Xbox 360 getting full retail games delivered on demand
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jun 1st 2009 3:47PM
posted Jun 1st 2009 3:47PM
Update: Don't get your hopes up, MS tells us that the point system isn't going anywhere, it's just being supplemented with credit card purchases. Also, game rentals aren't happening yet, but they said it "sounds great for the future."
thats thuper!
SO is this a rental system or a way to purchase games forever?
Both.
I hope this doesn't become a trend. Having a single game download portal means there's no competition at all. By experience, "on sale" games at 3rd-party retailers usually beat a direct download, and you get the physical thing plus the manual.
If Comcast and other carriers keep making more adjustments to their bandwidth limits this won't be around for long.
I actually like the points system. Typically I am broke and when I just have points left over they really help when something unexpected happens. There have been several times when I've gotten up in the morning and there be brand new albums for 80 points. So for me it's convenient and I don't really care, it's really not "that" big a deal for me.
@choco_taco:
More likely this would prompt Comcast and other major ISPs to work out some kind of a peering deal with Microsoft (or to be more accurate, their hosting cos) that would exempt purchases from the overall monthly cap.
At least, that's how you'd like it to work out...
Hoorah for the coming death of MS Points
(Wishful thinking)
yeah, if only.
The other option would be to make 1 point = 1 penny, but even that is too freaking hard.
Points aren't going anywhere, the whole idea behind them is that they require a larger intial purchase to avoid situations where a merchants fee for the credit card would exceed the purchase. This is very possible with DLC and small purchases. Until MS can work out a deal with CC companies to avoid per purchase merchant fees, points will be staying.
I kinda like MS points. It means I do not have to give microsoft my credit card number. I Just buy the points at a store and then load them up on the xbox. I just dont like giving my credit card number out all the time.
Why would you want to eliminate MS points. You can save so much by using the points instead of a credit card. . i get 1600 point cards for between $10 and $14 by getting them when they are on sale. So it saves me up to 50%. Why would I want to use a credit card when I can save so much by purchasing the point cards instead?
While Live points are a bit annoying, understand that the point of them is not to drive people crazy but to have an international form of currency across all regions Microsoft services. It also has the nice side effect for Microsoft of making people less aware of what they are spending on things. I really doubt, long term that points are going anywhere.
the idea isn't bad but the implementation is horrible. 1 point = 1 cent is how it should be
you can put 250 gig drives in an xbox but it will only recognize 120, making the entire thing futile.
your best bet is to buy a 120 bevs drive and use that and hope you dont get banned.
and of course ms is going to announce bigger drives, they are just waiting to milk as much money as they can, luckily my 20 gig still has like 10 gigs free on it.
@danimaldan
I wouldn't worry about giving your credit card number to Microsoft - I'm sure they'll be PCI-DSS certified (or the company that they use to process the transactions will be). Besides, you should only need to provide your card details once.
Personally, I hate the idea of Points or vouchers, which is effectively what Points are. I want to see things priced in real money and I want to only spend what I need to in order to obtain what it is that I want. However, I imagine that vouchers are good for children (no offense to the youngsters on this site) who do not have access to a credit card. In this respect I see the use of them but still I would want to see the vouchers themselves and the things that they buy priced in local currency, just like every other shop (virtual or otherwise).
@ deyanimay
And how many Euros, Pounds, or Yen should 1 point be? Should 1 Euro = 1 Point too? And 1 Yen = 1 Point? Points are really just Microsoft currency that can be used in a multinational way. A game that is 400 points will be 400 points whether its in America or Poland or Japan. If you could convert points back into dollars, you could even use it as a system for currency trading.
Points is also useful because it lets you make really small purchases. Credit card companies charge flat fees in addition to a percent of the transaction, so the smaller the purchase the bigger their cut becomes percentage wise, until it makes no sense to sell something over the internet, and at the very least it adds a ton of overhead.
So instead of Microsoft having to pay Visa 20 cents of a 50 cent sale they can just sell you a bunch of points at once then let you spend it little by little without having to repeatedly pay the credit card companies.
Taking away the points would take away the prizes of 1 vs 100 when it goes live. Last Saturday, a guy named mutant dog 123 would have walked away with 10,000 MS points if it hadn't been in beta.
Did you guys hear that? That was the sound of Gamestop moaning in despair...
Not really.
Too many ISPs are capping bandwidth around the country and I'm not wasting it on a service like this, even though I'd like to.
First of all, bandwidth caps aren't the problem here. The problem the 360's gonna face is storage. The hard drives are still too expensive. If Microsoft is serious about this, they should make serious price cuts to the 120 GB HDD and bump the sizes.
