Reeves: Disc-based delivery system will fall

  • Posted June 22nd, 2008 at 13:42 EDT by Eric Blattberg
  • 84 Comments

We've heard rumblings within the industry regarding the future format of video games, but Sony has generally stayed true to the sentiment that Blu-ray is the (foreseeable) future -- until now. SCEE president David Reeves spoke up at a developer conference in London and asserted that the future lies in the PlayStation Network.

"The key to the future is the PlayStation Network. Games put straight onto PSN are the big opportunity," Reeves commented. "We do believe that the disc-based delivery system will fall as the power of the network base rises. At the same time, the overall industry growth will continue to go upwards as we push out into emerging markets. What we don’t see is an overall decline in the market. This is a golden era of video games."

While we tend to agree, it's not a matter of 'if' as much as 'when.' Blu-ray won't be disappearing during this generation, and it'll probably make a return (albeit a majorly enhanced one) for the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation Network has been a surprising success to say the least though, with over 40% of PS3 users downloading games directly to their hard drives, bypassing brick and mortal outlets. What do you think? When will we drop physical formats? Leave your comments below.

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Comments

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What are your thoughts?

  1. swanky2167 | Sanguinary

    • 1:48pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 1

    I think there will be a large population of movie buyers that will insist on their movies being disc based, if not for the notion of actually "owning" something physically, but for the advantages that such a large disc capacity like blu-ray has in offering 1080p and 7.1 surround sound, that digital downloads cannot offer.  Not until HDD's well over one TF and download speeds become more acceptable.

  2. yamatoEX3 | Ultra_Beatdown

    • 1:50pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 2

    Lol if PSN is the key how did SCEE fail to upload MGS4 database which already add different language's

  3. Cesarcsrf | Cesarcsrf

    • 1:57pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 3

    naa some country don't have unlimeted download limit.. yet

  4. encryptioncsta | csta

    • 2:03pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 4

    its impossible to have j downloadable movies for the future mean wht R sony and microsoft gona realese a 1000TB HDD for really cheap plus there will always b a limit!!! plus not like like download speeds R increasing by much  seriously mabe in 20 years time!

  5. HeadHunter | h3ad0rZ

    • 2:03pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 5

    Of course if  technology will make possible ultra high speed broadband connections home, then it will be easier to download game than go and buy disc.

  6. meatee | meateetj

    • 2:03pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 6

    Maybe this will be true in a couple generations, but right now I'm looking at my 80GB drive and it has only a little over 20GB left, and I've had this thing for less than a year. I bought both Warhawk and GT5: Prologue on Blu-Ray specifically so I didn't have to fill up my hard drive AND I can take the games to a friend's house without having to lug my system along. So, for those 2 reasons I don't see downloads taking over for full-size games. Small $10 games I'm cool with, but not for full-size games.

  7. InfernoReaper | GrimDarkling

    • 2:03pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 7

    @ encryptioncsta: 1000 Terabyte hard drive is 1 Petabyte.  And internet speeds are much higher than you think.  ISPs aren't giving customers options for the higher speeds because they aren't marketable yet.  If the market needs 50MBps, they will sell 50MBps.  Until then, they just don't want to pay the cost of extra bandwidth.

    ---

    As long as the base hard drives stay under 1TB, we won't be seeing many games sold online.  He!!, a 1TB hard drive can only hold 20 full-sized Blu-rays.  I'm willing to pay a little extra to get a hard copy of my game.

     

    ISPs already want to make download caps, so how would distributing games, or anything else, digitally be any help?

  8. HeadHunter | h3ad0rZ

    • 2:08pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 8

    We are talking 'bout future. If that will happen, PS4 will have like 1-2TB hard drive from start.

  9. KH3Owns | CantTouchThis__

    • 2:08pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 9

    Go Sony w00t!

     

  10. Punisher99

    • 2:12pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 10

    My question is. Who on this planet wants to downlaod a 25 or 50 gb file? When it already takes 2 hours for a 1 gb file.

