14 DAY TRIAL // PSP Go's decision to head more towards digital distribution and discard the physical support for most of its products has received harsh criticism. But at least one other person out there thinks that Sony's new console is making the right decision. EA Sports president Peter Moore didn't make any direct references to the handheld platform, but he does share the same vision. In the future they see, the disc and boxed video game is a museum piece regarded as a thing of the past.
"Look at the platform we're on, it's a burning platform," Moore said at a PLAY Digital Media Conference, IGN reports. "As a concept, do you stay on the platform and face certain death, or do you jump into the water and face probable death? Most of you would choose probable death, so you start moving towards a hybrid model of digital distribution." It may not be an opinion shared by many right now, but it does seem like it's slowly gaining popularity.
Asked if consoles altogether could die out, Peter Moore said that it was very probable. "I'd say the core business model of video games is a burning platform. Absolutely. We all recognize that, and we'll recognize it 10 years from now when we tell our grandkids. We'll tell them we used to drive to the store to get shiny discs that have bits and bites on them and we'd place them in this thing called a 'disc tray,' and it'd whirl around...and they'll go 'What?'"
As president of EA Sports, it seems he won't make a drastic change in the company's policy regarding product distribution, but he does admit that they need to start preparing for this upcoming change. "As digital distribution becomes more and more, we'll continue as an industry to work with retail and to ship discs, but more and more of the content will be in the 'cloud.'" he stated. "More content will be delivered daily, weekly, or monthly, and less will be of the old model of cartridges and discs."