Foltzie
Uncle Muji
- Pronouns
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What is shocking to me is that Sony and Microsoft seem to be signaling that the physical market is not just dwindling, but an albatross support wise.This is a sound argument, but the real issue lies in the long term. What happens when a system's respective storefront shuts down permanently? We've already seen examples with the Wii Shop, PSN, and the upcoming 360 store. We have no guarantee that these current storefronts will stick around for years to come. Perhaps this all-digital future will ensure that they don't shutdown after a decade and they stick around and form an ecosystem that transcends console generations. Until that becomes a guaranteed reality, I wouldn't put too stick to digital only, regardless of how enticing it may be.
At least there's still a market for physical and I don't see that going away anytime soon.
Which if that's what the data shows, so be it; however, I wonder what their retail relationship will be once they have units w/o disk drives as the only devices on shelves. Today Microsoft and Sony enjoy about 16 to 24 feet of retail space for games in big box retailers and another 8 to 12 for consoles and accessories. Do Sony and Microsoft provide retailers with enough margin on hardware/accessories to keep stocking consoles w/o games? Sony doesn't offer game cards at all and today Microsofts game cards fit in 4 feet of space.
They can and do of course offer their own storefronts, but is that sufficient?