Sony: Downloadable Future In Gaming Is Over 10 Years Away
Here's some interesting fodder to chat about at the water cooler. Sony,
the company responsible for producing a disc-free PlayStation Portable
game console, is apparently not too keen on going the all-download route
in the home console space. In a recent interview, Sony Computer
Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai said that a digital future in the game
market is over ten years away. So, is this revelation due to the PSPgo
being a general flop?
It's hard to say, really. Kaz stated: "We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope. 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 ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme." We are on the same page with some of that, but not all. Particularly the part about "always" being a requirement for a physical disc. That sounds like someone else we've heard of saying that a certain amount of RAM will "always" be enough for the PC consumer.
We definitely think that physical discs will fade someday. It'll probably take 50+ years for the entire globe to get to that point, but considering that Sony already produced a portable game console that cannot accept physical discs, it's sort of surprising to hear that same company say that their next home console (in theory, anyway) won't be download-only. Maybe they learned their lesson, after all?
It's hard to say, really. Kaz stated: "We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope. 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 ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme." We are on the same page with some of that, but not all. Particularly the part about "always" being a requirement for a physical disc. That sounds like someone else we've heard of saying that a certain amount of RAM will "always" be enough for the PC consumer.
We definitely think that physical discs will fade someday. It'll probably take 50+ years for the entire globe to get to that point, but considering that Sony already produced a portable game console that cannot accept physical discs, it's sort of surprising to hear that same company say that their next home console (in theory, anyway) won't be download-only. Maybe they learned their lesson, after all?