  11. ice-_-cream | HU-_-FLUNG-_-PU

    • 2:21pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 11

    meatee did ya know gt5p bd vr is 5.6.gb when the download is only 1.5 get you shiz right dude lamo ya dont know ya stuff

  12. CHRISBOSH | tatti

    • 2:22pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 12

    PSN ID: tatti

    It will eventually fall, but as of right now not even close.

  13. Xdeth | Xdeth

    • 2:24pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 13

    @ 10 I couldn't agree more

    ISP's are already starting to put caps and limits *cough* (time warner) on bandwith. We don't have the nearly the speeds that other countries have. While PSN is on the right track of letting you re-download the thigns that you have bought or previous dled, It will be sometime before we have the network capacity to bring this movement into full swing. I would still much rather pay more and have a physical copy of my game.

  14. Alpha2

    • 2:28pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 14

    We'll drop physical media when HE|| FREEZES OVER.

  15. hyperslug | hyperslug

    • 2:31pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 15

    I'm ready for 5 gb game downloads. I would love to see more "big"  games on PSN like Warhawk and Gran Turismo. Also i want ps2 games soon...

    Also digital distribution is a great way to offload the envoirment a bit :-)

  16. Anduril

    • 2:31pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 16

    40%... it's low :/

  17. psycho_mantis | makaveli_71

    • 2:35pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 17

    they will be on microchips.

  18. qman89 | MyNameIsBetty305

    • 2:37pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 18

     whats going to suck is that when a popular game comes out the download is going to be mega slow. who wants to wait to download motorstorm 5 for 4 or 5 hours... but if i could just go to my local game shop i could have been playing it by now... i remember when the HS demo first came out it took me 10 hours tho download i was like what the heck all that for a 10 minute demo? 

  19. bloodwarg | bloodwarg

    • 2:37pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 19

    nonononono better not happen as youd be buying games and then having to delete to make up the room on your hard drive so it just wouldnt work unless they have us an unbelieveable amount of space and by doing that the base cost would sky rocket meaning nobody would be able to afford. so this better not happen.

  20. edward_moffet | edd

    • 2:43pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 20

     services like psn will become more popular but physical formats will never be dropped you cant download a 50gb game reeves statement was really stupid and illogical considering they own the defining disc format  also i wouldnt trust having movies and games ive paid for just on a hdd that could screw up then what? my whole library gets erased? i really dont think reeves knows what he is talking about lol of course digital distribution will become more and more popular but it will never i repeat NEVER replace physical mediums

  21. G00ber1993

    • 2:44pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 21

     it sounds like a good idea but  without tera bites of hard drive space no one will be able to have the option of unlimeted downloads and if they start doing this the price of games should go down do to the fact that there is no more packaging fees for sony   

     

  22. MrMadJ | Mad J

    • 2:45pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 22

    I love downloading games. I don't have to swap discs when switching games and with my 100 mbps download speed it doesn't take that long(that is if sony's server would speed up a bit, fastest i got till now was 50mbps which still isn't bad about 6,2MB/s). Movies i will never download I like watching a movie the old fashion way on a disc.

  23. BigC3 | BigC3

    • 2:47pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 23

    I do like to have tangeable goods, as if ur hard disk accidentally gets formatted (*Looks suspiciously at brother*)and ur account gets cancelled, then at least u have a copy of the £20 game in ur hand!

    Also, I have about 10 gigs left from a 60gb console, saving that space for Home(when it comes) and music, so big downloads won't leave wee people like me with a gig left for leisure, unless u buy an external HDD, like me, but u cant save games onto those though....

    Please stay with the disk!

  24. Paranoimia | Paranoimia

    • 2:47pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 24

    The public won't fully accept downloadable media of any kind until DRM is modified to allow a person who has paid for something to download it as many times as they like.

     

    PSN currently allows you to download something upto 5 times. But if you've paid for something, you should be able to download it as many times as you like. Over the years, things like equipment failure/upgrades could well mean that you end up needing to download things far more than that, and at the moment, you will be paying for things more than once.

     

    Since there's no middle-man to pay off, and no physical media, the public will also expect prices to be significantly lower.

     

    With similar price levels and restrictive DRM, the various systems currently in place are little more than a method of squeezing yet more money from the consumer. As things stand, give me physical media any day.

