see how BD's drive speed is holding it back?

kingmanic

@GodzillaVsJapan: The read speed is a bit meaningless considering we have first generation drives. CD speed was multiplied by 20-50 (depending on how you count it), DVD speed also increased significantly. Blu Ray if you give it a couple years will reach these speeds, once the market is large enough to justify all drives makers to switch to this format. If you search you will see LG has a 6X Blu Ray drive currently selling for 180$ (GGC-H20L) for PCs.
This means you can read 50 Gigs in about 20 minutes, it's about as fast as a hard drive.

FredQC

Amazing... I for one am not so obsessed with the form in which I aquire my entertainment. To me, with proper safeguarding (and as DD matures, so will its policies, backup abilities ((ie. if not able to burn it to a disc yourself, able to request a physical copy for backup use)) and use, DD WILL become the next prevalent form of aquiring entertainment. Realistically, in this day, its all the same (nearly) thing anyways, all 1s and 0s either being downloaded or bought on a piece of plastic. Regardless, its code and that is actually what you are buying in either case. Simply put, some people would rather a form that is more excessive in nature, one that has a seperate case/display/etc. for each game/movie/cd/etc. I dont know about you guys, but the art of having the "biggest cd collection" died off awhile ago along with having the biggest record collection... Now days, its generally having alot of MP3s or similar digital version, all stored in a device (Zune, iPod, etc.) and easily able to be accessed.... I am sure years ago people said the same thing about music, times changed...

Either way it goes, I hate seeing so many close-minded and negative individuals on here... Would be nice instead to see informative/thought provoking discussion and commenting instead of needless bashing, whining, trying to blow things out of proportion, etc.

To sum it up, I dont care if I am browsing a nice display of my games that are all DD, and displayed in a way that I can just as easily show people on screen all my movies, box art, etc. as taking them to a shelf and looking for/getting out/putting in a movie. And eventually if it were to start to take off, to increase adoption, one could guess they would relax restrictions, as well as increase options (such as portability, like the ability to rent or give content to another user). I think DD sounds better with each passing iteration imho, and bandwidth becoming more expensive/limited? I mean, I know in other countries/rural areas, that might be the case... But in any decently sized city around here you can get relatively fast internet with no caps for 30-50 a month.. I mean for that matter for 130.00ish a month (more/less depending) you can get 50+ mbps lmao... I can already download a movie in HD from XBL in less time than the movies length (generally 1/2 to 3/4 of the length of the movie, depending on XBL, ISP, etc) - and begin watching in seconds to minutes (average 30secs to 1min).

OrionnoirO

"phasing OUT"...missed the out.

kagai

I have zero desire for digital downloads of a $60 game. I rely on services such as Goozex to recycle games that I no longer play, so I can get newer games that I haven't been able to buy.

If I were to start downloading my games straight to my console, I would lose the ability, and the right, to offer my game as second hand merchandise. If companies could come up with a way, or system, to allow me to offer my digital downloads for sale, then I wouldn't have such a big problem with it; however, the whole problem of losing your HDD and losing all of your games is a lot bit scary. Especially, if companies start phasing the ability to re-download older games, and you know they will.

kagai

Digital download has 1 overwhelming enemy: The limited bandwidth in the US. Good luck with those 8 gig compresses 720p movies when the average DL speed in the US is under 3 megabits (bits!). It'll be 5-10 years before the infrastructure is in place for HD downloads. Roughly the same 5-10 before non HD DL's become mainstream (20+ min wait for a movie = no support from the non technorati). Right now Digital downloaded movies are a fringe thing like music was 10 years ago. It'll explode when the bandwidth is up to par and cheap. Until then MS backed the wrong horse then Backed another horse 10 years before it was ready.

kingmanic

I support digital distribution to an extent. I want to be able to make my own back up copies.

@Vicious-chan: Oh you live in the US too? No seriously. A majority of the US citizens outside of the major cities are lucky to have access to ONE, maybe two, broadband services.

Ajh

Digital Distribution, the Microsoft way:
1.- Microsoft points in canada: 20% more expensive than US
2.- Downloading a movie: takes far too long even at 7mbps
3.- Tiny 20 Gig hard drive with only 15 Gig available
3.- Usage restriction in time, see #2
4.- Poof! You paid, you might have watched and it's gone
5.- Err: 50 Gig on a Blu Ray means real HD at 1080P
6.- Dolby TrueHD, DTS HS, XBox ? Yes it's now HDMI 1.2...
...unfortunately you need 1.3 to support that.
7.- XBox DRM won't allow you to watch it on another XBox...
8.- If movie rentals would be so great Amazon would have been dead since a long time.
9.- In 12-18 months Microsoft will be sorry they have chosen the only solution no customer wants since all fans of HD programming will have bought Blu Ray drives from someone else like Sony. HD DVD might have been better (like no zones), but it's dead.
10.- iTunes will start selling movies with less restrictions than Microsoft and with a much bigger installed base of iPods, iPhones they will just swipe the business from Microsoft in no time. But music will remain Apple's biggest seller anyway.

