I understand that Microsoft wanted to move console gamers into the future (with digital games, cloud computing and piracy prevention) but the world doesn't want to feel restricted. MS took the wrong approach to this and could have done a much better job of presenting their ideas. What MS should have done is given the players options; for example; if they wanted to help prevent piracy and used games sales (instead of requiring an internet connection every 24 hours and hitting everyone with DRM restrictions) they should have made digital purchases more appealing to the consumer. With the digital copy of the game, consumers will be unable to resell it to a retailer and MS can be assured that the game was purchased (and not illegally obtained) via xbox live. So what benefits can be offered for purchasing a game online rather than buying it at a local store? Since developers usually finalize their games and send it for distribution about a month ahead of the release date, why can't developers offer their games ahead of the release date on xbox live? Providing players with the option to play their much-anticipated titles even a week before the stores are even able to release the game, will have some people choosing to purchase digitally. And what about those who don't mind waiting and would rather buy the game used to save a bit of cash? With the knowledge that a game won't be obtained illegally or resold to a retailer if it were purchased digitally, Microsoft can offer the digital download at a cheaper price than the physical copy of the game. With these two benefits in place, game offerings would start looking something like this (just an example): Call of Duty: Ghosts (at retail) Price: $59.99 Release Date: Nov 5 2013 Call of Duty: Ghosts (digital download) Price: $49.99 Release Date: Oct 29 2013 Battlefield 4 (at retail) Price: $59.99 Release Date: Oct 29 2013 Battlefield 4 (digital download) Price: $49.99 Release Date: Oct 22 2013 Offering these optional benefits to players would reel many people into a more digital console world; which would have been a much better approach than telling the world what they won't be able to do with the new console. I know that if I were offered these options, I would choose to download digitally almost all of the time.
The problem comes with retailers sales...$59.99 might be MSRP but 90% of the time, within a week a game is on sale for $45-50...now I can pay the same price or less for a physical copy over digital... Then holiday sales or other sales I can easily find deals of newly released games (a month or two old) for $30 or less...not only do they need to have lower prices on digital games...they need to be more aggressive with the sales and have more "Steam" like dealsÂ
the reason why I dont buy digital games is the price! I live in australia so we get ripped off when it comes to games any way... but the physical copies you can buy are normally much much cheaper than buying them online! they are still selling modern warfare 2 for $50AU and even games like crysis 3 they are trying to sell for $109AU now why on earth would micrsoft think I am going to buy that when I can probably go and pick up modern warfare 2 for about $20 in pysical format and hell crysis 3 less than half the price they are trying to sell it for!!!Â
the reason why I dont buy digital games is the price! I live in australia so we get ripped off when it comes to games any way... but the physical copies you can buy are normally much much cheaper than buying them online! they are still selling modern warfare 2 for $50AU and even games like crysis 3 they are trying to sell for $109AU now why on earth would micrsoft think I am going to buy that when I can probably go and pick up modern warfare 2 for about $20 in pysical format and hell crysis 3 less than half the price they are trying to sell it for!!!Â
adders99
I hear you man, same here, it's often cheaper buying a physical copy than not. The Last of Us being the exception.
The problem comes with retailers sales...$59.99 might be MSRP but 90% of the time, within a week a game is on sale for $45-50...now I can pay the same price or less for a physical copy over digital... Then holiday sales or other sales I can easily find deals of newly released games (a month or two old) for $30 or less...not only do they need to have lower prices on digital games...they need to be more aggressive with the sales and have more "Steam" like dealsÂ
Apocalypse324
I hear you there, MS needs to stay competitive with the physical copies of the game, and provide sales that you can only get through online downloads. I have seen a lot of sales for older games recently on xbox live (for digital downloads) and it's a good start, but they need more recent titles on sale as well.
the reason why I dont buy digital games is the price! I live in australia so we get ripped off when it comes to games any way... but the physical copies you can buy are normally much much cheaper than buying them online! they are still selling modern warfare 2 for $50AU and even games like crysis 3 they are trying to sell for $109AU now why on earth would micrsoft think I am going to buy that when I can probably go and pick up modern warfare 2 for about $20 in pysical format and hell crysis 3 less than half the price they are trying to sell it for!!!Â
adders99
Yeah, I don't understand why digital games cost as much (sometimes more) as their retail counterparts; it doesn't make sense. Do they think that having the convenience of downloading instead of purchasing justifies the price? MS needs to take this into the next level and give people a good reason to move toward digital downloads.
Its the retailers that are the spanner in the works here!
Ultimately what they say is 'If you are going to be selling the game online cheaper than we can sell it in store (and given the small margin we get) why should we bother stocking it never mind selling it' ... and well who can blame them.Â
It's the retailers who hold MS and SONY to account on this.
I would also like to point out that saying MS online would be like Steam is wrong ... in that ecosystem steam has it's rivals Origin from EA etc thats what makes it competitive. In the MS ecosystem there is no competitionÂ
Its the retailers that are the spanner in the works here!
Ultimately what they say is 'If you are going to be selling the game online cheaper than we can sell it in store (and given the small margin we get) why should we bother stocking it never mind selling it' ... and well who can blame them.Â
It's the retailers who hold MS and SONY to account on this.
I would also like to point out that saying MS online would be like Steam is wrong ... in that ecosystem steam has it's rivals Origin from EA etc thats what makes it competitive. In the MS ecosystem there is no competitionÂ
Anabub
Some retailers (such as Gamestop) have helped cause a negative impact in the video game industry by selling used games. The main idea here is to help reduce used game sales, while also offering the consumer a more favorable option by going digital. Everything has moved toward digital distribution, (music, movies, television, etc) it's only a matter of time before console games will follow. Retailers are going to have to adapt to it inevitably; they can offer digital currency cards (for those who don't want to use credit cards to purchase online games) while still selling physical copies of games to the millions who still don't have their consoles connected to the internet.
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