Topic: Sony spearheading retail/digital distribution hybrid?

[Flames_of_chaos]

As you know PSN has the most lenient space requirements as opposed to Wii Shop and Xbox Live.

Recently Criterion announced that the PS3 version of Burnout Paradise will be available as a PSN download which will be identical to the Blu-Ray retail version. On the PS3 Warhawk, SOCOM,Siren and probably some other PS3 releases will be released as retail and PSN title. Every PS3 model allows the user to swap out to a hard drive with a greater capacity in a inexpensive manner so in a way this business model can flourish quite well with some drawbacks the biggest one comes in mind is a good internet connection since a PS3 title will be a couple of GB big.

Now I think that this model can be perfect because:
1. It gives people flexability, they can buy the game in the store on a disc or buy it digitally
2. For older games out of print Publisher X can put it on PSN for a renewed interest and possibly more revenue, and those older titles may be priced at a discount later on.
3. No disc swapping if you have the digital versions of games.
4. Sony allows users to upgrade their hard drive with any SATA hard drive so a user can easily have a 160,320,500GB harddrive available which offers plenty of room.

Now some drawbacks:
1. People will have to be logged in to the master PSN account to use the game so that means you can't share/borrow games with family/friends.
2. Most PS3 retail games are space intensive so the download time will be long unless you have a really good connection.

[NWR_Lindy]

Are you sure you have to be logged in to PSN to play the game?  I don't see why that would be necessary.  There's a lot of online functionality, but I don't see why you couldn't play offline.

The download time will be a pain, but Sony lets you resume downloads even if you turn the PS3 off in the middle of the download and come back later.  I mean, they could put the game up at midnight on launch day, and you could just let the download run overnight so you could play it that night when you get home.  Sony could also build infrastructure to handle stuff like this; for example, they could have you download some sort of load-balancing client that would queue your download so as not to overload their servers.

This is definitely the way the industry is heading, slowly but surely.  I can't see GameStop liking this trend one bit; in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately introduce a digital download service for PS3 games once digital distribution reaches critical mass.  The catch is, Sony already has their own servers that can do the job without needed to give GameStop a cut.

But yeah, the fact that you won't be able to share games with your friends is lame, but Sony doesn't care about that.  Now, hopefully they'll give us a price break on digitally-distributed games, but that hasn't been the case so far.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Sorry if I caused some confusion here is how PSN works it's actually much better than Xbox live in a way, a PSN account can exist on 5 different PS3s and once that PSN account is activated on a PS3 that means all the games that was bought on the PSN account can be downloaded and used legit, the PSN account has to exist on that PS3 or else the games will be deactivated. However on bigger games like warhawk, SOCOM and soon burnout paradise theres a DRM in-place that the master PSN account can only access them.

Like here's a theoretical example: (this process is known online as game sharing)
I allow my PSN account to be on Silk's PS3 so I make a user account and put in my credentials for the PSN account under that user account(then I of course don't check off remember this password? so that silks can't go on PSN with my account and go on PSN content shopping spree with the credit card that's on my account) and then activate the PSN account on Silk's PS3, then Silks can download all the PSN games that I paid for already, for free and he would be able to play them for free even on his account since those games are activated via my account that resides on his system(if he would delete my account those games will be deactivated instantaneously).

However for stuff like the PSN versions Warhawk, SOCOM, Siren, and Burnout the developer has an option to only allow the master account to play those games and if that is set in place Silk's would have to be logged into my account in order to play those games.

[Morari]

That's not "game sharing", it's piracy!

[Flames_of_chaos]

That's not "game sharing", it's piracy!

Well in a way it's not because it falls under Sony's PSN policy since like it says a PSN account can exist on 5 different PS3s it's a licensing loophole more than anything.

[Morari]

Nope, you're a dirty pirate and government spooks are currently closing in on your house!

[Deguello]

The real problem isn't Gamestop.  I can't imagine WALMART liking this approach either.  And their disapproval is the kiss of death for your retial hopes at this juncture.

Even worse, there is the risk of going fully digital too quickly and ceding retail to your competitors.  I actually dare MS and Sony to go fully digital and see what happens to their sales then as the entire video game section fills up with only Wii games. It's already starting to look that way anyway.  Only PC games run the risk of being fully digital, because Computer stores and dealers do not also sell games.  But if Gamestop and Walmart refuse to sell your console because you won't stock them with discs, you might as well have released the N-Gage.

(Going fully digital is also a stupid move for Sony, too, considering they want Blu-Ray to do well.  Is it the next minidisc?  Destroyed by another department of Sony?)

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well Deg the point isn't just digital distribution only but a hybrid of retail and digital, like giving the publisher an option to do both types of distribution simultaneously.

[Bill Aurion]

Aren't the "full games" on PSN the same price as in-store?  So you are paying the same price for a lack of disc...Digital distribution should be eliminating the middleman, not shuffling the funds over to the producer...

[Flames_of_chaos]

Aren't the "full games" on PSN the same price as in-store?  So you are paying the same price for a lack of disc...Digital distribution should be eliminating the middleman, not shuffling the funds over to the producer...

Yes to the question and I agree however I'm sure the game publishers won't agree with the latter.

[NWR_Lindy]

Aren't the "full games" on PSN the same price as in-store?  So you are paying the same price for a lack of disc...Digital distribution should be eliminating the middleman, not shuffling the funds over to the producer...

Yes to the question and I agree however I'm sure the game publishers won't agree with the latter.

That's my point.  Since there's no middleman, you'd think there'd be something like a $5.00 price reduction for digitally-distributed titles, but that isn't the case.  That's what's stopped me from buying PSN versions of games like Gran Turismo Prologue and Warhawk; if I'm going to pay full retail price, then I'll take the box and manual on principle alone.

Retail will never go away, but digital distribution can certainly make huge inroads.  The 360 and PS3 (especially the PS3, with its swappable hard drive) are ideal platforms for experimentation.  Like Deg said, you'll always have to play ball with Wal-Mart and GameStop because you don't want them to get their panties in a bunch and stop stocking your console.  You'll still need that retail presence, more for promotion than anything else.