Microsoft's thinkers like to believe they can expand into new businesses but they usually fail. Aside from companies purchasing windows and office licenses and xbox very recently turning a profit (not if you substract all the losses they have incured in the past years). Microsoft usually makes products for which customers have better alternatives with less stringent rules. Anyone traded his iPod for a Zune recently? I didn't think so...

FredQC

the ONLY way I would back digital distribution as the main medium for getting games would be if it meant the $60-$65 games would drop down to $25-$30. And that won't happen, So I'll prefer to keep having solid, borrowable/rentable proof of my games, thank you.

Orin

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: Good points.

@clintonskneecap: No, but the difference between downloading an mp3 and downloading a game that's 4 gigs is pretty significant, sizewise and timewise.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@Lucidity: You also forget the fact that 1080p sets are expensive as hell even though they've been around since the late 90's. 1440p won't be at a reasonable price for another decade.

Amazon_Chris

@Lucidity: HVD's have yet to come down in cost to be viable for mass marketing. Blu-ray will be around in 5 years, and so will be DVD-DL (Just like the CD is still around and will still be as the main music distribution medium).

Microsoft is backing the wrong horse with Digital Distribution, sure, there's a good chunk of people for whom the ability to stream "on demand" is appealing (Specially for rentals, I'm one of those), but for media you want to own it's a)Inconvenient (Magnetic media fails eventually), b)Cumbersome (Once you fill up your HD you find that transferring that movie you bought is a PITA) and c)Impractical... that's where optical media has the edge over digital distribution.

Not to mention we're still a good 5-8 years away from ubiquitous broadband around the world, specially in the US.

zoesch

@Lucidity:
Why wouldn't Blu Ray be able to store 1440p content? Also, HVD is a while off. Blu Ray probably won't be as popular as DVD, but it's still looking like a successful media format.

TheEngineer

Blu ray's read speed isn't going to keep it around for very long. I don't know why people are talking about it like the next dvd format

GodzillaVsJapan

Ha! The future is online distribution they say, but Microsoft has been delaying the download release of XL expansion for Samurai Warriors 2 for 15 days+ now due to, in their own words, "operational delays within Xbox LIVE Marketplace". Meanwhile it's available in disc form in Japan since day one.

EvilJerk

I'll believe it when storage space reaches that point that we can legitimately keep a large library of movies on the boxes sitting under our televisions. Are companies like Microsoft prepared to develop HDDs that can easily hold a library of five-hundred high-definition films (with their accompanying extras), or are we going to see a solution in which you have the DRM and you have to download the movie everytime you want to watch it (like the Wii, to some extent). Seems fundamentally less satisfying to me.

Anyway, eighteen months sounds roughly appropriate for the reveal of the next Xbox. Perhaps it will sit at the vanguard of digital distribution-only systems?

Hrist

[en.wikipedia.org]

Lucidity

Omg you guys are so stupid! Who cares about hard drive space, all you have to do is download it and then burn it to a disc, DUH!!! I mean sure when msoft gets around to making their movies full hd and actually starts selling them the files will be much bigger and need much bigger disc. Perhaps a 25gb disc... that uses a blue laser...genius.

snakepliskin

Why is everybody talking like Blu-Ray is going to be around for more than a few more years? It's not a profitable format in comparison to DVD and it won't have the space to run 1440p content when it arrives within the next 18 months. Blu-Ray is like laser disc, it's a filler technology and very few people are buying into it. Holographic storage is the way of the future and with discs that already store over 500gbs it is far superior to Blu-ray.

Lucidity

Wow. Everyone on kotaku seems to really hate thing whole digital distribution thing. This is one of the very few times that I can recall everyone being in agreement over something so controversial.

Noks415

@Iron_Dragon_2.0:
Jesus fucking Christ! Who is your ISP and where do you live?

TheEngineer

@PooPooKaKaBumBum: so Itunes and mp3s are just a fad?

clintonskneecap

@gnudna: a few years ago I would have agreeded with you however I think with the evolution of Ipods and other things people are getting away from hard copies and are getting use to the idea of digital distrubion. While people like having a hard copy they prefer something they can carry.

clintonskneecap

Bold words from a company that just few years ago were snoozing and had no idea digital delivery even existed. They have just woken up and saw what everyone else around them was already doing and jump along.

