GAME exits Administration

[FatTrucker]

Which then sends the message to developers that safe sequels is where the money is, and what they should focus on.

This has been the case for a number of years now anyway in all honesty. The number of devs really prepared to take the risks with entirely new or innovative IP in the full priced arena is very small indeed and more or less restricted to those with a parent publisher rich enough to take the financial risk every once in a while. A peculiar circumstance in an industry that's always been driven, grown and ultimately been rewarded by creativity and invention.

[ToxieDogg]

Don't be too surprised with the next generation of systems to see dedicated M$, Sony and Nintendo stores opening up just to sell the hardware.

I'd certainly be surprised to see Nintendo suddenly do that, as they'd likely lose a lot of the family/casual userbase that they've spent so many years trying to build up and maintain.

I have no real issue with a download only future, I'm pretty happy with digital purchases that I can access instantly, anytime, anywhere on any compatible device without having to have shelves and cupboards full of cheap DVD cases. My concern is the complete lack of anything approaching competition it will bring to the market. The only real winners will be the men in suits.

You've not factored in the time it takes to download them there. Or the fact that you can't just use any compatible device....Sony certainly limits the number of compatible devices you can transfer downloads to. As you very correctly say at the end, the only winners will be the men in suits who will have complete control of a captive market.

[crusto]

Re the nintendo store, I would have thought the opposite tbh. I could just imagine the look on my nippers face when he encounters the 'nintendo' store for the first time on a random visit to the Bull Ring.

[ToxieDogg]

Re the nintendo store, I would have thought the opposite tbh. I could just imagine the look on my nippers face when he encounters the 'nintendo' store for the first time on a random visit to the Bull Ring.

What about when you get home and realise that all the games are download only? Nintendo are way behind Sony and Microsoft in that department, yet have the biggest casual/family userbase by far. Convincing them all to suddenly go the download only route might take another generation or two.

[Matt_B]

Re the nintendo store, I would have thought the opposite tbh. I could just imagine the look on my nippers face when he encounters the 'nintendo' store for the first time on a random visit to the Bull Ring.

What about when you get home and realise that all the games are download only? Nintendo are way behind Sony and Microsoft in that department, yet have the biggest casual/family userbase by far. Convincing them all to suddenly go the download only route might take another generation or two.

Nintendo certainly won't be doing it any time soon; they've already wed themselves to physical media with the 3DS, and it seems unlikely that the Wii-U will offer you the option of downloading all your games either.

However, there's eventually going to come a point in the future where current games retail stores simply aren't viable any more, when everyone else has gone download-only, and at that point they're going to have to.

[crusto]

Re the nintendo store, I would have thought the opposite tbh. I could just imagine the look on my nippers face when he encounters the 'nintendo' store for the first time on a random visit to the Bull Ring.

What about when you get home and realise that all the games are download only? Nintendo are way behind Sony and Microsoft in that department, yet have the biggest casual/family userbase by far. Convincing them all to suddenly go the download only route might take another generation or two.

Tbh I forgot about that bit . I just automatically pictured a ninty store full of games/machines/merchandise etc. This is why im so against download only, as I just cannot imagine a console/computer without physical software, its just not right. Both maybe - at a push. But download only, no way jose.

[simes]

What publishers fail to take into consideration is the hardware failure factor and - more importantly from a consumer point of view - storage. A lot of people on here have had to deal with a dead PS3 or XBox 360 and if you end up with an entirely digital collection of games, there's nothing worse than having to download your entire library of games again from scratch. I know - I had to do that over Christmas and it felt like it took forever. At least with physical copies of games, no matter what happens to your console, the games are still sitting there on your shelves ready to be played even if your console goes the way of the Norwegian Blue Parrot...

Then there's the issue of where to put the games. We're either going to see games scaled back so they are more consumer friendly as downloadable titles or if we continue to get the same games we are now, they're going to be storage hungry monsters that will eat up every byte of hard disk space they can get their teeth into. I've got a 500gb hard drive installed in my PS3 and I've used up around 300Gb of that and that's just from installed game data and titles I've downloaded from the store (DC Universe Online uses 25gb on its own!). Sooner or later I'm going to run out of space so that will mean either no more PSN games or I'll have to buy another hard drive and then go through the whole process of downloading everything again and with the 5 download limit, sooner or later I'm going to be in trouble...

[thevulture]

Not reading through 33 pages here, but in brief:
1)It's the staff i feel sorry for-prospect of being made unemployed due to no fault of your own, is an awful thing, no matter what your form of employment.

2)Talk of lack of competition when GAME is gone:errr this IS same GAME which was buying (cheaper) 3DS units from Tesco and selling them in their stores as pre-owned? thus removing competing and cheaper units from the market?, the Same GAME around a month after GAME's acquisition of its only serious UK rival, the Office of Fair Trading announced that it was considering whether or not the deal presented a contravention of its regulations against business monopolies.

And 3)No-one i know uses high street specialist retailers to buy from, nor has done for years.It's either:Amazon/Play, Supermarket or Piracy.GAME going under will change none of that.