Second of all, bandwidth caps aren't as serious a concern right now as you think. In the tech industry its a looming concern, but it's not quite there yet. Silicon Valley ain't going down without a serious court battle, and I don't think the telecoms are going to win this one.
@Steve
I have a 250GB HDD on my X360 from my old laptop.
Look up how to upgrade them.
@Steve
I'd be surprised if they lowered the HD price, it's probably a high profit margin, and this is only going to add a great way for them to capitalize on it.
Upgrading the 360 hard drive by yourself isn't supported by Microsoft. They've stated in the past they don't "allow" that because of DRM built into the HDD to stop you from accessing Live and whatnot if you use your own Laptop drive.
@Brian
Is the 250GB actually useable by the 360? I haven't looked into it in a long time, but I remember when people first started swapping the drives the system would only use the space equivalent to the biggest official drive. But beyond that, people shouldn't have to hack their system to use bigger drives.
What the hell do you mean, "as I think"? Do your words somehow magically lift the caps THAT I AND MILLIONS EXPERIENCE RIGHT NOW? If so, let me bottle you up because you're just precious!
Even though it isn't in the majority yet, it will be. America's networks are too vast and outdated to meet the exponentially increasing demand for these services, let alone anything "HD". 10-20 years from now, sure but not now.
Also, your hard drive argument is feeble. In so much that if Microsoft was serious about pushing digital distribution they'd obviously increase the size of hard drives available and decrease the premium on them. It's not hard to do that, especially since a TB drive still costs less than a 120GB 360 drive...
@Massmass
"Also, your hard drive argument is feeble. "
Dude, WTF?
How is his hard drive point feeble when he simply stated exactly what they needed to do? All you replied with was to say they could do it. Of course they could do it... they could have also lowered the price of their drives long ago but haven't lowered them to reasonable levels yet. Saying they could is one thing, actually doing it is something different. I'm not sure what you're all worked up about here. He just stated that he thought the hard drive issue would be a bigger concern for most people than the transfer caps.
would you mind posting a link for the 250 gig hdd upgrade?
I looked on xbox scene and all I saw was the 120 gig.
thanks.
@steve Wondering if the larger Hard Drive announcements are coming...or possibly a way to use external drives as storage...or letting you upgrade the drive a la playstation 3. They could totally sell an enclosure that has the necessary software and then let you add your own drive, I'd buy into that.
hopefully the next consoles will have 500gb+
He was saying that the hard drive is the BIGGER issue. It is in no way the bigger issue. When it is such an easy fix.
Making ISPs behave is NOT easy to fix and IS THE MAJOR impediment to digital distribution. It's also going to get worse or more expensive before it gets better.
Also, it's the internet, where else can you get your panties in a bunch over nothing? ;)
I apologize, it was only a 120. For some reason, i thought it was 250.
Gamestop won't be going anywhere they will still rely on trade ins and used games like always. Unless Walmart does it better.
I totally agree on the hard drive point I have a 20GB still with room for maybe 1 or 2 full games one if the game took up an entire Dual Layer. We should have much larger hard drives available at way cheaper prices considering all MS is selling is a shell which we already have if you have the old 20GB, some damn DRM BS, and a transfer cable. I payed less for two 640GB desktop hard drives than the 120GB upgrade. Now if they really wanted to be cool guys through some support for downloading those to an External drive an just encrypt the mess out of them.
Not really.
The only game I will consider downloading is Crackdown, and that's because it is one of the few games that will not install and play off the HDD already. I don't want the DVD drive spinning, both making the xbox loud and cooking my GPU with the added heat that the motor and friction between the air and disc generates. I hope to never get RROD.
That being said, I would only pay 800 points at most for Crackdown, considering how old it is and what it goes for these days...good luck on that, these games will be priced at full MSRP, I'm sure.
Obviously this system will probably work exactly like the current system...Any gamertag will be able to play on the original 360 system the game is purchased on, and the gamertag used to purchase will be able to play from any system, as long as you are logged in to LIVE.
Because of this, I predict only older titles will be available, to prevent game sharing of newer titles (you buy the game through your friend's xbox, then you download again on your own xbox...you play together online, 2 for the price of 1).
The games will be tracked in your purchase history, and can be deleted and re-downloaded at anytime (as long as they remain available on the marketplace, that is). The only reason I see MS changing this is to limit bandwidth usage
wow, thanks!
Im not leaving my xbox for another 3 years!
You know, I'm really thinking about buying one. Looks to be pretty good value for money.
I think I'm getting one now.........
I'm just wondering if this is somehow saved to your account, so if your HDD/360 hits the skids, you haven't just lost said game.
Other then that, sounds fantastic. I'm already copying games to the HDD to save time and noise, as well as some wear on the optical drive, maybe.
anything u buy so far is linked to you by both your gamercard and box serial number
Sweet.
