The Digital Future Is Still Far Away for Sony

The CEO of Sony has stated that despite being on of the leaders when it comes to pushing digitally distributed video games and content the company does not plan to make any of its consoles to completely eliminate the physical disks that are now so ubiquitous.

Kaz Hirai, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, talked to MCV and said, “We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope. There’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium.”

The executive is pretty sure that physical mediums will be around for the foreseeable future, adding “To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.”

Sony surprised a lot of industry watchers when it announced that it was introducing a new version of the PlayStation Portable handheld that will lack a UMD drive and that was set to get all its content through the PlayStation Network.

The idea evolved as a way to reduce piracy on the much maligned console but after an initial good period sales have dropped quickly, with the PSP Go now sitting at the bottom of the Japanese weekly hardware charts, where it is tracked separately.

The PC was been revolutionized by the launch and the evolution of Valve's Steam distribution service, which is now used to sell games, deliver updates, launch downloadable content and introduce achievements and community features.

Both Sony and Microsoft are using the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live to deliver smaller gaming experiences that are available exclusively via download and are gaining more and more admirers but it seems that a lot of time will go by before the new Uncharted will arrive exclusively via download.