Digital Distribution Will Overtake Physical Retail by 2015

A new survey of video game industry executives has revealed that the leaders of the companies involved believe that by the year 2015 digital sales of games will become bigger than those made through physical retail channels.

The survey was conducted on more than 1,000 executives who took part in the London Games Conference and shows that 16 percent of those asked said that it would take just one year for digital distribution to become more important than retail sales.

39% of them said that it would take three years while the rest believed that it would take even more for the change to happen, although no clear year were reported.

Two thirds of those questioned at the London Games Conference also said that the high street retailer will also have a role when it comes to video games even if the digital distribution revolution takes place.

Sony has already announced that its next video game playing platform will include a digital component but will not drop physical disk while Microsoft has not made any official statements about its future device but will likely take the same approach.

Nintendo has already announced that it will include disk based distribution for the Wii U, which will be released during 2012.

On the PC Steam and its sister digital distribution platforms have a big influence and have created an environment where gamers get a lot of special deals and free content for their purchases.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo might not be ready to give up control over their gaming consoles to publishers by introducing full support for day and date digital releases.

The leaders of Sony have said that one of the big problems for digital distribution is that the infrastructure in many places in the world is not developed enough to support it.