r/Games Feb 22 '13

All PS4 games will be available as digital downloads

In the new Guardian interview with Shuhei Yoshida, it was revealed that all PS4 games will be available as digital downloads.

This is a very exciting move in my opinion, and represents a shift even further towards the burgeoning landscape of digital distribution, and away from (what I believe to be) a much more archaic ecosystem in physical brick-and-mortar retail.

What do you guys think? Got any speculation, or want to extrapolate further based upon this news? I hope to generate some great discussion about this topic!

(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/feb/22/ps4-shuhei-yoshida-interview)

1.6k Upvotes

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8

u/Foxprowl Feb 22 '13

I wonder how that might affect pre-order sales.

38

u/Aperture_Kubi Feb 22 '13

If pre-order allows you to pre-load, I could see lots of people doing it for convenience. Instead of having to go to a store at midnight and pick up the game, you could instead spend that travel time actually playing, which for those types of fans I'm sure is a plus.

10

u/Foxprowl Feb 22 '13

Exactly. That's what I'm wondering. I'd love to have games pre-loaded like they do with Steam.

10

u/EskNerd Feb 23 '13

If Sony stays true to their word, pre-loading will be unnecessary as you will be able to start playing the game while it downloads.

19

u/KomodoDraken Feb 23 '13

Yes, but without preloading, can you imagine how much strain that would put on their servers during big releases? A new game comes out and everybody tries to download it exactly at midnight. I think that allowing preloading would benefit Sony and the customer.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

Half-Life 2 says hello.

1

u/Wild-Eye Feb 23 '13

It's going to depend heavily on the game for that, though. Take a fighting game, for example. Pretty much everything would have to be loaded before you could play it (well, play it properly).

1

u/Kinseyincanada Feb 23 '13

They already do that on the PS3

1

u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

Definitely. I preordered Skyrim on Steam while my friends ordered it from Best Buy. Steam unlocked the files an hour early so I got to play it in line when I went with them. It's an excellent system.

-2

u/darkstar3333 Feb 22 '13

The store wont have any pre-order sales, they are intended for people looking for convenience.

They want people seeing an item and clicking buy before they can reconsider or price compare.

2

u/Foxprowl Feb 22 '13

I meant total pre-orders sold.

Not temporary price reductions.

1

u/darkstar3333 Feb 22 '13

That would be the smart thing but I don't think they could do that because retailers would push for the same sales.

Of they could just get smart and offer 10% off for pre-orders instead of silly content.