  25. smokeondavidp69 | smokeon

    • 2:47pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 25

    i have a 60gb i own 42 games on disc and 20 blue ray movies about 9000 mp3 songs 10 videos no demos 55 themes and only have 14gb left. i've had my ps3 for a year and a half.i wished i knew were i could get a 1tb hard drive so i could keep my ps3 going for two more years.

  26. Agnostic

    • 2:49pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 26

    Saying disc based delivery will fall in the future is common sense. I will be dead and gone before this happens.

  27. omegamaximus | omegamaximus

    • 2:51pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 27

     Dont forget businesses like CEX in the UK rely strongly on pre-owned game sales to survive. Cutting them off is potentially killing their business and alot of customers who cannot afford full priced games.

  28. 1solidsnake | solid1snake67

    • 2:54pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 28

    most people like me live to far out yet to have highspeed internet in ther home and are using an aircard or dial up. i doubt that this will happen anytime soon. but, it will be nice to be able to download a game ad not having game boxes and discs just lying around.     maybe in the near future when everyone has highspeed internet available to them. then we will stop hving to go to stores who don't like the ps3 and only like xbox.   this might end the retail stores like eb games and gamestop.

  29. Eric2929 | Eric2929

    • 2:55pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 29

    @15 - You'll like WipEout HD and the just released Fatal Inertia EX then. Don't forget SOCOM: Confrontation either.

     

    @22 - That's funny, I prefer it in reverse. I like having hard copies of my games while I love watching movies on demand.

  30. VEGAZ5

    • 3:06pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 30

    i gots to have my movies & games physically in my hands !!!

  31. Link64 | Link64

    • 3:09pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 31

    M$$ was right... the future is digital download but when?. i seen sony already prepared themselves with big games such as Warhawk, SOCOM configurations, GT5 prologue & others mayor AAA title that will soon be digital download as well.

  32. markwesker

    • 3:09pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 32

    Noway,disk format is gonna be around a long time,people just have no where near the broadband speeds to download hd games up to 50gb n probly more in the future n dont have the hard drives and after all that i would prefer to have the hard copy of the game or film just in case ya comp gets a virus or stolen etc. small fun games like thay have on the psn store will defo get more popular

  33. hawkster3269 | BlackHawk5132

    • 3:28pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 33

    i dont see this happening anytime soon...and it has nothing to do with download speeds...but like "meatee" said, sometimes u wanna take a game to your friends house and not your system...plus they dont make that many very large 2.5" hard drives right now so it would be a little rediculous to switch over...plus i have a 40 gb PS3 and im not gonna switch completely to digital unless sony sends me a huge hard drive for free...

  34. zombieking36

    • 3:35pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 34

    At the end of Assassin's Creed there are e-mails you can look at and one says that the last movie studio closed  down... I think this is coming, and games will take over! Especially if we have it where we can download AND use discs like we can do with movies.

  35. jphuff | jhuff

    • 3:41pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 35

     Maybe in 5-10 years...more like 10 I think.  HD movies would take WAY too much bandwidth for current technology and a recent US study showed only 30 percent of US households even HAD broadband.  Until it's way more widespread and a consistent say....gigabit ethernet speed, I don't see digital taking over media.  That and the habit of people owning media for their movies is pretty hard to overcome.  I think it will take a media other than hard drives to make people feel it's reliable.  Maybe when movies, etc, come on some type of flash-ROM card.  That would give people media in their hands and make digital distribution possible.  Just stick in a blank...order your movie and voila!  you have a movie on your card now.

     

    Still at least 5-10 years away...

  36. Motoken

    • 3:46pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 36

    ok, when? when we have USB drives that can speedly store 1tb of data, so that games can be taken to friends or parties etc. and when we can have massive HDDs (somewhere between 500Tb to 1Pb) in our system and atleast everyone has to have 100Mb/s internet speeds.  maybie in 20-30 years this might happen.

    MAYBIE!!!  I doubt it tho, too much cost for companies and consumers when physical media is alread avalible

    also you have to take into account that we are not going to stay with 1080p forever, higher definition content will require more space and demand more layers from a blu-ray and would solidify the need for physical midia.