To clarify: whatever stuff you buy on your XBL account is available to use on any Xbox while you are logged into that XBL account.
Whatever Xbox you make the original purchase on allows Anybody (even people with different XBL accounts) to use that content too. If your box dies, MS should (and usually does) transfers the licenses over during the repair process. Also, there is a license transfer tool you can use 1x per year to transfer those licenses over to a new box (say, if you decide to upgrade, or sell your old box for some reason).
Back to the main story, I would be much more excited about this if Savegames were linked to an XBL gamercard somehow, kinda like Steam. I would love to travel across country and stay in a hotel that allowed me to download a game i'm playing with the savegames I had at home without having to tote about a Memory card.
Also, they should be cheaper ($3-5), (as should all digital media), due to no need to distribute/stock these games in a physical location, also, for taking the penalty of not being able to resell the game.
I can has bigger hard drive?
Watch them come out with some insane 1gb drive, or better yet a SSD for fast load times.
I envisage large drives at even larger prices.
:(
@Templarian: 1GB drive? Sounds suicidally stupid to me
An insane 1gb drive? Okay.....
You mean 1tb?
@Cody, no I meant gb it would be pretty insane, tb would be "awesome" and sane. :P
I'm not sure if it was my sarcasm or face palm meter that just broke.
500GB looks to be the tops for now give the current size of 2.5 drives, granted knowing MS they would probably go with a 250GB or 320GB just to have something larger to dangle over our heads later.
Please, please, please integrate hard drive saves to a Windows Home Server NAS . . . then you wouldn't have to worry about individual drive sizes or hardware crashes.
nah, Cheezburgeh
I think they did that since not all 360s have a hard drive, they were trying to show mostly non hard drive features.
Amazing to hear though.
Hopefully the price of their hard drive upgrades will get cheaper!
"Purchases can be made directly with a credit card, no pesky Xbox points required."
Oh thank GAWD!! Any chance they will extend this to *ALL* XBLM and XBLA purchases?
LOL!! KCowen is playing Forza 3, where's the screen shots for it?!?!?!?
Why would anyone want to buy a game this way? If you get sick of it, you can not sell it like physical media.
It's called convenience. I'd be willing to purchase a game every now and then like this even though I'm forfeiting the option to sell it afterwards.
Good Point.
I haven't traded in a game in over ten years, I'm sure there are plenty of others who are the same. So for me, this is a great idea.
The whole point of this and other electronic distribution schemes, is to do away with the used game market. I buy my software used 95% of the time, and the publishers never see a dime of mine. The only time I buy new, is when steam is doing one of the deals where I can buy them for used type prices. $5-$15.
You would think for all of the distribution dollars that they would be saving, they would know $5-$10 off the price.
Ooh did you say that the xbox still has the rrod?
No buy/interest of buying from me then.
Um, this has been resolved for quite a while, chief.
And if you're posting on Engadget, you should have the know-how to be able to fix yours. I fixed mine.
E74 error is still there
Has anyone had a Jasper RROD on them yet? My Falcon did a few months back. Couldnt get repaired cos i modded case. oops My Jasper now runs cooler and quieter..
I can has playstation network?
I think it was only a matter of time. Technically isn't PSN network a rip off of Steam or D2D?
Isn't Xbox Live "TECHNICALLY" a rip off of downloading shit from the internet?
I think he's referring to the fact that you can already do this with PSN. Granted, it was only with a few full games like Warhawk, and mostly "arcade" games. I think the option for publishers to push Digital Distribution is there though. Just so few actually use it.
If Microsoft can offer 25GB of Online Storage for Windows Live Accounts, I think they should be able to offer the same or more for Xbox Live Users to save there games to Servers in Microsoft Data Centers. That would be great.
I think the idea is that that games will be streaming. Not installed to a hard drive. Games take up a LOT of storage.
Awesome! Now I can get Sonic '06 anytime I want!
Can't see this taking off unless hard drive prices fall dramatically.
Not rediculously cheap, just to about the same price as a standard hard drive the same capacity, I mean all they are is a normal 2.5" hard drive in another case.
That's because we're getting raped by Microsoft. Anyone can put a 2.5" 400GB SATA drive in their PS3 for $60 in about 3 minutes. Please, MS, for the love of Kojima, give us user-replaceable drives in the future!
cant wait for someone to reverse engineer the live system to be able to save the rented titles =)
I hacked my original xbox back in the day and loved it. I still use XBMC on it for standard def stuff.
The 360 is an entirely different beast. I won't say its unhackable, but there's been so much trouble in the process already that I doubt there will be a magic trick like pandora's battery to get it done.
