Sony to Launch Day 1 Digital Initiative

[weirdee]

NSMB2 was Nintendo dipping its toes into the water. It'll be slow, but if it was successful, I'd expect other big titles to show up there in the future. Hell, perhaps we can be lazy fatasses and not bother to go to launch parties for games like Pokemon.

As for bandwidth/server costs, I'm not sure how that compares to say, producing and shipping a physical product (typically overseas) and making deals with retailers.

 

[GTwander]

So their wise plan is to charge the same amount (more in some cases) than a physical copy that requires more resources to produce and distribute, and comes along with the consumer-satisfying quality of being something you can actually touch?

Brrrrrrilliant...

Though, because of consumer stupidity/lazyness, I can see it doing well enough and setting a terrible precedent. Yay...

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Why should I be paying the full cost of shipping etc that it takes to get them in stores over here with a digital copy when at the very least local stores tend to have them cheaper.

I get the whole bandwidth for them isn't free, but neither is mine. I pay for a fixed amount of net in my country and their game sizes aren't even compressed. If I have 100 gigs a month in my flat between 5 people, then I have 20 to roughly use for myself, one of these games would take about half that and they want full retail.

Give your customers some incentive. The speed the PSN downloads games it'd be a day or two before I'd be able to play them anyway, so it's hardly convenient.

 

[1337mokro]

Digital Downloads = Cheaper Price for consumer

If it doesn't then fuck you.

I can get games at cheap online retailers. Why would I pay 60$ for what a retailer offers me for 40 or 45$?

It's simple economics really. Why am i paying 60$ if I have no physical copy in my hands at the end of the purchase. What justifies the digital download being AS expensive as the physical copy?

 

[NLS]

what does a slow-bro have to do with this couldn't have been like the sony waiting bar?

I guess you aren't familiar with the Slowpoke (Slowbro was the evolved form)meme? Basically, you post a picture of Slowpoke with text referring to some event that happened a while ago (usually within a half year so that the ADD-addled internet can still get the joke). For example, sometime this December, there's probably gonna be a pic of the Slowpoke complaining about that bullshit call from last night's football game.

*Ahem* Anyway, the relevance is that he's making fun of how the console market is taking forever to catch-up with something that the PC market has been doing for at least half a decade.

What are you talking about? The Gameboy cartridges are top notch quality and can hold insane amounts of data, so they cost a lot of money to produce, you can't make that "digital" and send it over a inter-telephone line thingy to your machine.

 

[Legion]

No disc, manual, box, manufacturing cost, retailer or middle man to have to sell it through.

Yet they still think charging full price RRP for a game you can buy from Amazon for at least a third less is a good idea to promote digital sales.

Having it come out on Day 1 doesn't matter when you can order a real copy online for cheaper. The difference wouldn't be that much in terms of getting it either seeing as you'd need to download it, whereas going to the shop and buying it would be quicker in most cases.

It's their loss to be honest.

 

[VanQ]

Sony: Singular proof that all the best games come from Japan but all the shittiest business practises come from there too.

I still can't understand why they expect people to pay physical price for a digital copy. It's not just Sony either, EA and Origin do the same damn thing. They all want to be like Steam but refuse to follow the example they set on how to be successful at digital distribution.

At this point I wonder if the people in charge actually have a brain let a lone common sense.

 

[Alandoril]

It's a good idea, of course but as long as prices stay at full-whack then it's basically just pointless.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Hmm, I could pay PSN and then wait for it download. Then I'd have it on my hard drive taking up the free space that gets smaller and smaller with every system update that adds things I do not want or need, and I'd still miss out on the best price and preorder bonuses offered by retails.

Or I could save a few dollars, get free shipping, save HD space, most preorder bonuses, and often a coupon for $10 off my next purchase on top of that by ordering it from Amazon. Also I'd have a physical copy of the game that is conveniently portable, tradable, and assuming I ever have too much cash again I'd like to see PSN pop out my goodies for getting a collectors edition.

Meanwhile PSN continues to lack many many digital ONLY games that XBLA gets constantly, and fixing THIS issue would do way more to promote your worthless PS+ service than your current not giving a crap tactic.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Gotta love how the upplay that shit, don't worry people we are finally pulling our crap together in the Super Mega Awesome Power Ranger Sony Institute!
You all like the sound of that right, right guys? guys? ...

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Gotta love the amount of people saying that digital distribution is automatically cheaper than physical copies.

Because we've neeeeeeeever seen a $60 game on a retail shelf AND on Steam right?

 

[Callate]

Yay! You can pay the same price, wait longer for the download than it takes to go to the store, buy a copy, and return, and not be able to sell the used version! Where do I sign?

 

[GAunderrated]

Nice to see sony missing a golden opportunity to pass up nintendo and microsoft by actually doing digital distribution correctly. Instead they opted to tow the line which is the practices that have them losing money left and right.

There is no incentive to buy any digital products for consoles.

- Same price as physical without a case, disc, and manual.
- Prices take 2x to 10x longer to drop
- Servers are infamously slow with downloads
- limited space on consoles makes gamers too cautious to go all digital
- No trade in value

 

[Beautiful End]

I can't help but notice RE6, AC3 and MoH don't give you a discount...perhaps the most sought after titles.

Call me picky but if they're offering at least a 5 cent discount, they should be fair and discount every title.
Also, I'd rather pre-order those titles at GS. Sure, I don't get a discount either but at least they give random DLC crap.