  37. H3LiX

    • 4:04pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 37

    Ah this 'ol chestnut. We're talking more than a few years for gigital delivery will become the norm for both games and films. Many of the comments here make sense. Internet service providers are nowhere near capable of handling the requirements of such a service (especially the UK).

  38. Godzeela | Godzeela

    • 4:18pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 38

    does anybody realize how long this would take?

    and how much would the price of the system go up for a harddrive that would be able to hold a 2 or 3 games? considering most games on blue ray are about 25 gigs...

    i dont think id want to be able to only have 1 or 2 games at a time....

    i dont think that this is even seemingly logical for even the next few generations

  39. MrGunhappy

    • 4:19pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 39

    It'll be a while before this happens, because some people don't have internet or fast connections, because I don't want to wait everytime I get a game, and I have the fastest internet.

  40. shero

    • 4:21pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 40

    It's about them (Sony) making the bigger games (MGS4, Resistance 2) available over PSN. Unless that happens, hypothetical advantages/disadvantages of the Blu-Ray over direct downloads cannot be made. Make them available, then talk competition. Tangible discs, in my humble opinion, will remain for only a couple more years. At least they shouldn't last longer than that. Float all information in cyberspace. Put codes on it. Codecs. Loadex. WebOS.

  41. ohshutyourmouth | ohshutyourmouth

    • 4:35pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 41

    I think digital distribution is gay.... I like physicalness

  42. nastanley

    • 4:55pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 42

    I don't buyt this.Games should always be released on physical media.As some people have rightly stated in their posts, not all countries have unlimited download speeds and when popular games are released it will be difficult to download them since the servers will need to handle so many connections at a time.

  43. xVxSMOKExVx

    • 4:58pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 43

    If this were to happen which I don't think it will.  It would suck haveing all your movies and games a few clicks away from being deleted.

  44. Staticneuron | Staticneuron

    • 4:59pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 44

    I doubt this very much. People are talking about a future that is out of reach. Maybe next generation if things become more accessable to consumers but now it really doesn't look to be that way at all.

  45. AwRy108 | AwRy108

    • 5:27pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 45

    Technology is all about using tools and engineering to make every-day tasks simpler, so until broadband speeds in the US are fast enough to make large downloads take a matter of seconds, physical media isn't going anywhere.  Period.

  46. DINAMO788 | DINAMO788

    • 5:27pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 46

    i really like the physical formats. its tangeable and exciting when you buy a new game and open up the shrink wrap for the first time.

     

    plus if you ever need to rransfer it form household ot household you can.

  47. gingo | gingo

    • 5:32pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 47

    psn id: gingo.... i must confess i really like having the actual disk to show off as a collection rather than having games on a hard drive but eventually downloading games and media will be the norm but not for a good few years

  48. Denali2 | NEJI64

    • 5:39pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 48

    aye believe it or not he may be right. if this was the 60's and he said you will be able to talk to somebody around the world and send files all on a pocket size device while going to work ppl would be saying the same thing it cant be done. our generation is just the foundation there probably working on this as we speak. they might be working on the next type of dvd  

  49. Girugamesh | Shidousha

    • 5:54pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 49

    Everyone else has already said it. Digital distribution won't be the way to go for quite some time. I actually think it won't be our source until the Playstation 5 or 6 generations, and even then, it won't be our full source. Hmm, everyone complaining about a 4Gb install? LOL. Have fun convincing them they have to download 15Gb movies from now on if they want to watch their favorite film. Or actually have to download the entire game. LOL MGS5 got released today, I'm downloading it right now! Only 75Gb left to go!

  50. ladellb

    • 6:32pm BST - June 22nd, 2008
    • 50

    Unless their planning to sell big titles for $20 for download only, forget it. That won't happend because production is too exspensive. I would not pay $60 for a digital only game. Having a actual box with instructions is part of what we're paying for. The other problem is huge file size. It would take forever on a high-speed connection, which a lot of people in different countries still don't have. His comment must be referring to 8-10 years from now.

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