Don't be fooled, the only reason we are seeing this feature at all is because Microsoft doesn't think the hackers can break it before the next Xbox comes out. You can tell they've wanted to do this since day one due to the used games market and the success of XBLA. This is a very rare case in which the hardware manufacturer may have actually beaten the hackers.
+1 for instant gratification
Downloading instant gratification... please wait.
I will never buy $60 game thru online deliver never n I own 142 games never.
Can't imagine who would u? can't trade in or sell or take to friends etc,.
What idiot would?
Guru has a new name
What would make this amazing is if you could temporarily "loan\borrow" the game to\from a friend's gamertag for a preset time (1 week), or until you request it back. The license would be able to transfer back and forth. If this happened, you should also be able to resell the license. That and having a little cheaper price (like $50) since there is no artwork or media.
The convenience of downloading is nice, if you have the storage, but I can drive out to the nearest Gamestop, Best Buy, Walmart, or Target, purchase the game, and be back before the download finishes (using demo downloads on my 5mbps DSL line as a comparison). Maybe it's convenient not to throw on some sandals and drive, but to have the comfort of game-in-hand for the same price, I might still just buy it.
ever heard of steam?
of course you havent you only play consoles.
Yeah... huge hard drive upgrade needed here on the cheap... any chance they will let us plug a WD MyBook or other external HD into the XBOX for storage... and "swap" like the Wii does?
Gonna be a long time before I trust digital delivery. I got screwed on Steam (forgot that I had purchased pretty much every Valve game ever) and I keep thinking of folks who used those Music services that closed.
I'm sticking with physical media for a bit longer.
For every one of you that thinks this is dumb, there's 10 others that are going to use the service from time to time. It should be a huge success.
I am sure this is a forward-thinking development. MS knows most people have 20GB hard drives and won't have the space to download several 4.5-8.5 GB games. However if this service goes live this year, they will have plenty of time to perfect it so when the next gen consoles come out (and have at least 120GB hard drives standard) it will be fully fleshed out. Then MS will have control over what a game will cost and can release games whenever they like. They can push something easily by reducing it's price for one weekend or something, or they can work out deals where a game might come out earlier for the Xbox if you download it. Also, since this reduces media/retail costs the games might be cheaper this way in general.
I think this is a great idea. I am sure Gamestop is weeping, but they need some comp anyway.
I can pretty much guarantee that the price you see will not be cheaper. They'll sell it as a convenience feature.
this is monumentally bad for commerce/capitalism. I refuse to buy any game at full retail and by doing this Microsoft is becoming the sole supplier of games for its console. I think this raises serious anti competitive practices.
Doesnt say anything about not still being able to buy a disc, this is a choice and one you dont have to make if you dont want to. Whats anticompetitive about that?
if that was the case... who would make games for it?
Nintendo did that a long timme ago where they needed to actually send the completed game to Nintendo and ONLY NINTENDO could produce the carts.
What happened was everyone gave the BIG n the finger, did whatever they wanted,and found other people to play with them.
Anti competitive? They give out dev kits for Xbox live games... Its not anticompetitive, its a straight out invitation saying" hey lets both make a crapton of money"
LOL, what do you mean ? Like Apple iPhone with the app store or Sony with PSP Go ?
WHEN????
no, because I want to be able to 'game' MS points and buy them for below cost on ebay, effectively making my purchases cheaper than advertised. I have 8000 points I paid $50 for and I intend to use them.
Now if only they'd lower the prices on these digital-games to $49.99 or something... I mean, selling more digital copies means less money spent on physical-medium production, packaging and shipping, you don't have to pay retailers, people can't lend games to each other (which may or may not result in increased game purchases), and it leads to people buying larger hard drives (which m$ makes a HUGE mark-up on)... Bring on the cheaper games please! (Somehow I don't think they will though)
they could make an incentive where they release it for direct download for 5 bux cheaper, and STILL save money hand over fist.
No packaging, no shipments, no stocking, no broken street dates, no carrier hassles.
YOU pay your ISP and they get a little choked with bandwidth slowly over time (especially as this will grow), you pay the power consumption for their delivery.
Honestly this isnt the first time this was done, but it will more than likely be the most widely accepted and used. Remeber Sega Channel? Or the BS-X Stellaview?
Well well well well well well well.
Lets see what Sony shows off. Somehow I don't think it'll be this huge.
Yeah its not like PSN hasn't had full games available for ages. Warhawk, GT5,Burnout...
Oh, give him a break. Being a superhobo doesn't give him much chance to keep up with things that don't deal with aluminum cans, red handkerchiefs and cardboard.
har har
Anyway, I commented on the wrong page. It was supposed to be on the main huge Xbox 360 event page.
And that's super cardboard.