@OrionnoirO: Digital delivery certainly has long way to mature before it can be more widely adopted. Now you are tied to a certain device, possibly certain generation of the device, the LIVE copyprotection has good examples just how pain in the ass it can be when your content is not separate from the device. It will become huge thing someday in distant future, but not for years to come. Willing to pay for a pile of encrypted bytes that only one company knows how to decrypt on only one device on earth that can malfunction any day?

Music is forerunner on this, and after these years discs are still far more popular. Games have a good change to evolve fast, as gamers are already familiar with tehcnology, but it's hard to replace 50GB BD discs if your console only has 40GB HDD. Smaller releases only, as already seen today. As for movies, BD will rule supreme after DVD, people are accustomed to discs as they are easier to use and quality is better. You are familiar with tech and find it easy enough to do, so do I, but for majority it's just a needless hassle that offers nothing in return.

ara

Holier than thou, or straight to the point? I simply noted that the vast majority of the commenting going on, was nothing other than negative bashing. I refuse to retract that, as its the truth as outlined by the first 70 or so comments. Simply because I disagree and state such, doesnt mean I believe I am "holier than thou", it simply means I dont follow the masses opinions, I form my own, sorry if that bothers you as well.

Oh, and thanks for an insult tossed in as well! Surely the mark of a post meant to illustrate how I am acting in a way which you dont agree. Very mature and insightful, and exactly my point.

OrionnoirO

Its ridiculous how full of shit they are. God just admit you made a bad business move and people will respect you more for it.

And as long as Microsoft thinks they should decide what you can do with things you purchased, as long as their are still poor people that don't have pc's let alone a high speed connection, as long as we still have the lacking connection speeds for Internet we have now, digital distribution will never reign supreme.

oh not to mention that when you don't have a physical copy of it if the data gets lost 9 outta 10 your shit out of luck and jolly well fucked.

so in conclusion digital distribution can bend you over too easily and fuck you in the ass and wont eve buy you dinner for your trouble.

Neo-Senku

Yeah it'll be funny when all games are download only and MS can't put out games bigger than 512MB because of the people who decided not to buy a 360 with a hard drive.

VanFinale

@ Archaotic: Well spoken.

holy_cow

@OrionnoirO: It's not your opinion, it's the way you expressed it.

Holier than thou is not the way to induce discourse.

Jerk.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

Um yeah Microsoft guy, people will suddenly give up on physical media. Tell me how many people will download GT5: Prologue versus buy it from the store shelf.

Obviously, he's got to jock the 'digital download' crap since it's their new tune, but physical media isn't going anywhere until downloads can offer the quality and bonus material a blu-ray can.

sascha23

@Patient: The best part about seeing that comment was noticing your name afterwards.

Anemone

Wow... I guess I shouldnt post an opinion, just like the rest of you have (though all of yours were generally negative in tone and content). Pot calling kettle? Or simply mob mentality? Either way, it falls on deaf ears, and my points remain.

And to FredQC, that sucks lol, sorry to hear. Hopefully, maybe, as time goes on companies will stop trying to rape their customers for bandwidth in areas such as yours. Frankly, I think that everyone in the world, should eventually have fairly priced, unlimited bandwidth at comparable speeds, shocking it hasnt already happened, in a way, not though considering all these companies are looking to make more money :)

Oh, as for DRM, at least Microsoft is noticing with the amount of complaining people have happily dished out to them. When you send in a console to be repaired now, contents DRM is auto transferred to the new console.. If in the event it doesnt get transferred, there are both web and phone based support available for exactly that situation. Like I said, with time, and as it matures, I still believe DD will be the future of entertainment content regardless of the type.

OrionnoirO

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: I don't need to move. I live in edmonton, AB. Back in 2000 I was in cali and it was $46 for 256k ISDN in Riverside California back home in Edmonton i was paying $50 for 3.0 mbit ADSL. Huge difference.

kingmanic

@PooPooKaKaBumBum: Some of my friends use the smaller ISPs but Bell owns the lines and likes to bully them around. I know Teksavvy and Acanac are some of the better Toronto 3rd party ISPs.

@kingmanic: Well I think sympatico is like $45 a month for up to 3 Mbits. I get 320-350 KB/s down which is about 2.8 Mbits. I wouldn't say it's worth moving here for.

