Yoichi Wada
Yoichi Wada says trade must prepare for switch to digital distribution and server-based games and I have to largely agree with him in an Interview he gave to MCV. Digital distribution is going to happen it makes sence from every business standpoint. Console’s will still be here but we may not recognize them as such. They will probably resemble a modem with a very large internal hard drive and by large I mean at least1 hundred Terra-bit (HD video takes up a lot of space) which by then will be a solid state flash drive costing no more than current console drives with a reliability that can only be found in solid state, there will be no need for a fan or at least a very small one. These hard drives will store all of our music, video, pictures and of course games all downloaded from who ever you want to buy them from and you will be watching everything on your 100 inch LCD HD TV. If this is starting to sound familiar to you it’s because we have been living with it’s crude ancestor for 4 years now. Sony started the ball rolling with the PS2 and Microsoft got the message, the PC was not going to be that futuristic media center they had envisioned for everybody, they had no choice but to respond. Yes I can hear the Hardcore gamers already, “no Xbox 360+ could ever replace a PC for gaming” and you would be right if things stayed the way they are now. There is a service out there right now that is in beta called OnLive which promises HD-level games over a broadband connection. Will this actually be the answer, who knows. but the idea is to have servers do all the heavy lifting and get the hardware out of your house. Yes I heard you again latency is the problem and I didn’t say it was here now. The Wii has shown that at least half the gaming market is the casual gamer who doesn’t demand high performance or graphics anyway. Microsoft’s introduction of Avatars, Netflix and the whole NXE experience along with their recent addition of Twitter/Facebook have shown the industry as a whole is turning to a more Social media network based modal were even the traditional controller is in question. Project Netal anyone. Hardcore gamers will always be here it’s the nature of the beast to want to be the last man standing in any competition all in photo realism, just look at Call of Duty: MW2. Any company that ignores that segment does so at their own risk, unless your Nintendo and have decided that it is not your market anymore.
Wada warned that “all the distributors and sales firms will suffer a big negative impact” from a new era in which interactive entertainment switches from software run on hardware in the home to server-based offerings, game streaming and digital distribution.
He claimed that format-holders including Sony and Microsoft are already prepared for the shift – and that third-parties must follow suit. Source: MCV
