Sun, May 23, 2010 | 08:14 BST

Pachter: “No chance in hell” games will go download-only soon

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Speaking on the latest version of GameTrailers show Pach Attack, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said he thinks retail games going download-only won’t happen any time soon.

“No chance in hell,” said the analyst on the matter.

“We are not going to have a mandated download as long as we have any device that is not connected to the internet.

“With PCs you probably have around 95 percent of them connected to the internet. But with the Xbox 360 it’s probably two thirds, the PS3 it might be as high as 85 percent and the Wii, my guess, is below 50 but probably closer to 35%.

“So it’s all the guys who are not connected, the 35 percent of Xbox 360 owners and the 65 percent of Wii owners, that are going to keep games from being made mandated downloadable. If you mandate that you are going to eliminate all the customers that aren’t connected to the internet.”

Pachter also went onto say that he doesn’t see games going download-only until “90 percent of households have internet connectivity,” which is something that won’t happen until “at least 2020” according to the analyst.

You can watch Pachter’s full show here.

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7 comments

SunKing
23/05/10, 10:13 am

He’s right, in a sense. As long as there’s still a significant number of people who don’t have a decent broadband connection you won’t be getting every title being download-only. 2020 feels a bit pessimistic, though, but I’m sure Pachter has more info at his disposal than I do.

Moonwalker1982
23/05/10, 10:39 am

I hope he’s right, i don’t like the idea at all to download them and that’s it. I like to have my dvd cases with their books and things in it. When a great game is about to come out i want to look forward to finding the game in its case in my mailbox and not some message letting me know that i can download that particular game, no way!!!

Robo_1
23/05/10, 10:47 am

I think from next gen on (say 2012) we’ll be seeing duel releases as the norm, with maybe the consoles themselves actually being sold without a drive, but with the option to purchase one as an upgrade.

I think Patcher’s pretty much on the money with his 2020 guess.

cookiejar
23/05/10, 11:20 am

I agree with Robo, it’ll probably be a slow process overtime to roll full downloads out. Might not even work with some people, so I could always see two options. Disc and Download.

blackdreamhunk
23/05/10, 3:20 pm

the used game market and the rented game market will push publishers to DD and online.

poopoofruit
23/05/10, 4:54 pm

maybe games will have a options of downloading it or buying the disc like the psp does

xino
23/05/10, 8:42 pm

lol…hell:P

he is right on this one.
I know 2 people who are connected to the internet but not on consoles.