Iron_Dragon_2.0

@Miksho: Forget SKYNET! THE PATRIOTS (of Metal Gear :D) are already handling Digital Distribution. they're even monitoring what we're doing on our computers

Sweet Tooth

@Archaotic:
"Without physical items in hand, DRM becomes God.

And I'm an atheist."

Man... sorry, but i'm using that sometime, that line is just too cool :p

Hitokiri151

"Discs? Microsoft doesn't need no stinking discs." lol yeah cause everytime you put one in the Xbox either the disk scratches or the xbox dies! of course they're backing DD friggin disks keep killing the boxes!

Godluvsugly

Digital Distribution? right, especially since Stage6 getting aXed.

Sweet Tooth

What's the size cap on XBLA games?
I can't wait for the future of gaming!

TheCleaningGuy

I dunno. I 'd rather have a blu-ray that holds 50 gigs than download some compressed garbage or a 50-gig file.

bangbangblah

@OrionnoirO: Read your middle paragraph and apply it to your first and third.

dry-roasted-peanuts

The worst part about this is the fact that Xbox Live went down for weeks during the holidays. So if DD is the future what happens when your servers can't handle the traffic of a few thousand people playing Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, GTAIV, etc while another few hundred thousand are trying to download season 2 of Lost and episodes of Family Guy?

Nevermind the RRoD issues which means your entire collection of movies, games and TV shows are gone for weeks on end.

Mark my words, the next Xbox WILL have a Blu-ray drive. If not, they can just give up now and join forces with Sony to improve the Playstation Network. DD may eventually become the future of delivering content but chances are it won't happen in less than 2 years.

Lastly, when you download content (at least movies and shows) they're hella compressed. You also don't get language tracks, subtitles, special features and everything else that makes a DVD and/or Blu-ray so great. Overall, this idea sucks (and swallows) harder than Monica Lewinsky.

incredibilistic

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: Hey Dragon, Canada has it a lot better then states. Many urban centers down there are at the mercy of companies that make TELUS, Bell, Rogers look like angels. Unlike the US the Canadian gov tends to be more internet savvy and tends to oppose overly strong bullshit but down there, their politicians and policy makers are either slack jawed yokels or highly corrupt. So the telecoms either fast talk them or outright bribe them to support their cause. It happens slightly less here in Canada. Your internet is significantly better then the majority of the US. Mine as well. I have no caps but only 3.0 mbits down.

kingmanic

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: I'll be moving back to Ontario to go to school in the fall. Is it worth getting Bell or should I try and go for a smaller ISP (if I can get one)?

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@OrionnoirO: " Realistically, in this day, its all the same (nearly) thing anyways, all 1s and 0s either being downloaded or bought on a piece of plastic."

The difference is the DRM.

MS (and others, to be fair) want your money. They also want complete control of how you will view and use the product that you purchase from them.

A physical product negates any of those issues.

Nobody is being close-minded, we are protective of our rights as consumers.

Why don't *you* try being a little more open-minded instead of insulting?

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@OrionnoirO: In Canada we are not so fortunate, some phone companies provide unlimited DSL, but they are seriously capped during primetime and overall achieve only 3-5 Mbps. Cable companies offer anywhere between 5-50 Mbps but seriously limit downloads (my provider offers me 20 Gigs of downloads per month and charges 8$ per extra Gig !!)... If a movie is even just 2 Gigs, that's an extra 16$.

They also offer a 100 Gig option which costs another 35$ per month, but for less than that I can rent 15 movies a month. So unless Microsoft starts subsidizing my bandwidth costs this can't happen.

FredQC

But yea he's right theyve clearly been backing digital forever. They just saw a chance and took it and were wrong.

Allfather Black

*clap clap* way to turn it! :D

Allfather Black

@Lucidity: I'll answer your question: Because we're not foolish morons.

Jest

@TheEngineer: I live in Toronto. Rodgers (With the garbage 60 gig cable cap) is not my ISP. I believe it's $40-45 a month for 60 gigs then $5 more per gig with like a cap of 5 extra gigs. Still crap.

I have Sympatico DSL. They supposedly have an invisible cap of 100 gigs even though they market it as unlimited. I've gone well over that most months and they don't bitch though. The only problem is they cut torrent bandwidth to like 30 KB/s during peak times (6pm - 1am). I still get full service through the night though so torrents are fine and they don't throttle my gaming connections. I usually game during the evening and turn torrents off so it really doesn't bother me.

I'd switch to a 3rd party ISP in the city but guess what? Rodgers owns the cable lines and Bell owns the phone lines. So they control everything! Joy. Bell is basically the lesser of two evils. I can't really complain with how much I download from them.

