Digital distribution survey

What are your thoughts on digital downloads?

  • I would love to buy all games via digital downloads! Death to discs!

    Votes: 21 24.1%
  • I only buy cheap XBLA games via downloads, the rest are on disc!

    Votes: 43 49.4%
  • I hate digital downloads! Gimme my physical media!

    Votes: 23 26.4%

  • Total voters
    87
Scholes18 said:
And plenty of those have fair use policy or get heavily traffic managed by 50-75% like VM do..

Sky is a truly unlimited service with no FUP. There are some which are unlimited but do have a FUP (Talk Talk etc.) but even they are good unless you really abuse it. Still most folk have access to sky broadband these days as even our exchange (which is a pretty backward exchange when it comes to broadband) has it, so if folk want a truly unlimited service then it is available to most.
 
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CAS FAN said:
Sky is a truly unlimited service with no FUP. There are some which are unlimited but do have a FUP (Talk Talk etc.) but even they are good unless you really abuse it. Still most folk have access to sky broadband these days as even our exchange (which is a pretty backward exchange when it comes to broadband) has it, so if folk want a truly unlimited service then it is available to most.

The only downside is you are limited by download speed with sky.

So you have a choice of high download speed with limited usage or unlimited usage with low download speed.
 
Crovon said:
The only downside is you are limited by download speed with sky.

In what way?

Sky don't limit download speeds, that's dictated by how far you live from the exchange and the condition of all the cabling/wiring (same for any ADSL ISP).

Crovon said:
So you have a choice of high download speed with limited usage or unlimited usage with low download speed.

Not true, I have high download speeds (39 Mbps down, hopefully getting doubled this week) and unlimited usage.
 
Crovon said:
The only downside is you are limited by download speed with sky.

So you have a choice of high download speed with limited usage or unlimited usage with low download speed.

No they don't. Apart from at the moment (where my speed has dropped as apparently there's a line test on my line) they have been quicker than my previous provider.
 
DD becomes more of a possibility for me in a couple of weeks when Sky send the nice man from Openreach round to wire me up for fibre broadband.

Distance to the exchange means I get 2 to 2.5 Mbps at the moment, which is woeful. It's still far from perfect on the predicted fibre speed - just over half of the current 40 Mbps max. But on the flipside, that's still nearly 10 times faster than at present!

Now, if only they'll do something about the 2 Mbps upload limit, I'd be happy ;)
 
Azzin said:
Actually, I don't think the full Sky Unlimited service does have any limits imposed on it, nor does BT Infinity (although BT definitely shape/throttle p2p traffic in peak hours).

Maybe not . Neither do virgin per se but they heavily throttle speeds over the day after about 2 gb. Bearing in mind the average game is 6gb? Then it just seems pointless. Physical media needs to stay
 
I'm with VM. During the day (10AM-3PM) I can download 10GB and if I go over that, my speed is cut from 60 Mbps to 30 for 5 hours, so a 6GB game would take 25 minutes to download instead of 12.5.
 
Scholes18 said:
Maybe not . Neither do virgin per se but they heavily throttle speeds over the day after about 2 gb. Bearing in mind the average game is 6gb? Then it just seems pointless. Physical media needs to stay

I think Virgin throttle after you download x amount, BT throttle p2p, I don't think there's any throttling on Sky Unlimited.
 
Virgin also throttle P2P at "peak times" on top of the STM.

I think Sky Unlimited is the only one that doesn't restrict the connection at all. How fast is it though? Their site doesn't mention the speed at all, which is a bit odd.
 
Azzin said:
I don't understand why people go for Sky's 40/2, instead of BT's 40/10 (now 78/18 )

I can get 100/10 but would swap that for sky and unlimited download as I get a cap of 600gb pm
 
I signed up with Sky simply because I already had broadband and phone with them, and it was cheaper than BT (not least no £50 installation fee).

I am in any event far enough from the cabinet that I wouldn't get appreciably faster speeds on BT's 80/20 than on Sky's 40. I'm not too fussed about upload speed - I play online a bit but not much, and not enough for it to be a defining issue.

In any event, I doubt it will be too long before Sky respond and introduce their own increased speed offering.
 
I would prefer not to have discs so my first choice would be to download all my games but Microsoft need to offer more deals and variable pricing on the Games on Demand service as a lot of the time games cost way more than the retail boxed version. If they could do similar pricing to Steam (i.e. lots of sales, bundles and special offers) I may buy more digitally.

Also with games not being released digitally on the same day as retail is another stumbling block for me as I like to get games when they are first released so I would also like for games to be made available for download on the same day as the retail version.
 
I went for the middle option. I love having the freedom of buying games and knowing that I can trade / sell them afterwards.

For this reason, I buy more "okay" games just to pass the time. Taking this option away and having to pay full price for every game means that I would play less games and not have a full gaming experience. I would only buy the "excellent" games I already know about.

I do, however, enjoy downloading arcade games as these are often the games I can play for 15 minutes or so when I don't have the time for a proper gaming session, so not having to change discs is a huge bonus there.
 
when I can I always buy retail unless its for some really good offer. Sure Steam are currently really good deals on the PC and shows the positive of digital distrobution.

BUT

the cost of psp games for psp go users, and the cost of games like Gears 3 on the digital download service prove to me it will be a sad day indeed if ever the competition of retail is removed.

Also, what happens if in 10 years I want to play one of my old games but steam/GFWL/xbox.com has gone down? If i have the physical disk i can still install my game but digital only you are snookered.

+ I am old school, i like a colourful box etc, something physical for my money..
 
Yes, it's about digital distribution on the 360, but also about the next MS console as well. What did you think it would be about, given the forum section you're posting in? :rolleyes:

I shouldn't have made it anonymous thinking about it, cos I bet there's a few PC gaming hermits who don't even own consoles voting for digital distribution based on their "I buy games for 10p in Steam sales" mentality.

10p comment made me chuckle :laugh:

I have to agree with it though when it comes to non AAA games.
 
i don't mind buying my games on steam for PC because regardless you have to install the whole game to the HDD even if its retail and then a waste of shelf space for something you won't touch again

but untill M$ bring out at least a 1TB HDD for the 360 or next console they can spin on it for their Games on Demand (ResiEvil 4, Crysis excluded)

download is only good if you have the space for it and its not the same price or more then a retail disc (49.99 for Gears 3 on GoD lmao)
 

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