Posted by Doug Jacobs on 04/18/07 20:16

Derek Janssen <ejanss@comcast.net> wrote:

> Also, I'm not laughing as much about that "conspiracy theory" of MS and
> X-Box Live downloads:

> If Blu ever does come out on top and HD caves in, and Microsoft goes
> sour-grapes on hard-disk media, you *know* which company is going to
> make twice as much of a push on "Downloading is the future!", which half
> of the industry is already gullible enough to believe. (Everyone except
> the customers, who believe a viewer's DVD shelf is his castle--As
> Jerkboy says, "Equity, equity!")
> And X-Box Live is already pushing HD-movie downloads to become a
> second-place runner-up to Apple Movie Store's standard-def AppleTV MP4
> movies...

> ...Not that they're going to topple iPod overnight, but the *last* thing
> we need is to have a Download War which is in even LESS demand than the
> Hi-Def war.

Oh, I don't know. In the realm of PC gaming, download services are taking
bigger and bigger chunks out of retail sales. There's more than enough
room in the market for them to compete with one another. From the gamer's
point of view, he simply goes where the games are. Some titles from here,
some from there, etc. I've yet to hear about some PC gamer roaring "Steam
is teh r0xx0r!" while refusing to even look at Direct2Download or GameTap,
even at the expense of not being able to play the games offered there.

For the realm of video downloads, right now, the main services are locked
to a specific content provider and hardware platform. For instance, you
cannot use the Xbox 360 to access Sony's Marketplace and download content
from there. Personally, I think for this model to really succeed, the
content providers will have to lock in deals with existing hardware
vendors, like Tivo, who can provide the hardware for free (or almost free)
and then charge consumers for their use of the products.

As for downloads entirely replacing physical media....I don't know.

Certainly for rentals, I wouldn't mind a streaming 'on demand' or download
type service so long as the quality was good enough. But if it's a title I
like enough, I would like to own a physical copy of it in some manner. I
would LOVE the ability to rent PC games. Why even pay $20 for a title
I'll probably fiddle with for a few dozen hours and then never play
again? One of the problems facing people nowadys is clutter. It's too
easy to accumulate too much stuff.

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