Iron_Dragon_2.0

My god..they are saying "the future is digital downloads because we can profit a lot from it" That is just like Toshiba saying the future is hd-dvd. Dead. Digital Downloads will never ever become mainstream. Blu-ray will lead the way.

Xcite79

@Anemone: Haha! I've had this nick since MUDs were around, I can't seem to shake it. In terms of waiting hours and hours for digital downloads I think my handle is leaning more towards the "Hospital" variant of the word. :p

Patient

I can read that, Jopan. However, why would I bother trying to see the point of someone who would rather attack than discuss? Seems several people here are having trouble getting that point.

As for speeds and storage, the same could be said for the people who cant even get food and clean water in the world, but we arent talking about that are we? The majority of Microsofts fanbase, if I am not mistaken, is the US - but dont get me wrong, the rest of the world matters too, I am not discounting them. Simply saying, Microsofts position isnt really supported by Asian areas, is just getting better in Euro areas, and is mainly dominant in the US. Yes, other parts of the world may not want or be able to embrace downloaded media, where other parts of the world would/could. I simply see as technology moves forward, one would think or should I say hope, that companies that provide said tech would move forward as well, or the governments would step in and regulate it providing more equal and fair access to all, not that I would want that... Long discussion with many points, hard to get at them all in a short space. I just think that with time and work, it could and eventually will work.

OrionnoirO

@OrionnoirO: "Point is, Microsoft does have the money to throw at problems that arise, and it wouldnt surprise me that they have many people being paid much money to sit and figure out answers to these exact issues."

Yes, that department is called "R&D".

"Such as holographic storage, capable of near infinite storage and insane speeds."

I'd refer you to some physics and information theory. I'm sure it's an exaggeration but 'infinite' storage is impossible.

"DD in general wont die, and only grow over time as each generation loses the need for a physical form of their media, and as the services grow and mature and answer the questions and criticisms mentioned here."

No one is saying it's dying, they are simply pointing out the infrastructure isn't there for it NOW. It may be 5-10 down the line.

"If the several of you who feel it necessary to contine to down me because I am "against the masses", so be it - you would anyways."

If everybody is crazy but you you may have to re-evaluate what crazy means. You don't seem to have any deep knowledge of the telecom industry nor are you aware of what the 'common' folk think about it. Given that the 'common' folk still buy the most content and the 'common' folk have problems simply sending email, the idea they will all jump onto the download bandwagon to make digital download the next medium of choice within the next 5-10 year is slim. So unless your 'insight' and 'maturity' have substantial information that rebulks most studies on internet usage, consumer patterns, historic patterns, and studies on internet capacity and average speeds then you aren't saying much.

kingmanic

@OrionnoirO: Can you read they are saying everyone can go out and buy a disc. Not everyone has the ability to go and download a huge file. Not everyone has high speed internet available in there area. Some as i was in the past was limited to Dial-up and Satlelitte DSL. Which downright sucks for downloading files of such magnitude.

Jopan

If digital distribution becomes the standard medium for movies, then I don't want in on the standard.

I also move that someone sue Microsoft for calling their content "HD", when in every sense of the term, [url=http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=962]it is not.[/url]

Xbox Live "HD" Content runs at a lower (6.8) bitrate than standard definition (8) dvds. We don't have the infrastructure to stream true (BluRay runs 40) HD, and we won't have it anytime soon.

RaepGoblin

PooPoo - For what its worth, Im neither. And simply because it has spawned a negative reaction among most Kotaku readers who have posted (and probably most who will, as I said about my general negativity comment) - doesnt mean its bad, or it wont happen. Why you feel the need to try to come at me, I dont know. And honestly, why am I even bothering to respond to someone who is trying to say I am immature or vested, when their name is "PooPooKaKaBumBum"? I guess I enjoy excercises in futility hmm?

OrionnoirO

"...ever since we launched the platform it [online content] has been our big, big, big bet"

Yeah, and that's why there's no hard drive? What a load of bullcrap. Sorry, not buying bullcrap today.

jsf49

XBL Netflix CONFIRMED!!!

DARTH_TIGRIS

Kinda confirms the bigger 360 hard drive SKU.

mergedwarrior

@OrionnoirO:

You're either 12 years old or a MS exec determined to put forth a postive spin on an issue that has garnered an instant and communal negative reaction from everyone.

Whichever it is, you still need to fact that fact that you're completely off the mark.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@OrionnoirO: Some readers are taking this very seriously, I guess they're probably pissed at their ISP too ;)

FredQC

king - Thanks. You can read my posts as you want, or dont, I simply dont care. If you expect me to go cry in a corner because you want to interpret what I say in a way I dont mean it, that is your issue not mine, nor one I care about. This is the last time I am posting a defense for myself. If the several of you who feel it necessary to contine to down me because I am "against the masses", so be it - you would anyways.

