Topic: Full retail digital downloads coming to 360

[idolminds]

Story

Microsoft today announced that Xbox 360 titles will soon be available to purchase and download.

"We're launching full retail games on demand [this year]," said Microsoft general manager Mark Whitton. "We'll be launching this in August with a portfolio of about 30 titles. We'll be launching new titles every week."

Mass Effect, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2, Civilization Revolution, DiRT and Rainbow Six 2 are all titles that were confirmed for a digital release by way of a demonstration of the on-demand interface. The interface resembles the Xbox Originals store.

"You'll see these priced just like retail," said Whitton, who did not clarify whether there are plans for new releases to launch on the service alongside disc-based versions.

Hooray, full retail price with no box, manual, disc, or...wait for it...ability to sell later!

PS, better save up for those 360 harddrives.

[MysterD]

So, will 360's be coming with DVD burners, too...? 

I'm sure if someone's HD crashes, they might wanna NOT go through the process of re-DLing an entire game.

[Cobra951]

Get real, D.  The North Koreans will march South with olive branches and smiles before that happens.

Not surprising at all.  Bigger hard drives are a good idea already because of the NXE ability to install disc games to the HDD.  It's a full copy, with the disc needed in the drive only as a dongle.  It stops spinning entirely afterwards.  It works so well that it doesn't surprise me they had an eye on doing digital distribution.

You know it's going to fly too.  Typically lazy people won't see it as losing physical media as much as saving a trip to the store, and maybe not finding a copy of what they want.  What do you do if you're the only lemming trying to walk away from the cliff?  You'll either get dragged along, or you'll be very lonely.

[MysterD]

But Cobra, wouldn't you say that would be the logical thing to do for console gamers?
Who'd wanna sit all day, waiting to re-download a full copy of say GTA4?
PC version is around like 18 GB, if I recall -- I assume to console version must be around that, right?

The PC does -- allow you to have a DVD-burner and all.
And yes, we can back-up full games onto disc from Impulse and Steam legally.
I mean, all those two care about is if the game's tied to your account by the way ita DRM works.

Oh, I wouldn't want to imagine downloading a 36 GB game like say Age of Conan PC with today's download speeds -- which are quite fast, but not fast enough to keep up with that kind of HUGE-size of a game.

[angrykeebler]

MAN THIS IS BULLSHIT WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THIN-

oh

this is simply optional?

Move along. Nothing to see here.

[Cobra951]

It's optional initially.  Afterwards?  They already have the faithful converted to the idea of XBLA downloads with absolutely no resale value or portability under the user's control.  How long will it take to extend that mentality to all their games?

[Ghandi]

No surprise. This seems to be the general trend lately. It's not hard to see where things will be in 10 years or so.

[Quemaqua]

This is why D&D has more or less become my primary game.

[scottws]

Sounds like this "software as a service" idea from five years ago that I thought would never fly is arriving for real.

[gpw11]

I like the existence of the option in cases like this, but the idea of the implications horrifies me.