[thevulture]

Like it or not (and i'm NOT keen on the idea) we have to face reality:A Digital, download only future is what we face, may be 10+ years away, but it's coming.Developers/publishers want it, David Braben again gone on record saying how used/2nd hand sales 'harm' the industry.These online passes etc only the start.

How many Game file for Admin.threads are currently active on here? 3?.

[simes]

Download only will only become truly practical if a) publishers remove download limitations so there isn't a restriction on the number of times a game can be downloaded or on multiple systems b) we have faster connection speeds so games can be delivered to customers quicker (DC Universe took me a DAY to download) c) there are larger storage devices that can cope with customers owning potentially hundreds of large games and that d) there is an assurance that games bought will still be available for a lengthy period of time after purchase.

If I pay £30-£40 plus for a game, I expect to be able to play that game in 6 months, 12 months or a couple of years time if I wish, whether I need to replace my console or not and I don't think that is an unreasonable thing to ask. I have Commodore 64 games dating back almost 30 years and my wife and daughter were enjoying playing these last night but it wasn't on my original C64 or even the second C64 I owned. Can the same be said about other consoles in the future if a move to digital only takes place or even for the current or next generation? I bought a lot of games digitally for the PC from Reflexive Arcade and once they stopped selling games and I had a problem with one of my PCs I lost all of those as well and wasn't able to get new activation codes from them - a few hundred pounds down the drain which I can't get back but if I had physical copies I'd still have the games now.

To be honest, publishers are looking to drive this forward to eliminate piracy as much as possible and maximise their profit margin on every game sold at the expense of the experience for the gamer.

[crusto]

Download only will only become truly practical if a) publishers remove download limitations so there isn't a restriction on the number of times a game can be downloaded or on multiple systems b) we have faster connection speeds so games can be delivered to customers quicker (DC Universe took me a DAY to download) c) there are larger storage devices that can cope with customers owning potentially hundreds of large games and that d) there is an assurance that games bought will still be available for a lengthy period of time after purchase.

If I pay £30-£40 plus for a game, I expect to be able to play that game in 6 months, 12 months or a couple of years time if I wish, whether I need to replace my console or not and I don't think that is an unreasonable thing to ask. I have Commodore 64 games dating back almost 30 years and my wife and daughter were enjoying playing these last night but it wasn't on my original C64 or even the second C64 I owned. Can the same be said about other consoles in the future if a move to digital only takes place or even for the current or next generation? I bought a lot of games digitally for the PC from Reflexive Arcade and once they stopped selling games and I had a problem with one of my PCs I lost all of those as well and wasn't able to get new activation codes from them - a few hundred pounds down the drain which I can't get back but if I had physical copies I'd still have the games now.

To be honest, publishers are looking to drive this forward to eliminate piracy as much as possible and maximise their profit margin on every game sold at the expense of the experience for the gamer.

In a nutshell, theres nothing in it for us. And thats what I dont like. Its all about the dough.

[FatTrucker]

Re: storage issues, this has by and large already been solved with the movement toward cloud type solutions, as with hard copies of software, in future there will be less and less requirement for local hardware storage.

Regarding authorised devices, most services that work this way already support a limited number of authorised devices per account, however when adding a new device you simply have to deauthorise an old one.

They really have got all the bases covered and all the infrastructure in place for a future based on digitally owned content where they, sell, store, and retain all of it, with users ability to access it determined by an account.
Virtually pirate proof, no onward secondhand market and they have complete control over what you can buy, how much it costs and how long it's avaialble (and still usable) for.

This gen could realistically represent the last generation of consoles for which there will be secondhand market.

[DPrinny]

Well at least we have Gringer games.

Reckon we should all leave flowers at our local game store as its a sad death

[thevulture]

Likes of MS, Sony etc have invested money in online for 1 thing and 1 thing only-To make money.During the London riots, Sony had a warehouse full of physical stock (DVD's etc) get burnt to component atoms, sure they'd love to see physical media be replaced sooner rather than later.MS, when HD DVD died/lost to Blu ray-Not fussed, they saw downloading of HD films as the future, nothing's changed since then.

Todays budget? lot of claims about bringing ultrafast broadband to 10 cities in UK and increasing speeds in rural areas and improving mobile broadband etc-lot of work to be done yet, but digital is where the investment seems to be going.

[Matt_B]

Re the nintendo store, I would have thought the opposite tbh. I could just imagine the look on my nippers face when he encounters the 'nintendo' store for the first time on a random visit to the Bull Ring.

What about when you get home and realise that all the games are download only? Nintendo are way behind Sony and Microsoft in that department, yet have the biggest casual/family userbase by far. Convincing them all to suddenly go the download only route might take another generation or two.

Tbh I forgot about that bit . I just automatically pictured a ninty store full of games/machines/merchandise etc. This is why im so against download only, as I just cannot imagine a console/computer without physical software, its just not right. Both maybe - at a push. But download only, no way jose.

Well, you could still have a store full of consoles, umpteen controllers that can only be used with one game each, plush Kirbys, Mario hats, Zelda T-shirts, etc.

There could still be games in boxes too. However rather than media you'd just get a token inside them that'll let you start downloading a game when you wave it in-front of the stereoscopic motion-sensing camera on your machine at home. On the whole I'd probably just download stuff though.