That doesnt make me wrong however, and nothing about my points have changed.

OrionnoirO

@ sascha23: Precisely; Not to mention caps put on bandwidth usage for downloads and comcast's p2p crackdown. Blu-Ray offers uncompromised uncompressed full HD.

holy_cow

so....let me get this straight. Microsoft is backing DD but Sony is the only one offering full online downloads of next gen games (warhawk, gt5, socom)....whats the deal?

robokasey

Pretty stupid a big fraction of the world as no online access and I don't see disc dieing I mean digital distribution while cut publishing cost but I don't see it ever out selling disc. Plus how are you going to keep fitting 9gb games on to a HDD

Ryosukekun21

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: I'm going to be going to Brock in St. Catharines, so I'm hoping something decent will be available. And yes, I've already heard about Bell throttling smaller ISPs.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@Hitokiri151:
Feel free! I made that up on the spot, and it just seemed to click perfectly.

@holy_cow:
Thank ya kindly.

Archaotic

ara - Honestly, there isnt that much that still needs improved upon. Storage capacities for drives (as well as speeds, reliability, etc) are all increasing rapidly. If Microsoft wanted, they could push hard for a next-gen storage addon/build in for the 360 or their next console (more likely next)... Such as holographic storage, capable of near infinite storage and insane speeds. No, not realistic, but possible. Point is, Microsoft does have the money to throw at problems that arise, and it wouldnt surprise me that they have many people being paid much money to sit and figure out answers to these exact issues. Whether or not they act on said advice/issues is another story, and one that will pave the way to whether Microsoft succeeds or loses. Regardless, DD in general wont die, and only grow over time as each generation loses the need for a physical form of their media, and as the services grow and mature and answer the questions and criticisms mentioned here.

OrionnoirO

@OrionnoirO:

What I'm hearing

OrionnoirO: "What I'm saying is a valid opinion what you are saying is just random bullshit yeah because I'm like cool my mum tells me so. I'm mature and insightful and shit yeah. so suck it fanbois."

I'd just like to suggest you reread yourself. You don't come across as mature and insightful, it's more like sarcastic and pushy.

kingmanic

@Iron_Dragon_2.0:
I feel for you. I can only imagine how much that sucks. I used to think Comcast was bad. But now I have Verizon! It's seriously great. It doesn't matter how many gigs of media you steal, they don't seem to give a shit. I'm also up late regularly, so I pull 100+ KB/s while host 16 player matches on TF2 without lag. It's the good life :)

TheEngineer

@OrionnoirO: The internet availability just isn't here yet. Whats the point of getting rid of the physical media when so many people can't get to the digital formats? It's not generally in a companies best interest to limit their market.

Ajh

@OrionnoirO: The bad thing about my situation is that it applies to probably most Canadians in one form or another. Until Internet Access is seen as a utility and ISP's are not allowed to charge ludicrous over the limit rates or limit artificially the bandwidth then DD in Canada is doomed. Prices have only been going up in the last couple years for decent high speed access, oh they claim they gave us 7Mbit instead of the 3Mbps I had in 2001, but the price went up accordingly. If I compare unlimited business Internet access, we went at my job from an unmetered 512 Kbps in 2000 to a 100 Mbps now, and the price went from 700$ to 2200$. That's more like it! 20 times the speed for 3 times the price.

FredQC

@OrionnoirO:

"The masses", in this case, are right.

The fact that you can't deal with the fact that you're wrong is not our problem.

And you're welcome.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@OrionnoirO: "I guess I enjoy excercises in futility hmm?"

Well, you support digital downloads, so ..... obviously.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@TheEngineer: I never stopped buying CDs. Paying money for a lossy format makes no sense to me.

Wolfers

@OrionnoirO: @

Well you support digital downloads, so....obviously.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

They're completely stupid if they think that they didn't screw up by not going with Blue Ray. I think they know they screwed up though, they're just not willing to publicly acknowledge it.

I'm pretty sure that one day all movies, games, and music will be downloaded and discs will become a thing of the past. But that's definitely not going to happen this console generation.

mrplow8

Having the physical disc doesn't necessarily grant you infinite freedom with the content stored on it.. You still need a Steam account and to be online the first time you fire up that copy of Orange Box you bought at the Brick-n-Mortar.

