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Lots of TL;DRs coming our way, UD. Still a great conversation, though. Anyone who has the time should definitely read

Haha, good stuff, Swiv.

I think that the Steam platform is a good concept for our future, as in the end it's all about the space, providing that we can continue making HHDs smaller and smaller. Collecting does have a valid argument, though, past the sentimental value, in its ability to serve as a back-up, especially if said console were to be discontinued. I think a good way to compare this to would be the state of the music industry: physical CDs versus digital files (via iTunes, the Zune Marketplace, etc.). It's important to note, though, that at least they have some rudimentary sense of competition, and that may be a different story with video games being bought and downloaded on-console. It's all in the same digitalization argument of our world today... My three cents.

As far as sizes go, I found something pretty interesting:
http://www.unitysemi.com/index.html

Won't happen next gen, that's for sure. *MAYBE* after that, MAYBE, but unlikely. The size of games are growing at the same rate as the media. Rage, id's next game, will ship on TWO DVDs and the PS3 one will barely fit on a single Blue-Ray disk. Modern internet infrastructure is far too slow and bandwidth limited to handle ~20 GB downloads by millions of gamers. Next gen games will, of course, be even larger, further outpacing the capacity of the US's internet.

I expect to see digital distribution actually have a real place on next gen consoles, but no where near enough to upset the retail market.

As for PS2 emulators, that is because the PS2 has the most brain dead and retarded architecture of all time that doesn't make any damn sense. That is why it is hard to emulate and slow - not because of the raw speed of the console or anything like that. Emulating the XBox and XBox 360 are/will be considerably easier, as will the PS3.

Good sirs, I fear that although I am certain the above transcript of your conversation contains many useful and salient facts, it is with great regret that I declare it to be far above the threshold of my ability to concentrate at this particular juncture in my very tiring day, and it is with equal chagrin that I write to admit I did not read and examine your post to the full extent of which it is deserving.

Sounds like the sort of thing that's going to become a filter to replace instances of 'tl;dr'.

Then we can make a quote pyramid more epic than the I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new pyramid

I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new

I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new

I have to say that downloading (and paying for) something digital is not as pleasing as purchasing something physical from the store. I've found this to be true with iTunes versus getting a CD; despite CDs being slightly cheaper on iTunes, it's still more fun to actually get a physical CD for your money (I intend to by physical CDs for all future purposes).

Also, I don't like the idea of adding the requirement of having a good internet connection into a gaming system to enjoy the games because good internet connections are expensive and very difficult to come by for many people. It's just another piece that could potentially fail and make your experience less enjoyable.

As for the issue of storage, as long as hard drives keep getting bigger and faster, games will continue to do so as well, so I doubt you will ever be able to store more than about 200 games on a hard drive that is (at the time) top of the line.

For the positive side, this would help with organization as in the difficulty in finding the particular game you want to play. It would also avoid the problem of scratching DVDs and the like.

The day games are downloads rather than physical copies will be the day I stop gaming. I don't trust current methods of data storage enough to keep, entirely, a 60$ game on.

Though, I'd be willing to keep games on my HDD if the games were available for download on the website (or if I were able to burn the game to a disc) and all I had to keep safe was the product key. I commonly remove games and programs from my computer so I have more space for my photos.

As I mentioned before, the Steam platform is very successful right now and continues to grow and support more and more significant mainstream games. Some games are released on the Steam platform then other platforms.

Hell, I own a Steam account with 25+ games on it. I have put more money in to Steam games then any other platform. It really is very convenient, and although you don't have the physical game, the game is always on your account and internet is not required to play the game (unless its multiplayer only of course), only to download it.

It's quite convenient, because your collection of games go wherever you go, and the prices are get significantly cheaper


And the platform itself is a free and small download.

So you want something like the Adobe solution, or do you want even more.

Note: The Adobe solution I am referring to is the once you purchase it for download you can re download it for up to 3 years. I think you might not even need to keep the product key for that, I think that all you need is your Adobe account info.

That's the exact same with Steam. But, if you need to keep the product id / serial number for a game all you have to do is right click on it and click "Show Serial Number". If you need to enter the game to input the serial number, it leaves it in the bottom right corner of the screen while fullscreen until you press Shift+Tab to hide it.

Not to mention iTunes quality is crap compared to a CD. I don't get why anyone would pay for MP3s that cost as much as a CD given the quality difference, just ridiculous.

Lost Odyssey is on 4 DVD-DL disks (and it's seriously f***ing long, but amazing).



CD rip -> FLAC FTW!

Uh, all 360 games have been on DVD-DL disks. That said, only 7 GB is available, meaning that those 4 disks add up to 28 GB. I'm reasonably sure that the disks have at least SOME duplicated data, so that comes out to about a single layer Blue-Ray disk

I haven't played Lost Odyssey yet. I really haven't been playing much games at all lately.

*bump*

http://bit.ly/A40PA

Stuff you get on iTunes is mp4.