Digital Distribution Good for Customers?

With the release of the first download only Games Console the latter part of last week but is it really that good for us customers? From some stand points no it isn’t, as there will be less of a price war if where you get all your games from is just one place. But on the other hand it is good as it is a quick simple affair and as the service increases you can get a whole catalogue of games sent straight to you as you sit in your arm chair.

So what does Digital Distribution really offer the customer. Well, other than the afore mentioned laziness of not really having to move from your living room to get the latest releases, which could be argued that the use of an Online retailer does that anyway as the game is delivered straight to your door. It also does offer a small amount of saving based on what High Street retailers are selling new games for, looking at the PSP, new games are offered at High Street retail for around £25 but the PS Store is offering some releases for around £20. This of course doesn’t measure up against the prices that Online retailers can give as the you can easily save £8 or more on a new PSP UMD game if you shop around.

In addition to the more physical and price based positives to the new download only services, it does mean that you will get a game on release day. Okay, so if you buy from an Online outlet you will probably get a title before release day either a day or so before but there are times and I’m sure we have all experienced it when the postal system fails us and your much wanted product doesn’t arrived until the following week leaving (at least for EU and UK residents) with only old titles to play over the weekend. With Digital Distribution unless you lose all connection with your internet that just won’t happen, major plus point in my opinion.

Does Digital Distribution really affect us consumers? Well, yes and no. It is certain that the advent of a major console provider opting for download only with one version of their consoles will mean that we will have a wider spread of providers for our hobby. But also I believe that having a larger selection of providers will mean that prices will become more competitive. For example; if games that are from the PS Store for the PSP were lower than that of the retail UMDs or the PSN Cards price point then we might see retailers dropping prices on the Cards and the UMDS to match. So in the long run for prices yes it could be good for customers, but also the fact that this could set precedence for other consoles and shift the whole console movement away from physical discs and onto digital media.

Tell us what you think about the digital media movement in the comments section below.