| Hopefully this day will not come... Greed will kill the console.
This talk keeps recycling and every time it does the ISPs have an orgasm.
Doesn't anyone find it strange that as more and more content is offered online, more and more ISPs want by the byte billing and smaller bitcaps?
If this 'evolution' happens you can count on significantly higher game costs.
As it stands right now I pay $50 per month for a 14M line with 60gig cap. $1.50 per gig for overage.
Lets say a typical game is 5-10 gigs. That's an extra $7.50-15.00 per game, going directly to my ISP.
Also, lets factor in the resale (or lack thereof) market.
If you buy a game for $50, you can still probably get $20 trade in when you're done with it. Not so for a downloaded game.
Furthermore, typically downloaded games don't get discounted - wait 6-12 months, and the cost is usually just about the same as at launch. There's no push to unload stock to clear shelf space.
Finally, lets not forget the days before rentals. Not sure how many folks are old enough here to remember the days before movie and game rentals were mainstream (or how vehemently the industries fought to prevent renting).
We'll be forced to accept a demo (or worse, gameplay trailers) as the only pre-purchase info upon which to base our buying decisions.
Hopefully the PSPGo will serve as a deterrent to this model - not sure how many followed through, but I know a number of retailers were not going to stock the console (which has virtually zero profit margin) when they couldn't sell games for it (where the retailers actually make money).
This is simply a bad idea, and the gaming companies would be wise to nip it in the bud. |
