360 digital?

[loken]

Digital distribution is the future. It avoids pesky second-hand sales of games, saves money on distribution, earns more money for the developer (particularly from the loss of used sales), benefits the player as they can download the product immediately upon release, and promotes Gold memberships and the sale of larger HDDs for Microsoft. Better yet, it does not affect the physical copies in any way. Unfortunately, just like the antiquated friends lists (arbitrary 100 limit, no groups/tabs, no user levels/restrictions, etc.), Microsoft is late to the party.

promotes Gold memberships

You don't need a Gold Membership to buy a game from games on demand, which is Digital distribution

benefits those with anxiety disorders as they can download the product immediately upon release.

Corrected


Hard Drives fail, Companies go out of business, what are you going to do when you cant replace your bought product

[KILLER]

You don't need a Gold Membership to buy a game from games on demand, which is Digital distribution



Corrected


Hard Drives fail, Companies go out of business, what are you going to do when you cant replace your bought product

Its an mmo. If the company goes under the server cuts off. Have you ever heard of backing up a hard drive? Also disks crack systems stop opening trays optic lazers stop reading etc etc etc.

[Hiero Glyph]

You don't need a Gold Membership to buy a game from games on demand, which is Digital distribution

Corrected

Hard Drives fail, Companies go out of business, what are you going to do when you cant replace your bought product

You didn't correct anything.

Many games, such as Defiance require a Gold membership to play online. Providing digital distribution in turn provides Microsoft with more Gold members. Larger capacity HDDs also follow this logic, as you need more HDD space to download/install games. Also, given how DRM works you can simply redownload your digital product; if you scratch your disc, how do you replace it? The benefits of digital distribution greatly outweigh the traditional (physical) method for all but third-party vendors. Are you really trying to support GameStop or the developer that made the game?

[aXa]

This is just the kind of crap that prevents digital downloads from taking over. No day 1 releases.

Why would you even prefer digital downloads ? Did you see monopoly prices of retail games on xbox live ? In most cases they are up to $20 marked up compared to retail boxed editions. As a example FarCry 3 costs $29.99 on Amazon today $59.99 on XBL Games on Demand

Even if they release this game on demand 3-4 months from now it still will cost full retail price while retail boxed ediiton most likely around $40

[KILLER]

Why would you even prefer digital downloads ? Did you see monopoly prices of retail games on xbox live ? In most cases they are up to $20 marked up compared to retail boxed editions. As a example FarCry 3 costs $29.99 on Amazon today $59.99 on XBL Games on Demand

Even if they release this game on demand 3-4 months from now it still will cost full retail price while retail boxed ediiton most likely around $40

I buy games on release day and spend time on them. I have over 8 days on halo 4. It would have been 40 if i waited 2 months. Those 2 months are worth over $20.

[pieofdeath123]

You don't need a Gold Membership to buy a game from games on demand, which is Digital distribution



Corrected


Hard Drives fail, Companies go out of business, what are you going to do when you cant replace your bought product

I buy a new hard drive then go to download history and re-download it.

[Hiero Glyph]

Why would you even prefer digital downloads ? Did you see monopoly prices of retail games on xbox live ? In most cases they are up to $20 marked up compared to retail boxed editions. As a example FarCry 3 costs $29.99 on Amazon today $59.99 on XBL Games on Demand

Even if they release this game on demand 3-4 months from now it still will cost full retail price while retail boxed ediiton most likely around $40

This is a problem with Microsoft/Sony and the publisher. Note that on Steam, most games devalue according to the amount of time since the release date. On XBL/PSN, they retain close to the full retail value. The result is that digital distribution is not intended to be the primary channel, which is among the biggest mistakes both Microsoft and Sony have made. Day 1 digital distribution along with incremental reductions in price would greatly boost digital sales. Steam has already proven how effective this system can be.

[loken]

You didn't correct anything.

Many games, such as Defiance require a Gold membership to play online. Providing digital distribution in turn provides Microsoft with more Gold members. Larger capacity HDDs also follow this logic, as you need more HDD space to download/install games. Also, given how DRM works you can simply redownload your digital product; if you scratch your disc, how do you replace it? The benefits of digital distribution greatly outweigh the traditional (physical) method for all but third-party vendors. Are you really trying to support GameStop or the developer that made the game?

Digital Distribution has nothing to do with gold memberships, It has to do with Distribution, as in ships to a local store or Downloaded. Multiplayer Games do require a Gold Membership on Xbox but that has nothing to do with how i the customer received the game. you also don't need a gold membership just to buy that game from games on demand, but only to play multiplayer if it, in fact has mutiplayer to begin with.

Sure you can re-download your game if you lose your hard drive, but what about 10, 20 or 30 years from now when said company is out of bushiness? lots of people still have their old Nintendo, and Genesis systems with all those cartridges, and many of those companies are no longer in business. the re-download option is not a guarantee

So while i don't mind Digital being an option i'm against it being the only option

[aXa]

I buy games on release day and spend time on them. I have over 8 days on halo 4. It would have been 40 if i waited 2 months. Those 2 months are worth over $20.

You clearly did not understood what I was trying to say. I have nothing against full retail prices on day 1, let me give you an example based on your Halo game.

As of today Halo 4 costs $30 $34 brand new retail with free shipping (cheapest I could find within quick search)
As of today Halo 4 costs $60 via XBL games on Demand, game entered digital channel fairly quick with full retail price and it stayed like that.

Prices of digital games were suppose to be lower due to the fact there is no logistics, manufacturing and packaging costs it didn't happen in case of Microsoft at all. Since Xbl is a monopoly platform there is no healthy competition and M$ also does not even try to attract customers. If you go thru most of the recent or older titles you can notice that despite age of those games price tag on them is still kept fairly high compared to the same games you can get via retail channel. The only platform that is basically competing with itself is Steam. Every time you go there you can find deals on new, old or upcoming games that are 100% better what XBL or PSN have set up

[SYN BLACK XS]

Installing to the HDD usually only gives you the added benefit of shorter loading times

I seriously doubt there will be anything mandatory about it