Downloadable games, they aren’t anything new, but they are certainly here to stay. One company in particular, Sony, seems determined to support and rely on downloadable games. They are releasing an entire portable system based around the entire concept of downloading games to store on the system, the PSP Go. There is no doubt that downloadable games will go away any time soon, even if the PSP Go fails. With a soon to be released PSP game becoming a PSN only title, and the download only release of Patapon 2, it’s clear that Sony is testing out the waters before jumping in.
I like downloading games, especially older games I no longer own; I don’t feel like spending the time (and extra money) to track them down, so I just download them for a cheap price. There have been plenty of fantastic downloadable games within the last few years (Braid, Castle Crashers, FLOWer, and The Maw to name a few), and soon we will be able to purchase full games for the normal price without any physical copy of the game. Sony has done it before as well, with their PS3 exclusive titles Warhawk and Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, both available for download as well as having hard copies available.
I’m someone who loves to actually own physical copies of games, although I’m growing more accustomed to downloading games. If I had a choice between downloading a game from the comfort of my own home, and going out to the store and buying an actual copy of the same game, I would definitely pick the latter. I am both curious and concerned about the future of downloadable games. I do want it to become a bigger presence in the game industry, but I don’t want it to become the only way to buy games. I have a feeling that some companies (if not all) may be heading down that road, even if it takes another five or ten years.
I can only hope that we can have both games available for purchase in stores, and for download. Sony said that games will still be released on UMD for owners of the original PSP, but all will also be available for download to be used on the PSP Go. Although I’m not a fan of the Go for a lot of reasons, it’s definitely an interesting system. Having so many games with you on such a small device, it’s the perfect portable gaming device (that is perfectly legal, anyway). Will the PSP Go be such a huge success that Sony will eliminate UMDs completely, practically forcing those who own the original system to “upgrade” to the Go? It’s doubtful, but possible.
And if it does turn out well for Sony, we may see it happening more with the PS3 as well. Although it might be more frowned upon due to how much space these games would take up on your hard drive. It’s not something that would probably begin to take affect until the next generation of consoles, if at all, but it’ll be here before you know it. Do you want to rely entirely on downloading games, or are you still going to hold true to buying physical copies of games?
Of course, we can’t forget Steam, Valve’s online service and store, which has had a ton of success since it’s original launch. People are able to download full PC games for the same basic price (sometimes even cheaper), and it seems to be something with the PC gaming market that has taken off and will continue to be successful. PC gaming is becoming a more download only market, and that is where I can see it being successful. Consoles are restricted by their own hardware and storage capacity limits, PCs are endlessly upgradable and can always be ready for the next big title to be downloaded right away. Not sure if it will play a part in the future of digital distribution of games, but it may have already been what sparked the interest in it.
I’d like to say that we can easy see this going one way or another, but so many things could happen that could prevent downloadable games to truly take off the way Sony clearly wants it to happen. And if does, it may just be portable games only, while console gaming sticks strictly with disc based media for their full priced games. No way to tell now, we just have to wait and see how the PSP Go does, and see where things are taken from there. It’ll be an interesting next few years, that is for sure.
