Eckyman.com

Well, I’m blown away.

I have just been informed via email of an amazing deal! Apparently, Microsoft are willing to give a £10 discount towards the games on demand version of Halo Reach. Incredible! Right?

Of course, even with the discount the price is still £39.99. For a digital version you can’t trade in, or sell on.

Amazon has it listed as £28.25 brand new. Physical copy in your hand. To do with as you please within reason.

Game UK are selling it for £24.99 brand new. Physical copy in your hand. Yada yada yada…..

Do Microsoft even check the retail price of titles? I mean, I know games on demand has always been somewhat of a scam when it comes to pricing, but this is just crazy.

Let’s assume the worst is true about digital downloads for a minute. Let’s just say, the big reason for pushing it is to knock out the preowned market. Possibly to some extent the rental services too. Would it not be beneficial to price the digital versions at least comparable to the retail price? I’d prefer a little lower considering there are no covers/manuals to print, disks to write, cases to make, and no shipping costs. That does not seem too unreasonable to me.

If pricing were lower I’d support a disk free future. If only to get away from faulty DVD drives in consoles, or the various problems that come from disk based media. Less loading times, quieter console, possibly more life before a console fault, these are things I can get behind when it comes to digital distribution. No questions asked. I may prefer having a hard copy on my shelf and the freedom to trade it in towards a new game (something I rarely do anyway), but the benefits to a disk free future are pretty substantial.

Right now, you would have to be insane to buy Halo reach via games on demand. A certifiable nut. Even if you really, really wanted a disk free Halo experience… firstly, you can buy Reach for £15 preowned. A saving of £24.99, plus you get a physical copy in your hand. One you can take to your friends house and use on another console easily. You could then take that £24.99, buy another preowned title and still go home with cash in your pocket. Even if you bought it brand new at £25 you could still pick up another game from the preowned bin.

Secondly, install it to the Xbox HD. Not quite disk free, but it’s as good.

For digital distribution to ever work, or catch on, companies like Microsoft need to occasionally step outside and check the prices everywhere else in the world.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/08/sony-psp-go-experiment-revealed-love-of-physical-media/

The classics are the best.

When confronted with a failure, don’t try and recognise the fault, instead try and act as though you were doing this on purpose all along as an experiment… at the expense of your customers!

I really hope someone got canned at Sony for the Go!

I mean, it’s not like anyone could have foreseen this happening is it really? Who could have known that not following through on promises to release all UMD games on PSN would end like this? Who could have imagined that releasing digital versions of games sometimes weeks (sometimes never) after the physical UMD release would irritate gamers and promote a distrust in you as a brand name?

No, no… sorry, it wasn’t those reasons the Go failed right? It’s because;

consumers like their packaged media library

…yeah, and they also appreciate that packaged games release on the date advertised, not weeks later if at all.

I’ve talked about digital distribution in another post but I recently read that Logitech may be working on a UMD attachment for the PSPGo which if true interests me a great deal.

Assuming this attachment is real, there must be significant demand for such a product in order for it to be made. This is the last thing Sony needs if its experiment into digital distribution with the PSPGo is to be a success. They are already on shaky ground with some games still only releasing on UMD, digital PSN titles not always available alongside the UMD release, and most importantly, to the best of my knowledge there isn’t a complete digital catalogue available (as promised) for gamers to exchange physical UMD’s for to use on the new system yet.

The PSP has already been suffering from low sales compared to other handhelds and consoles on the market, and piracy is all over the device like white on rice. Now Sony has split the PSP user base in half and PSPGo adopters cannot use software they may have already bought for the system. Not a great state of affairs for anybody. Throw in a UMD attachment and any future plans Sony had for digital content are swirling around the toilet bowl ready to be flushed.

So is it a failed experiment? Well perhaps, but more importantly it was a failed experiment in an already failed area of Sony’s product line. If the PSPGo fails in digital distribution it will be less of a problem than it would have been trying this out with the PS3 slim. You could say this is a smart move by Sony enabling them to test the digital distribution waters without crippling the flagship product.

It will be interesting to see how other companies pay attention to this. There is a very strong chance that should the PSPGo fail (and if pushed I’d bet it will), other companies may become wary of attempting a move into the digital distribution model. Sony’s failure will underline the concern that perhaps the market is not ready for digital distribution just yet.

Personally I do not feel that pushing digital only devices such as the PSPGo is the way forward. Good implementation and value for money in DLC will do more towards converting people to a microtransaction/digital only model in my opinion.