(Which personally sucked, since I was without internet for the first three months after it came out... I had already installed the software and had that damn package sitting on my desk, glaring at me, while I was unable to play the game I had just paid for.)

GOOR

@TheEngineer: Sorry, I tend to lurk and not say much :D So I forget about that lol..
And I know, it isnt likely, thats why I said what I did earlier. However, I didnt think it was exactly likely years and years ago that Sony would be where they were in gaming, same for Microsoft... And yeah, there are lots of emerging techs for storage, thats my point. Who is to say that one of those techs wont becoming feasible enough to try to use it to their advantage in the near future? For that matter, storage really isnt much of an issue, bandwidth is... Honestly, with a high enough bandwidth connection and low latency, server based storage wouldnt be a problem. Then you would simply stream things on-demand as needed, including games (Probably with caching of data locally on a drive/memory/etc.)... But that leads back to the same thing as needing to be on Live to access content, so I am sure people wouldnt go for that until net access becomes a near constant in peoples daily lives..

OrionnoirO

@TheEngineer:
"I can understand people wanting to own a disc, even though I think it's dumb, but I don't get people who are saying digital distribution will never catch on."

I don't' understand that position either. It's inevitable that the download niche will grow to mainstream and rival what ever physical movie format is around just as it did with music. I don't' think it'll be the dominant format for some time though. When a full movie takes less then 10 min at high quality then it will compete. Until then it's a bit too early.

kingmanic

He's right, people are just too stupid to abandon the process of paying money for a physical object as opposed to paying the same amount for...um, data. Come on, think about it; why would I pop round to my local video shop when I can instead have heaps more fun, sitting and staring at a download screen for five hours.
When will people open their eyes?

cheeses

All this hate for digital download services. And where are all the Steam fanatics that would call this move by MS as the "wave of the future"? They sure do seem to pop up whenever either Steam or the impending "death" of PC gaming is mentioned.

Don't get me wrong. I love me my physical media. It's one of the reasons why I dislike Steam so much. But as much as I miss the old days of giant boxes and cloth maps and fold-out blueprint scans (YAY WING COMMANDER!), MS is right. DD will make physical media obsolete. It certainly won't be the case within the next 12-18 months, but sometime soon--probably after the apocalypse in 2012--physical media will probably be very rare, indeed.

All that said, I still certainly prefer the times when you could judge the quality of a game by the weight of it's box (much like the old Ultima titles).

JustThisGuy

@OrionnoirO: I accept your surrender.

kingmanic

I should probably add this. I'm an enormous supporter of digital distribution. It seems so freaking convenient to me. I don't value actual physical objects when all they do is hold data, so the idea of having all my games conveniently saved on a hard drive is awesome. Microsoft, however, is not doing it right. In fact, they are doing it in the worst possible way. Overcharging for everything. Since when does a 20 gig hard drive cost $100 dollars? What the fuck is that? I agree that MS are idiots when it comes to digital distribution, but I don't get where all the bashing of the concept is coming from. I can understand people wanting to own a disc, even though I think it's dumb, but I don't get people who are saying digital distribution will never catch on. When was the last time you bought a CD? What if games could be distributed like music? I think that would be pretty cool, and I think that's what's going to happen.

@OrionnoirO: Use the reply button. I'm trying to follow your discussion, but it's harder when you don't reply.

@OrionnoirO:
HVD is not going to come out anytime soon dude. You think the 360 uses a lot of power? An HVD drive would double your electricity bill. Also, if you like those, look for Protein Coated Discs. Some people believe that they can have a theoretical capacity of 50 TB *gasp*

TheEngineer

@kingmanic: Ok, ignoring you from this point on. Let me know when you are finished trying to both start fights and insult me. Not that someone such as yourself will cause me to loose any sleep when I hit the bed in awhile ;p

OrionnoirO

I can come up with over 30 disadvantages to going pure digital distribution and only 3 advantages. I'm not seeing the appeal, here.

Wolfers

@OrionnoirO: I'm just pushing the idea you don't know very much about the things being discussed. It seems to be true.

kingmanic

@kingmanic: Thanks for that information.... Still doesnt change anything I said. It seems to me you simply want to argue, but thanks for the information either way.

OrionnoirO

@OrionnoirO:
"imply saying, Microsofts position isnt really supported by Asian areas, is just getting better in Euro areas, and is mainly dominant in the US."

For internet speeds parts of Asia are far ahead of the US and most of europe is too. The US only matters because they buy a lot of things. Their infrastructure is a few years behind Canada's which is a few years behind Europes which is a decade behind south easter Asia (S. Korea, Japan, HK, etc..)

kingmanic

In my tiredness (3am local), I forgot to mention that you're kidding yourself if you think that the American populace hasn't already sent the message loud and clear to the electronics industry, "Yes, we will repurchase our paid-for goods year after year if they should break." Why?

