Downloadable Content, Downloadable... Consoles??

With the advent of devices like smart-phones and tablets came the concept of gaming content via download only. As Nintendo continued to feed physical cards into bays on their handhelds and Sony brought the doomed-from-the-start UMD format to it's device, smart-phones and tablet devices grabbed 5% of the handheld gaming market in about a year.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all provided gaming content via download for their home consoles. Stopping to assess this area of my collection, I noticed something. I actually have more downloaded games for each of the current-generation consoles than I do store-bought games.

We all know it, it's happening right under our noses... the days of walking into a store to buy a video game are fading.

But will they ever completely fade? Certainly there will always be a percentage of gamers who will not want or be able to connect their machine to the internet. Perhaps they just can't afford it, or perhaps they don't like the idea of the internet. I think that there will always be enough people interested only in buying a game, with package art, for storage on a bookshelf or the like when not being played. There are people today who purchase music via download, but certain albums are in their collection on CD format or even vinyl. Record stores are mostly out of business, but there are still a few that do well. Certain releases come on record format and are sold in venues like Best Buy. There are enough people interested to support sales of this kind of thing.

I believe the video game industry will experience something similar, and that the DVD or Blu-Ray-style disc will never completely go away.

However, I believe that the video game stores like Gamestop will, at some point, go away. As downloadable content becomes more dominant, the console manufacturers will gain the grip on "used" games. (They will not actually be previously owned, but will replace the used game altogether.) Even now retro-gaming is getting a boost from places like Nintendo's Virtual Console. Gamestop makes it's money by selling the same used game again and again. Perhaps you recently bought a pre-owned game that's a year or two old at Gamestop. How many users had that game before you? Certainly more than one. How many times has it been traded back in at that Gamestop, or perhaps others? How many times have they sold it for over twice the amount they paid for it? It's how they make their money. They don't make a cent from new games or new consoles. The same logic applies to used consoles and peripherals.

One can see the potential and probable changes that will be coming over the horizon.

Now, let's take one more step. Think of this: one day there will be games with graphics that look completely realistic. Not "close", but dead on "I really can't tell if this is a movie or a video game!"

At this point, there will no longer be a need to upgrade graphics every 5 years. The machine components will become cheap and common. Would console companies continue to manufacture expensive consoles? Or could another party, or several, manufacture a generic machine that companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would only need to release firmware to so that a subscriber could download, own, and play their games, with any proprietary peripherals?

Come on, future. Don't let me down.