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David Perry: physical games media is on its last breath

Posted Jul 14, 2009 at 6:11PM EST by Mabie A.

Listed in: PS3, Wii, PSP, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PC Gaming Tags: David Perry, Facebook, UK

Physical games media may be at the sunset of their lives, according to David Perry. Speaking at an opening keynote in UK for the 4th Annual Develop Conference in Brighton, the Gaikai founder expressed his belief that "It won't be long before 100 per cent of games are all online."

He even gave credit to Facebook for providing game content to the users without the need of physical data. He described it as "a major step forward." But within the same breath, he also talked about the not-so-good things that going all digital on games will bring.

For one, there's the excruciating wait for those download times, registration processes, installation procedures and so on and so forth. These, according to Perry, impede the experience of play, which is the most essential allure of video games.

Then he compared it to the successful App Store of Apple, coupled with the one tap to install, one tap to play gadget iPhone. It would seem that he attributes the success of the App Store, having raked in 1.5 billion downloads in its first year alone, to the efficiency and simplicity of the gadget.

So (and here he segues rather smoothly), those friction problems, you won't have that in Gaikai. You'll only need 1.2MB to run the service even, and for sure, more than half of the UK and US population should have sufficient bandwidth to use Gaikai.

In a nutshell, physical games media is a dying breed. Soon, they will all be wiped out, leaving our games to the memories of our computers and consoles, appreciated by the byte. But acquiring it may prove to be such a hassle, especially because of the preliminaries you have to do before you can enjoy. But don't worry, those frictions won't be a problem for you -- if you use Gaikai.

Via Develop

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not many people like the idea of only downloadable games. i mean, some are cool, like small arcade games and such. i love looking at the books though and having discs.

downloading a game for more than 30 dollars just doesn't seem right to me but if that's how much i think games would be priced, minimum, if they were only downloadable.

# Balls.. — Torch 2009-07-14 22:39

I want the Box and the Discs! Even for the stuff I got on Steam! Over here the boxed versions are 1/3rd the Steam price, and you can just register the key on Steam and play without even putting the disc in your PC.

# Typo? — ryebee 2009-07-14 23:34

He even gave credit to Facebook for providing game content to the users without the need of physical "DATA"

# ... — MADMAN-_-zZ 2009-07-15 00:01

I would have capped my internet limit for 4 months in order to download MGS4... sounds like bs to me

# Yeah right — Keith K 2009-07-15 00:26

As long as people want substance for their dollar, as long as people want to continue their collections, as long as people want to share their games with friends, as long as people want to take their games on trips with them, physical media isn't going anywhere.

Get your head out of your ass. That's not where douches belong.

# He's wrong. — Dave 2009-07-15 01:06

Look at consoles, with optical drives...Does he really think that the next round of consoles will not have optical drives and only let you buy games from the internet to download on your hard drive. Hard drives fail, it would be faster to go and buy your hard copy if your internet is slow. Some people don't have the internet but they are gamers.

This won't happen anytime soon. Like the people that predict the death of youtube.

# Maybe — Orlyeh 2009-07-15 01:19

Physical media will still be around for at least the next generation of consoles, but, beyond that, I can only venture a guess.

The most prominent impedence to internet content is, of course, a viable connection. By this I mean a stable, broadband connection with no or very high monthly bandwidth limits.

Comcast recently announced a 250GiB per month cap on residential connections. You might say this is high now, but that's only a few blu-ray PS3 games downloaded. Let's not forget that people stream videos, listen to music, AND download movies to their computers nowadays (legal or not).

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a hugely viable marketplace for downloaded games (Steam is huge), but I don't think one will overtake another in the console realm any time soon.

# Its all about money. — TheRockness 2009-07-15 02:03

With Digital Distro, they can feel better that you're not reselling the game. They can also tie it to your account to make sure that its not being pirated. Sure people will figure out a way pirate the games, but it will take a bit before most common users figure out how that is done. Still, I've seen more and more stories about how greedy game developers loath used game stores because they're seeing those sales and they're not getting a piece of the pie. It should be one of our freedoms that we should be able to sell something we no longer want no matter what it is. This isn't about physical vs digital, this is about control and greed.

# Not for a while. — PcFish 2009-07-15 02:06

That ***** aint happening till we get those gigabyte or even terabyte connections Japan uses.

# - — Kotonoha 2009-07-15 02:38

That only makes it faster because either the host or your internet sucks.

# ... — TheRockness 2009-07-15 02:40

At best Japan has 100mbps connections to their houses. That's Mega-Bits-Per-Second not bytes. There's a pretty big difference.

Anyhow, I see your point. There are too many people still without substantial enough broadband speeds for it to reach a large enough market. No one wants to pay $150+ per month just to have a fast enough connection to have a hope of downloading a game the day it comes out. I'm sure they'll figure something out like steam where they pre-load it on your system. But with games like TF2 the demand was so high that I wasn't able to play the day it came out. The demand was so high for that game that it took me like 3-4 days to download it. I have a 5mpbs connection.