Just look at the iPod. The iPod's battery life is rated for 1 to 2 years, after which point Apple says, "Send us your iPod to get the battery exchanged or else enjoy your now-dead iPod." And what do most consumers do? They obey. They don't replace it themselves. They don't use the resources available to them through the Internet whereby they can get nice people to put in a new battery on their behalf and for a fair price. No, they send it to Apple ... and pay half the original cost of the unit! How do I know this? 'Cause I just bought a Shuffle for the gym, and the store clerk explained to me about the Nano (cost: $130) that the cost for the battery repair would be $70 and that most people need one in 1 year and everyone needs one in 2 years. Over 50% the goddamn unit's price, and if you refuse to pay it your unit's dead in 2 years. Ridiculous.

So look at it like this -- if Americans have shouted at Apple and Microsoft's board of directors, "YES! WE WILL HAPPILY BURN OUR MONEY BIANNUALLY!", then consider the comapnies' interest in digital downloads. With hard drives no longer lasting more than ~3-4 years due to the high use of hard drive lifespan-shortening protocols like BitTorrent amongst today's youth, the companies pretty much have a solid guarantee that they're going to get kiddos to repurchase their entire library of favorite films every 3-4 years. You may not like this, but the fact is America's spending practices (if not the entire world's) have told the companies that this model is acceptable.

It's only a hop, skip, and a jump from movies and music to video games. And if you're still not convinced, I have two final thoughts I'll leave you with:
1) Nintendo's rampant profits from nostalgia-milking
2) Gamers' demands for more Zelda, more Final Fantasy, more Mario Kart, telling the industry "we never get sick and tired of paying you $50 a year for the same game"
1 + 2 = proof to the video game companies that DD is ripe for the video game market insofar as consumer psychology is concerned.

ryohazuki

@OrionnoirO: Making fun of my name won't mask the fact that you're wrong about this.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

Im actually for digital downloads. As an owner of 2000+ titles Im getting tired of finding space to store them when I can easily put most of them on a single PC.

I personally hate bluray as it offers subpar quality to me.(I own a PS3, and a few movies and they look like rubbish to me no matter what TV I use.Which has been a top line Aquios and a Bravia so far) When I was actually able to download movies on the xbox, I did so regularly and had no issues. I dont watch movies more than once so the rental doesnt bother me. My internet is a 100MB connection(thank you japan) so downloading is really fast.

Im not saying they should stop physical media, but I do think that Digital distribution is a very positive thing. If I had the option id take it over physical any day. I cant see a reason not to to be honest. I mean, unless your a dirty thief DRM shouldnt even be an issue.(once they work out the crappy problems with it not working like its supposed to that is.)

I for one think MS is actually in the right here, I dont think that backing DD is all that bad, infact, I think its far better than paying $50+ for a stupid bluray movie.

RuneX

And ironically, it's the 360 that doesn't have HDD in all its consoles across the board, and they're talking about digital distribution >____>;;;

Byakko

Sounds like bullshit to me if it were even remotely true then why the SKUs with no freaking hard drive? What about the proprietary hard drives? Everything points to bullshit.

Volomon

@ryohazuki: Aren't stamped DVDs supposed to last from 50-300 years?

Wolfers

"why were people even thinking about a disc format when it's really about digital distribution?"

This is like routing for the dodgers and then all of the sudden they lose and he's like.. "oh well I didn't like the dodgers anyways."

godrifle

DD can go die in a fire. If i pay 50-60 bucks for something i had better damn well have something to show for it. I like having complete control over my games and movies. i don't want to download games because that means that when something goes wrong (and it will) i have to jump though twice as many hoops.

right now, if my drive fails, but i want to play Half-Life 2, i get to another machine, maybe my laptop or something, pop the disc in. a couple minutes later im all set

DD would mean i would have to get online, get to the site and/or get the program to allow me to download the game. i then have to download the game which could take 3 hours or more THEN i get to install it and play it.

in one scenario im playing Half-Life 2 a half an hour later, in the other im playing Half-Life 2 anywhere from 2-6 HOURS LATER.

I don't even buy off steam, because steam annoys the living hell out of me. i installed a couple mods old HL2 a while ago, but they were skins so they overwrote old files. i figured big deal, ill just reinstall. unfortunately that requires me to dump all the game's content (which isn't dumped when you uninstall the game, if that makes any sense) then re-dow