14 DAY TRIAL // Digital distribution might be on the rise in the video game industry but a number of leading executives at Sony are saying that it's not yet time for a console that has no physical drive and gets all its content from the cloud.
Shuhei Yoshida, who is the president of the Worldwide Studios at Sony, has told Edge during a bigger interview that, “Some consumers like shopping in retail stores, talking to knowledgeable store clerks, buying and playing games on the spot. We do not want to remove that capability from consumers.”
Jim Ryan, who is the president and the Chief Executive Officer of the European division of Sony, added, “Some PS Vita titles, like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, will be close to 4GB in size, which could be too large to download for consumers who do not have a fast broadband connection. There are consumers in parts of the world – this is a global device – where the digital model has not yet fully been embraced.”
Sony tested the digital only market with the PSP Go, which was a spruced up handheld that got all of its content via download, and the device never managed to gain popularity, even in markets like North America and Japan where access to wireless connections is widespread.
The fact that the Go was a failure seems to have convinced Sony that it's a better bet to keep physical media as the main way of delivering video games to players and to take small steps towards making digital stores more attractive.
At the moment there are rumors that Microsoft has been working on a digital distribution service for the Xbox 360 that marries the best concepts from Steam and from OnLive.
Steam is dominating the PC side of the business, with Electronic Arts trying to gain market share with its Origin service.