Tag Archives: digital distribution

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said that 3DS is the next step in the company’s digital distribution plan.

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NPD has revealed that US consumers spent around $4.5 to $4.75 billion on “used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital download games, DLC, and mobile apps” in 2009.

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The weekend is here, and per usual there are loads of digital download sales across the net.

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Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens has revealed that due to Reliance Big Entertainment’s 50 percent stake in the firm, it can now focus more the digital end of the company and become a contender for larger publishing and development  houses.

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Due to some job postings over on Amazon, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian believes the online retailer is planning to expand it’s online digital game download service to be a bit more like Steam’s.

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According to a new Strategy Analytics report, global software revenues are expected to grow from $46.5 billion in 2009 to $64.9 billion by the end of 2013.

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Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has predicted that packaged games will maintain flatness in 2010 while the industry as a whole will show growth of 6 percent.

Wilson claims this is partly due to a 34 percent surge in digital sales.

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Sony’s Peter Dille has told IGN that the company’s “actively thinking” about charging customers for its PSN service.

Furthermore, he also revealed that Sony plans to offer fewer titles via download only, partly to help out retail stores.

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1C’s international publishing director, Darryl Still, has said that due to retail “failing to support” boxed PC games, publishers will go the digital format only route by 2011.

Still claims that retail stores show disdain for PC titles by refusing to stock certain titles, and by pushing PC merchandise “to the back of the store”.

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Stardock’s Impulse service has quite a few games on sale this weekend, including Braid for 50 percent off the regular price.

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Activision’s Andrew Brown has quizzed Microsoft’s Neil Thompson, Sony’s Ray Maguire and Nintendo’s David Yarnton over on MCV on when digitally distributed titles will overtake boxed products.

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Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has said that the games industry must be prepared for the eventual switch to digital distribution and streaming services as consoles games “won’t exist” someday.

“In ten years’ time a lot of what we call ‘console games’ won’t exist,” he told MCV. “Somewhere around 2005 the console manufacturers’ strategy shifted. In the past the platform was hardware, but it has switched to the network. A time will come when the hardware isn’t even needed anymore.

“With that, any kind of terminal becomes a potential platform on which games can be played – that’s exponential growth in the potential of gaming. The potential size of the market is enormous.”

Wada said that Square’s preparing by producing more social and browser games along with monitoring 2010’s Beta of Final Fantasy XIV on PS3, and that in order to survive the switch, third-parties must follow suit or else “suffer a big negative impact”.

“Social and browser games are going to grow dramatically – especially in areas like Asia which does not have as big a console market,” he said.

More through the link.

SCEE president Andrew House has said that despite PSPgo and PSN enabling customers to purchase games digitally, packaged games are not going the way of the Dodo any time soon.

As a matter of fact, Sony plans to continue to support packaged media as an “additive to the business”, and according to House, business would have to shift in order to meet a digital demand, along with learning how best to market non-physical items.

“I think we were always fairly clear, as far back as the original announcements, that this wasn’t a replacement for the current PSP-3000 offering, and that it sits alongside that and packaged media,” he told GI.biz. “It’s additive to the business. The early sales numbers that we’ve seen bear that out – I don’t think there’s been a huge amount of cannibalization, and I think those sales have come in and lifted overall PSP sales.

“It’s clearly demonstrated that there is a consumer out there, and it’s validated that proposition in moving more towards a digital download as a preferred means of getting content.

“Make no mistake, when you’re looking at PS3 games and you’re seeing the shift in the sheer size of the data that’s becoming available, the packaged media business is not going away any time soon.”

Full thing through the link.

During the Q&A that followed Nintendo’s financial announcement this week, president Satoru Iwata answered a question regarding the online ratio for Wii and DS, and also revealed that he does not see digital distribution replacing retail for at least another 20 years.

“Most radical people even dare to say that retailers will be replaced by digital distribution in no time, but personally, I think it will still require a significant amount of time,” he said. “In other words, it will require many years and months for the majority of video game purchase to become digital. In short, in 20 years or so I might say it will have probably changed. But in five years or so, I do not totally agree with opinions that no one will purchase titles at retailers by then.

“Habits of life do not change such radically and quickly. Especially for the expanded audience of various people, to whom we are and will be trying to appeal, I believe their habits will change more slowly.”

Full transcript is through here.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

According to discussions set to take place during this month’s London Games Conference, with digital distribution “poised to outstrip traditional retail sales within three years,” 40 percent of the games industry is underprepared for the shift.

Speakers during the LGC will address the issue, along with Nick Parker of Parker Consulting, who believes that 2013 and 2014 will be the “likely dates for the next generation global launches” from Microsoft and Sony.

“For the first time ever, the games industry has a way of alleviating the pain that traditionally befalls it during generational decline, through online gaming in its many guises – it’s a genuinely exciting time for the industry and the London Games Conference is perfectly timed to discuss these opportunities,” commented Parker.

