He asks why would they ”want” to still use discs? Going exclusively digital far outweighs benefits of physical retail. Blitz ”don’t see the point” anymore.
”Let’s be honest, a lot of us have got smart phones – mostly iPhones – certainly in this office there are iPhones,” said Oliver. ”I can’t remember the last time I went into a shop to buy an iPhone game, and I haven’t missed it. In fact I’ve got lots of iPhone games and I’m quite happy.” The purely digital PSPgo didn’t fair too well.
”With the current generation of consoles, the best games come in physical form. But the next range of consoles that will be out in the next five years, why would any of those need physical media? Why would they want physical media?”
”If you’ve got it physically and you trade it, the hardware manufacturer just lost out, big time,” he pointed out. ”When they produce their next console - let’s call it Sony Next, it could be any platform holder Next – if they make it only a digital store, they absolutely control everything. Pricing, their margins, you can’t trade it second hand.”
”Their logistics and overheads come down considerably. The cost of manufacture of the original console comes down considerably. The reliability goes through the roof because there are no moving parts. Why would they not?” All initial PS3s sold at a loss.
”It would surprise me if any of the next round of consoles has physical media,” he continued. ”What we know about that’s coming – launching next year – is still physical media. But beyond that I just don’t see the point.”
”If you were designing a machine right now, why would you want physical media? It would be crazy.” The issue is infrastructure as not enough regions have robust enough connections or bandwidth. Sony believes ”there’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium.”
”To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even 10 years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme,” noted Sony boss Kaz Hirai, in August. Ditching physical media is very unlikely for the next round of consoles, but after that?