# ... — Shardnax 2009-07-15 03:32

Megabits are much smaller as Rockness pointed out. I'm stuck on dial-up and can only get sat. internet and for the price the speed sucks. Even if I had high speed and the bandwidth to download games, I wouldn't. I quit buying PC games (NWN2 being an exception) because of DRM. If developers want to make it harder to install stuff from the store, why buy it?

Nothing beats a physical copy, you can manage everything with it; with a digital copy, what happens when the file gets corrupted, re-download and waste more time?

# Who is he? — hypercoyote360 2009-07-15 04:05

Guys, you're all freaking out over some random guy's remark. I think digital distribution is only popular now because it is an alternative to paying higher prices for the disc version, like for FF7 for instance. I'm willing to bet the sales of disc-based games with digitial counterparts show that the disc versions sell more copies than the digital sells downloads. And that is just because people like to feel like the own what they bought, which you don't get with a download. Plus you have to store the crap forever in case the supplier decides to close up shop.

# lol, oh — hypercoyote360 2009-07-15 04:10

Wow, looking at articles with his name tagged, no wonder he has "predicted" this. He's pushing a streaming game service. Of COURSE he predicts this because it's what he's basing his business model on. It's not a prediction, it's a HOPE because if games don't move to digital distribution, he's screwed.

# OK... — icypsp 2009-07-15 05:42

whether or not you were trying to poke fun, this will definitely suck for all the people with hight speed but slow download times.

# PS. — icypsp 2009-07-15 05:47

Hard Drives are the first to die.

Now back that up!

All that wasted money on games.... Gone.

The truth is shhht happens to our consoles. Id wrather go out and buy another console without the worry of re downloading my games and starting over.

# ... — cory1492 2009-07-15 05:58

IMHO Digital distribution is OK for small games, ones with free to low price tags at any rate - but 'next gen' (or current gen) games really are getting too big to expect a retail price for download-only content as well as expecting the customer to fork over the cash for bandwidth, for something which in the end they cannot resell.

Whats that called in the states, being able to resell software? First purchase rights or something?

# he's full of crap — Techni 2009-07-15 06:37

Joystiq had an article from NDP saying 75% of gamers want a physical disc.

As someone above mentioned, most ISPs have quotas. I wouldn't even be able to download 1 PS3 game a month.

Consoles don't come with harddrives big enough for this

96% of the world doesnt have broadband

Going download-only won't even work for PSP Go, let alone PS3, 360 or Wii

# Its BS — Digitus 2009-07-15 09:15

Music is the only thing to have its physical counterpart on its last legs and that's partly in thanks to small size. With games things are a lot more complicated. For one some games are harder to pirate. For people who already pirate their games they might make the transition easily enough but then for everyone else I'm sure they'd rather go out and buy a physical copy if they're gonna spend the money already.

If they're thinking about doing digital distribution so much, someone should come out with a digital insurance plan and make gamestop and other such stores insurance plans obsolete. Buy a game and register it online and get a ticket to download the same game free, that way if you get a Microsoft brand death ring on your disc or your idiot fried/cousin/sibling scratches your nice Blu-Ray disc you can play the digital one and not have to worry about buying the same game over again.

Screw digital distribution imo, it takes too long and is too unreliable. Hard drives fail often and are often the first to go on a computer or console, rather be careful with something I have complete control over.

# Hard drive death — Master Chef 2009-07-15 10:17

Nope, every game download service out there, Direct2Drive, Steam, XBL, etc, ties all the games you download to your account. If your hard drive ever fails you just sign back in and download them again, you don't lose any money.

I still can't make up my mind on this thing. I think I'd want the hard copy with box and manual, but having everything on the hard drive and being able to start up any game instantly without bothering with the discs would be kinda nice. But then the price is dictated by whoever runs the service, unlike hard copies where any retailer can decide to put a game on sale. And there would be no more cheap games on eBay. I can find Fallout 3 for PC on eBay for like $20, but it's still $50 on Steam...

So from what I can see, the only good thing it'll do is eliminate annoying discs. As for cons, it'll suck up bandwidth while you're downloading, take forever to download if you don't have very high speed internet, eliminate the rental and used games markets, eliminate all sales of every kind, take up tons of HDD space... yea the con list pretty much vastly outweighs the pro list. Bad idea

# True true yea i know. — icypsp 2009-07-15 15:46

But that too time consuming. I knew you were able to re-download without having to pay again. But thats just irritating. We all know shht happens. One of my biggest concern is the system itself failing.

Honestly tho you would think im ready to switch to the digital format only since i pirate a lot of games but the truth is im not. Maybe for smaller games that are around100 megabytes but nothing more. Its not worth the time it consumes or money for all the support.

