Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the NY Knicks signing Amare Stoudemire, Team Armstrong vs. Team Landis, or the the super pretentious Paris Apple Store, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
In the last ten days I spent two hours waiting for a PSP game to download and four hours waiting for an Xbox 360 game to download. In both cases I was annoyed and agitated that it took so long to download a relatively small amount of data. Six hours for a little over six GBs?!? That’s a step above cavemen banging two rocks together to start a fire!!! But you know what? It beats the crap out of the alternative.
Waiting two hours for a PSP is much better than going to a mall, dealing with crowds, and interacting with funployees. The four hours the Xbox 360 download took is much better than waiting for a package to arrive. I’m so ready for digital distribution to be the norm. I can’t wait for console companies and crap-bag ISPs (like my friends at Time Warner Cable) to get their acts together so that digital distribution can happen now.
I know that some of you still have issues with digital distribution and that a few of you still love boxes (I don’t get it). Are you anxious for digital distribution to hit? Or is waiting okay with you?
ISP caps…boo. Until those go away, I'm not going to be part of the digi distribution. Even if that means sitting out a majority of the next console generation. Currently MS locks down crap too tight on their box and I'm not sure about Sony's methods. I'd prefer if I could just have everything bound to an account instead of a machine. I also need these titles to be cheaper since the costs beyond dev and testing are eliminated. LIke half price.
I'll wait. I'm okay with waiting for ISP's to catch up, like Smartguy mentioned internet caps are one reason and the other being is that i still like having a physical game just in case that issue happens like with Sony and their leap year issue or something happens with the DRM of a game. At least if the i can't get online to verify my game i can still play it without an internet connection.
@NYKnicks
good luck with Amare. He's going to be so lazy now that's he gotten paid.
@Tour De France
i don't follow cycling but they're both American right??? I'll cheer for them both but i won't pay attention still.
@pretentious Paris Apple Store
is there a story that i can read about their pretensiousness? Or are you just saying they are because they are French?
I like digital distribution well enough, but I still don't like the prices being about the same as retail. Good example is Prey being $3.99 at Gamestop now, but $19.99 on XBL. Once I beat that game I really will have no use for it, and even if I don't trade it in later then at least I only spent $3.99 on it instead of $16 more to be guaranteed that I can't ever trade it in and it will take up space on my hard drive. You could say that I could just delete it if I don't want it to take up hard drive space, but I do like to keep things that I have purchased in that manner.
@Ray
What game took 4 hours to download??
How can I trade in a DD game?
@tokz_21 I don't see Amare lasting for the entire contract. The Paris Apple Store is full or marble, arches, etc. It's not like any other Apple Store in the world.
@bsukenyan Crackdown 2.
@RRODisHere You can't and publishers love it that way.
@bsu/rrod
That's a good point. This is another reason why i'm not looking forward to DD.
Your entry today made you seem like more of an introvert, Mr. Padilla. Me; I'm happy to get out of the house every now and then and go people-watching at the mall with my significant other. I like to peruse through the game store and see the kaleidoscope of games that make the wall seem like artwork. The eye candy and smell of those places take me back and remind me of the joy I experienced when I was a kid. Also, I like to interact with the "funployees" since (if you prod them enough) they have their own unique take on games, the game industry and game companies. I also like to take my games home and be the first person to open the shrink wrap and hear that "pop" when I open the case for the first time. When I am done with the game, I sometimes like to sell it on eBay and recoup some of the money I spent on the game and make another fellow gamer happy, or I can just lend the game out to a friend.
If I don't feel like going out to the mall or I am short on cash, I can just buy a used or new game on eBay or through Amazon.
None of this I can do with digital distribution.
-M
@rpad
i google'd the paris apple store. It looks pretty sweet. I don't think they made it look pretentious on purpose, it just happened. I agree, if they don't win in 3 years he'll be out of the league since no one will want to pick him up, like Stephon Marbury, that's just too much money to have for selfish and inconsistent players.
@Smartguy
That's something else I forgot to mention as well, I would love for everything to be linked to an account instead of a machine. That's how I would prefer all digital distribution to be so that I could just transfer the account to a new machine or computer, etc.
@ Topic
It looks like your on your own with this one Rpad. DD can wait, it start out great but at the end of the day DD sucks for consumers.
I would like to build on the DD account theory. If that were to happen it would be nice if you could transfer games of equal value with your friends online. Yea that's all I got for now lol.
Digital games and content are linked to accounts now. I don't understand why this is a "wish". When my Xbox 360 died last year, I just had to re-download the content and rights to my new machine. I've played PSP downloads on multiple machines that had my account info.
Developers would love DD for the simple reason that it would kill the used games market. Here's another big issue though, if it takes 4 or 5 hours to download games as small as 5 or 6gb just imagine how long it wold take to download some of the PS3 exclusives that tip the scales at 25, 35, or even 45gb.
@Ray
Nintendo is locked to a machine. Xbox also doesn't have an offline mode.
ray
how big is your xbox harddrive?
i just set myself up for a joke….
@thundercracker I have the 120GB with about 40GB free.
yeah before DD becomes the standard i need at least 1.5 tb worth of harddrive space. And if lose the trade in value and i dont pay for a box, the games better be like 30 or 40 bucks, tops
Western Digital just made my verdict on Digital Distribution easier to cope with when they released their 750Gb Z-height (9.5mm) hard drive. Its $110 @ Newegg and fits in my PS3. That'll be awesome for Digital content.
@slicky
ive got the 500, youll love it…but i almost need to upgrade again. Im waiting on the 1 tb
@Ray
Sorry I'm late. Can see you need some backup though.
@Topic
I'm for it. The only physical copies I own on my PC are games that came for free. (and some of those were DD too) I know it is not good picture now in terms of console DD, but if you look at the PC market it does look promising. DD on consoles are still in their infancy and need time to grow. Microsoft is redoing their account structure later this year that will allow users to set up dominant accounts with sub accounts attached to it. Right now that is for parental purposes, but if used correctly that could pan out as a huge plus for their DD efforts. They have even dropped prices permanently on some of their DD games.
I don't see it being a complete switch to DD next gen, but I can see it happening during the next gen. Also, both consoles now support background downloads, so download times are thing of the past. (Just sleep on)
Someone brought to my attention the fact that nobody does knife-edge chops in WWE anymore. Apparently the move was banned for everyone that wasn't Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. With those guys gone, nobody is doing it anymore. I guess WWE wants to cut down on the "whoooooooooo!!!" chants.
@Ray
Rick has been doing commercials here in TN lately. I'm not sure even he can handle a good old "whooooooooooo!!!" anymore.
Just got my gamerscore to 25,000 even…hopefully it will be higher than that before anyone actually gets a chance to look at it. I'm about halfway to Nightshade now. lol.