A question about the future

[Ryoko]

The industry wants a download only future, they want to cut out the shops and sell direct via downloads (think Xbox market place, Wiiware, PSN Store, Steam etc). Bobby no mates at Activision is all ready stating his intentions to charge subscription fees for COD online, Codemasters and THQ have been muttering about selling half price, half games and selling you the rest online as DLC (Down Loadable Content).

Now I was wondering if all you technically inept, gamingly ignorant people who ask questions on here (no offence but you know it's true) and own Wii's and think about buying Kinect and stuff, would bother buying say Wii 2 if you had to download all the games from an online service?.

Because I personally get the feeling the industry will have to split in two one for the casuals selling in shops and one for the gamers selling online, which I don't think (hope) will happen so the casuals may be the ones to save traditional gaming.

I think more people are coming round to the idea of buying online (eg. itunes) and it's not such a leap from that to games.

I don't think the industry will split, I think it will become more download heavy for both casual and hardcore gamers, but I can't see there being a split between the two types.

More likely is that it will follow the music industry, there will be less game only stores, supermarkets will take up the slack, and the only game only stores left will stock older games and limited editions. So it will actually be the hardcore gamers buying hard copies (and downloads) while the casuals will go for the convenience of downloads.

It'll be a while coming though, seeing as stores still get to dictate release dates to a degree. Part of why we always get games later over here, I'd personally love the emphasis to be moved to downloadable, then maybe we'd get games the same time as the rest of the world.