Lmao they should give us all free tetrabyte hard drives :)

# EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEVRY one here are idiots — steve_723 2009-07-15 19:20

Dont you understand by the time everything does go all digital technology will have progressed far beyond standard HDDs and move on to solid state HDDs instead. And btw why is every one saying that hard drives fail ?(alot)?? How many of you reading this have had a hard drive fail on you?? And even if your HDD (Solid State) Which means (No moving parts. Which means a lot less failure rate) fails it would be coverd under your warrenty. This guys prediction is for the future possibly on the PS4 generation when everything will have solid state HDDS in it

SO

All of you who are B.tching first of all this is not going to start right now so don't get your panties in a bunch and calm down this is way in the future. He says physical media is STARTING to fade away.

Rant over!!!!!!!!!!

I had to login just to knock some since into you idiots acting like this is taking affect RIGHT NOW

Rant really over !!!!!!!!!

# o yea lol — Master Chef 2009-07-16 00:00

If my PC hard drive fails, as has happened a couple times now, it takes me a few days to get my Steam stuff back up and running again. Same for XBL, my 360 HDD failed awhile ago, downloading all that sh*t again was a bi*ch

I never want to see this system implemented unless they can work out all of these problems, and I don't see how they can do that. Way too many to deal with lol. I'm not willing to steal games, so pretty much if systems like these mean I can't buy games on the cheap, I don't want them around. I'll stop gaming the day I'm forced to pay $60 for every game

As for Perry's streaming system, which is very different I know and actually does eliminate a lot of the problems I mentioned, I also don't believe in Gikai. Not only do I believe it flat out won't work, but even if it does as with OnLive you are forced to play games in a maximum of 720p. That to me is a killer, I have a 1080p TV and a nice PC monitor for a reason. So no thank you

# Hard drives are like motorcycles. — TheRockness 2009-07-16 02:31

If you haven't fallen off a motorcycle, then you haven't been riding long enough. Its not a matter of if, its when. The same goes for Hard Drives. You show your experience by voicing that you've not been using PC's long enough to have a hard drive fail on you. Hard drive failure is common. Thats why they have a warranty. The hard drive on my Sony Vaio only lasted 1.5 years under very minimal usage. The hard drive on my Xbox 360 died and I had to buy a new one at Best Buy, only to have it RROD a week later. In a server environment, I had a Intel/Kingston SSD-Now M-Series 80GB die on me after a month of usage. I've talked to other server admins that have had SSD's fail on them like mad. Currently they're just not what you're building it up in your head to be. Sorry Steven, that's just how the hard drive (or cookie) crumbles.

# Here's another one. — TheRockness 2009-07-16 02:33

Read this qj article on Crackdown.

http://www.qj.net/Not-enough-awesome-Crackdown-only-broke-even/pg/49/aid/133111

This guy is another one who would probably love digital distribution to take over asap.

# You're a moron :D — Shardnax 2009-07-16 03:49

"How many of you reading this have had a hard drive fail on you??" I've had quite a few fail, and what happens to your solid state drive when your computer is on fire? The day I can't pick up a physical copy if I want it is the day I quit buying games.

# downloading all that sh*t again was a bi*ch — icypsp 2009-07-16 09:47

Dude i 100% agree with everything you wrote.

# but OOOOOOOOOOOONLY you are stupid — Tekkenlord 2009-07-17 02:48

do you really think ANYONE with half a brain would support (and by support i mean BUY ORIGINAL PRODUCTS) an industry that doesnt give the costumer a Physical PROOF of what they BUY the answer is NO, as long as we have the NEED of having a MATERIAL ASSET to backup not the information but THE MONEY we pay thats not gonna happen do you know how much money even TODAY would someone pay you for a Terabyte HDD full of games, cuz i wouldnt pay you no s.hi.t for it, but if you give me 10 ps2 games even if they are used thats a different story so SHUT THE ***** UP if you dont know why people are --ranting--- u said? (moron)

# i wonder. — ElfyEikkal 2009-07-22 00:05

okay. its a good thing that everything is going Digital. great. then there's this lingering annoyance about Area Restrictions. and availability of games in other parts of the world. That's probably the most biggest annoyance. fine. i live in a small country somewhere in South East Asia. and i log on to PSN whenever i have the time. and i can't purchase Map Packs, Songs, etc etc. cause its not available in my area. and also you need a Credit Card or a Top Up card for that. i don't have a credit card. and a top up card is taxed (you pay $13 to get a $10 top up card). and hard disk failing? that'll be hard. also. downloading PS3 games on my 3mbps internet connection. it'll probably kill me. (imagine downloading Final Fantasy XIII on the day it was released ONLINE it'll be crazy.) so. i hope Physical copies of games will continue. sides. its a very worthwhile thing to own. a Box and the Manual. =)

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David Perry: physical games media is on its last breath

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