Microsoft is bringing Games on Demand to Xbox Live, but don’t expect to see future titles getting a simultaneous retail and digital download release any time soon.
Shane Kim has said there’s ”a lot of work we would need to go through” before they can accomplish and enable ”day-and-date” releases. Retailers are ”important partners” to them.
”There are a lot of complex issues to deal with here, especially if you start talking about day-and-date release with retail availability–which is not something that we’re talking about at all, today,” Kim tells Fast Company. ”And publishers have to do some technical work in order to enable this. There will be decisions that publishers have to make from a business standpoint.”
”But 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. 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.” You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, after all.
The Xbox 360 dashboard update this summer will include the new Games on Demand service, and will offer a back catalogue of titles like BioWare’s Mass Effect.
Source: VG247
