Sony Acquire Gaikai Inc

[Whalio Cappuccino]

As much as old phones are getting obsolete, you can't directly compare it to what is happening to games. While digital distribution is becoming more popular, you need to remember that you still need to download these games, and that's where the problems appear: What if the servers go down? What if your connection is too slow? What if you don't even have internet connection, at least not to the console? And with the evolution of hardware, comes the evolution of software. Better graphics and physics, and all the extra content will add up gigabytes to the game data. Downloading a 50GB file doesn't sound as appealing as just buying the disc and installing it directly. Plus, there's countries that limit downloaded data per month.

While digital distribution may become stronger to indie games or expansion packs, I can't see a future where hardcore games are only distributed digitally.

What I was trying to argue with my example was the fact that Gribble believes that hard disk copies will always be available. Let's just pretend that the digital distribution from the PS4 is a huge success. 95% of their customers like it and they're fine with downloading all their games.

Why would Sony spend their time and money on the small 5% of their customers that don't have a strong internet connection (or an internet connection at all)?

From a financial standpoint, it would not make sense at all.

Like the saying goes, you either evolve or you die. It's sort of the same in this aspect, Sony would move on and those that can't obtain the necessities needed for the PS4 would have to move to another console.

Hard disk copies would become obsolete, at least for Sony.

[Speedynutty68•]

My mistake, I worded that pretty badly. What I meant to say was that I hope your opinion on the matter doesn't come to fruition, that's all.

EDIT: Edited first post to clarify, thanks for pointing that out for me Speedy.

Much better.

And @Gribble- I'm not seeing the negatives. I want this to happen...

[gdn001]

I don't think that only 5% of the consumers wouldn't be willing to buy digital copies. I think that there's a fair amount of people who find the idea of having to download entire games that you bought unappealing. Hell, there's even people that complain about having to download 100MB updates!

Unless internet technology improves significantly in both quality and accessibility, I don't see how physical copies are going to become extinct.

[SnipySev]

What I was trying to argue with my example was the fact that Gribble believes that hard disk copies will always be available. Let's just pretend that the digital distribution from the PS4 is a huge success. 95% of their customers like it and they're fine with downloading all their games.

Why would Sony spend their time and money on the small 5% of their customers that don't have a strong internet connection (or an internet connection at all)?

From a financial standpoint, it would not make sense at all.

Like the saying goes, you either evolve or you die. It's sort of the same in this aspect, Sony would move on and those that can't obtain the necessities needed for the PS4 would have to move to another console.

Hard disk copies would become obsolete, at least for Sony.

We can pretend that scenario becomes a reality but the truth is that it won't, at least not for a long time. Even if Sony did their best to "convert" their clients to digital, they'd never get the majority of their audience in such a short time. The amount of people that prefer digital distribution over hard copies is very low at the moment, especially among the console folk.

The group of gamers who don't have an appropriate internet connection for this kind of gaming is much bigger than you think. Some people take this kind of thing for granted, but it really isn't. It's a commodity.

I don't remember which game it was, but EA once said that more than 20% of players who bought it didn't ever connect with the servers. Not one single time. People just aren't ready to consider digital distribution the default format.

[Whalio Cappuccino]

We can pretend that scenario becomes a reality but the truth is that it won't, at least not for a long time. Even if Sony did their best to "convert" their clients to digital, they'd never get the majority of their audience in such a short time. The amount of people that prefer digital distribution over hard copies is very low at the moment, especially among the console folk.

The group of gamers who don't have an appropriate internet connection for this kind of gaming is much bigger than you think. Some people take this kind of thing for granted, but it really isn't. It's a commodity.

I don't remember which game it was, but EA once said that more than 20% of players who bought it didn't ever connect with the servers. Not one single time. People just aren't ready to consider digital distribution the default format.

I feel like you and gdn are misreading my posts. You do realize I'm arguing for hard copies right?

[GribbleGrunger]

It's of little value for a gamer to argue that this isn't good for them, because when an industry decides to do something and all parties are in agreement, it gets done regardless of the end users needs. remember that MS and Nintendo will also go down this route at some point. It always made me chuckle when people thought HD-DVD would beat out Blu-ray... it didn't stand a chance because the 80% of the industry wanted Blu-ray. And then you had people comparing DVD sales to Blu-ray and again I chuckled. they seem to forget that the same companies selling you DVD are the same companies selling you Blu-ray. of course they wanted DVD to carry on. how else were they going to get you to buy two copies of the same film? This will happen because the industry wants it. it's so much cheaper for them and it stops piracy in its tracks.

As for the argument that perception will not favour the PS4+ future, I believe that's wrong. It's not advisable to view it from today, you have to imagine what the view will be in 10 to 15 years, and trust me it will be a lot different. be honest, if Sony offered you next gen games, running at 1080p and 60fps, with specs as high as top end PCs, and then told you can have that without having to purchase another console, wouldn't you be just a little interested? I know I would. The potential is incredible with this tech. you could theoretically test out a PS4 game on your PS3! I know that immediately people will think: 'in that case, why even bother with a PS4?' It's simple. it's connected with the arguments so far in this very thread. Not enough people are online and broadband isn't consistent enough. This is why there will be a PS4. of course Sony will also want cutting edge tech in the PS4 to make sure that it is powerful enough to last for 15 to 20 years and get by on firsmware updates alone.

it was called Playstation Network for a reason. The future is gaming channels. devs will no longer have to worry about squeezing the last drop out of current tech and the consumer will no longer have to worry about buying the latest tech.