RSSMicrosoft's 'One More Thing:' Full game downloads
By Tim Conneally | Published June 1, 2009, 4:44 PM
After two hours of exclusive game premiers and announcements regarding Microsoft's Xbox Live platform, Microsoft pulled its own version of Apple's trademark "One More Thing" announcement, or the footnote that trumps the entire presentation.
In August, Xbox Live subscribers will be able to buy and download full Xbox 360 titles with real money (not Xbox 360 points). The service will premiere with 30 games to start with and will add new titles weekly that will coincide with retail release. Unlike Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare, these will be "disc-sized" games, and not games designed specifically for download.
Sony's PlayStation Network has a couple of titles which were released online and on disc simultaneously, but it has not been a breakthrough method of delivery for Sony yet. However, with the UMD-less PSP en route, the PlayStation Network offers a number of formerly PSP disc-only titles as downloads.
In Microsoft's preview today, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, and Lego Star Wars were shown as some of the first titles to be available for download.
So where does MS expect you to *store* these downloaded games? Are they going to remove the stupid restriction on storing downloaded content to external USB hard drives? Are they going to make the official XBOX 360 hard drive cheaper (I mean, really, $150-180 for a 120 GB hard drive that's nothing more than a laptop SATA drive in a special case? That's ridiculous when I can buy a 3.5" 1 TB drive for less money.) There's no technical reason you couldn't use any USB-connected storage device, just like there's no technical reason you can't use just about any Bluetooth headset or controller with the 360. It's all MS restricting hardware to what you purchase from them, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't mark it up so ridiculously.
Score: -1
|I know this is not a big news for american gamers but in eastern Europe xbox360 games cost 110$ (not a joke), And they come late if not at all. It's one of the main reason for high rate of piracy. Other is that microsoft does not support my country and those damn xboxes die easily.
So if I have to pay for a game same price as rest of the world, that's 50$, that a big deal. I was hoping they will buy steam and bring this to consoles.
I guess dreams do come true.
Score: 0
|I was expecting XBLA for PC with free arcade games every Wednesday.
Score: 0
|Tiered internet + all this HD content + full game downloads is going to make all the ISPs absolutely giddy!
Score: 0
|I'm fairly certain that full game downloads have existed for many years now.
Score: 0
|For PC's yes, for Consoles it's pretty rare. Final Fantasy 11 for PS2 would probably be one of the first.
Score: 1
|Are they going to add a burner to these things or are you limited to 5-6 games you can download plus all the videos you bought? After that the drive will be full.
Score: 1
|I like having a physical disc to loan out, plus you can rip any game to the HDD for fast load times. You still need the original disc in the drive for confirmation that you actually own the game, but it's about five times faster.
Score: 0
|"You still need the original disc in the drive for confirmation that you actually own the game, but it's about five times faster."
gamecopyworld.com
:D
I hated having to have my discs available all the time. Most of the time now, I just find a NO-CD "crack" for the game so I can store the discs. Much less clutter that way.
"I like having a physical disc to loan out"
-.-
Score: 0
|NO-CD cracks from GCW are great and all for PC, but they don't apply to the 360 game ripping rules that he speaks of.
Score: 0
|Meh..
Someone else mentioned PC, I confused the two posts (BetaNews Postmeld, it's a neat trick, really...). :p
Either way... Probably why the last console I bought was a PS2. I'd like a Wii, but...clutter. *shudders*
Score: 0
|"these will be "disc-sized" games, and not games designed specifically for download."
eh? Well I imagine you're gonna have to download +5GB either way. Microsoft will probably use some decent compression that will make the burden a little smaller, I hope it won't add too much time to the install process... those usually can take a while on a console
Score: 0
|"I hope it won't add too much time to the install process... those usually can take a while on a console"
Maybe...but most of that will probably be happening in the background so you can do other things while you wait.
Score: 0
|If they do the full game downloads the same as arcade games, then they are pretty much ready to play when downloaded. PS3 was the first time I saw an install process on a downloaded game.
Score: 0
|