Speakers at the conference include Mark Gerhard from Jagex, Kristian Segerstrale from Playfish, Nick Pili from Sega, Pete Edwards from PlayStation Home and Neil Thompson from Xbox, along with an opening address from Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for Culture.

PR is through the break. The event takes place at BAFTA on October 27.

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During the Take-Two Q3 earnings call tonight, iPhone and digital distribution were discussed quite a bit. To say the least.

As a matter of fact, TT stated that both are “part of our strategy and innovation,” reminding investors listening to the call that the company outlined this plan two years ago.

According to Take-Two, iPhone and iPod Touch titles are part of the plan considering “six out of 20 people” have mobile devices capable of playing games.

“We are proud of our intellectual properties and we think we have the best collection in the industry. To bring that to mobile devices is important, because not all consumers have a console, or PC for that matter.

“We are going to continue to support mobile as it’s an opportunity we cant ignore, and what ever platform we are producing for should be no less than a AAA title.”

Admitting that it is unknown just how far digital distribution will excel in the future, Take-Two was quick to point out that no matter what, it would remain a presence in that sector and are looking at how best to take advantage of it.

The full transcript of the call to investors will be made available tomorrow, so the quotes above are transcribed for you to the best of our knowledge and listening ability at post time.

Digital distribution is the future of gaming, says just about everyone. Not Nintendo’s Shigero Miyamoto. He’s buckwild. He’s an opinion-flying renegade.

“We really don’t see the future of video games being merely confined to digital distribution or moving solely or even to a majority of our products being distributed that way,” the dev legend told the Mercury Evening News.

Stating the bleeding obvious, the Nintendo boss added that hardware implementation isn’t something you can do over a wire.

“Entertainment is something that will not just become digital,” he said. “If I look at Wii MotionPlus, this is something that you’re not doing via digital distribution.”

There’s a short interview with little else in it through the link.

Shane Kim’s said that Xbox Live won’t be offering full games via Xbox Live simultaneously to their retail release any time soon.

“When it comes to us saying we want Games on Demand to enable day-and-date release of new titles, then there’s certainly a lot of work we would need to go through,” the exec told Fast Company.

“We’re not anywhere close to that world today. We have great relationships with the retail channel — they’re important partners. We sell a lot of hardware and software through retail channels.

“We have to be smart about how we approach this business.”

Full games are about to be offered for download through Live as part of 360′s summer dashboard update.

The roster seen so far consists of historic games, such as Mass Effect.

There’s a full interview through there.

David Edery, former worldwide games portfolio manager for Xbox Live Arcade, has said that “digital distribution is neither as big nor as significant [to game consoles] as it’s been cracked up to be,” and it does not have such a “long tail” as backers claim.

This means that popular titles keep getting more money, while others fade away. This is called “long-tail sales”, which is implied for games that start big, but not one with little exposure from launch.

“The hits get bigger, but the pool of money remains the same,” he said while speaking about the remake of Worms on XBLA being one of the highest selling games on the service.

Admitting that the game would not have sold as well through a retailer like Amazon, Edery stated that without an “Amazon-like recommendation engine, user ratings, ease of search and more dynamic pricing functionality allowing selective discounts and bundling, the long tail on digital download services will struggle to grow”, according to Gamasutra, and the “long tail” is incompatible with many multiplayer titles.

During his keynote speech at Develop, Edery cited NPD numbers stating that 18 percent of Xbox Live Gold members download content regularly, and only 10 percent of PSN users download free or paid content.

“The number of players in an ecosystem is crucial to a real-time multiplayer game’s success,” he said. “There are too many multiplayer games and too few players populating them. Why would a user buy a real-time multiplayer game from the long tail if they won’t have anyone else to play it with?”

Edery suggested that a viral invitation scheme would help with longevity, allowing players to invite friends to play a game for free, implementing a better matchmaking system with information, or to schedule playtimes for games like Microsoft is doing with 1vs. 100.

Yasuhiro Maekawa, the US president for Natsume, has said that mid-sized companies can benefit from digital distribution because there is less competition than what exists at retail.

“I think that Natsume, and also publishers in general have a big issue right now,” he told Gamasutra. “Basically, there are so many titles out there, but retailers, store shelves are very limited. If you go to Wal-Mart, they have one case there, which may hold 48 titles. However the top row is all Nintendo titles, second row, all EA.

“Which means the middle-size publishing companies like us, if it’s Reel Fishing or the Harvest Moon franchise, or maybe Afrika, they might possibly show interest. But if it’s our original titles, and we have some more original titles here, it’s very tough to sell to retail stores.

“In that case, the online downloadable content becomes viable. Plus the development costs are not as high as in the package business. So for us, I think it’ll do well.”

Hit the link for the rest.