XBone, how have thee changed over the months. Microsoft had tried, without much understanding from gamers, to curb down on used ga!es and shift focus onto its online store. Why has it failed while Steam has succeeded? Why didn't Microsoft, or any other online distributors for that matter, learn anything from Steam?
If Microsoft or Sony wants people to be invested in their online store, deep discounts for older games !might be the way to go. Once people start to buy their first game, they are more likely to commit. Of course, the store must be able to advertise such sales well. I have no idea if Microsoft does that, but Sony's Plus system with free games is actually getting people into their ecosystem. I started buying games on PSN because of that, and on GoG because of free games as well.
But an issue with Sony's store is the extremely slow download rate. If your infrastructure is poor, it's not going to be pleasant experience, and people are going to be turned off. And the consoles should be designed with that in mind. Considering we're in the 'next gen' now, I'm surprised the hard disk drives are only 500gb. If you're expecting people to buy and download games, especially now that games are expected to be a lot larger, did you think that would be enough?
If console makers are hoping that digital sales might be the answer to used games, this might be their chance to get people in. That already made a mistake with their launch consult hard drive size, but hopefully they can make good changes to their online stores and future editions to their consoles so by the time the next generation rolls out, gamers will be less resistant to the changes. But, always, always leave the choice for disk based used games for gamers.
No comments:
Post a Comment