As of today it shouldn’t be any real surprise that Digital Distribution of games, movies and television series will consume the thought process of a good majority of consumers regarding how they purchase their entertainment. A likely question one would ask would be; will it replace the traditional brick and mortar retail chains that many of us are so accustomed to? Eventually yes, but I strongly believe we’re simply jumping the gun much too quickly and if not careful the entire endeavor could likely take much longer than anticipated to be fully embraced. I won’t be naive and say that it will fail or never come to pass, because digital distribution is essentially inevitable, and it is currently on-going.
Ever since Microsoft and HD-DVD lost the battle against blu-ray they had returned to their foundation stating that online is the way to go and even having execs proclaiming that physical media would give way to digital downloads within the next three years. I beg to differ and here’s one reason why, just recently SCEA released Siren: Blood Curse, the highly anticipated game for horror fans worldwide over the PSN network. Although it wasn’t a first for Sony, having released Warhawk and Grand Turismo 5 Prologue in the same manner, it was indeed an interesting experiment undertaken by SCEA to seriously test the waters of delivering a full-length game, larger in scale than a majority of games currently available on the PSN store. The caveat here is that Siren: Blood Curse won’t receive a hard copy Blu-ray version in North America, whereas Warhawk and GT5 Prologue did. Producer Tsubasa Inaba of SCEA stated that;
‘It’s on par with full-scale Blu-ray disc releases, and is all part of our effort to expand our selection of game content on the store.’
SCEA was even clever enough to offer two choices to gamers, the game would be distributed in episodic bundles at reduced sizes so you can download the game in smaller chunks, install and play until you’re ready for the remaining chapters as they continue to download in the background, essentially making the 9-10 gig file manageable in easy byte size chunks (yes the pun was intentional) or with enough bandwith and time an end user can download the full game in one fell swoop. Great idea, well executed to an extent but here are some reasons why it will reduce some potential sales since as mentioned before, a blu-ray hard copy won’t be available in North America.
‘ Although Sony gives you the option to upgrade your existing HDD in your Playstation to compensate for larger media, most end users won’t want to bother with the extra expense or even more so lack the tech savviness to swap out the HDD for a larger one.
‘ With what seems like a growing trend, most newer games require a mandatory install on your HDD ranging anywhere from 200megs to a whopping 5 gig+ install, a 40 gig PS3 or 20 gig Xbox 360 (which unfortunately uses a proprietary HDD) will quickly be reduced in size. Neglecting the fact that out of the box the PS3 utilizes roughly 9 gigs of space of the 40gigs. Conducting some quick math, one can quickly see potential problems.
‘ Although broadband penetrations have reached well into the 60% margin and beyond, many service providers with what seem like draconian policies are now charging their customers for extra usage above arbitrary thresholds, pretty much putting a huge damper on thoughts of downloading a blu-ray size game or film.
‘ And finally something that’s not exactly tech related is simply the fact that many consumers myself included relish the idea of actually holding a physical purchase in one’s hands. The thought of having to re-download large media for any reason would not only irritate and frustrate, but could perpetuate some serious issues mentioned in the previous point.
Getting back to Siren: Blood Curse, since it’s launch on the PSN store last week, there’s been a very mixed bag from enthusiastic gamers longing for their download to finish, to other gamers flat out refusing to download a game which would occupy quite a large portion of their HDD. This is a genuine concern, and although I’m a huge advocate for continually moving forward, I honestly think at this point we’re moving a tad fast and to make matters worst, not all associated parties are in lock step going forward.
I believe physical media will never die, they’re just too many benefits over digital distribution at this point in time, for instance I can get in my car’ nay cross the road and walk to Wal-Mart, purchase any game I would like have a bite to eat and make it back to my house game in hand well before the download finishes, furthermore I can then if so desire blow the dust off my long completed game for trade or sale.
I strongly believe we’re just not ready to catch this wave, and I sincerely hope Apple, Microsoft, Sony and others approach this at a reduced pace, because in one way or another both ventures share a similar constraint’ space.
Related links:
Siren Blood Curse
Tito A. Belgrave is currently employed as a 3D artist at Bedlam Games in Toronto, Canada. He's also an avid freelance game journalist. 
