14 DAY TRIAL // Xbox 360 users are getting a lot of interesting services in the coming months, with everything from Facebook integration to Last.fm services or even the ability to update their Twitter straight from the console dashboard.
But one of the most interesting and the first to arrive in this new wave of updates is the Games on Demand service that will allow players to buy and download full games straight to the hard drive of their Xbox 360 console. While at first it will boast a few “old” titles, like Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect, its library will grow exponentially, Microsoft promises.
Just don't expect titles to appear on the online service right when they appear in retail stores, as day-and-date releases are pretty difficult to plan and just can't happen anytime soon, Microsoft's Shane Kim says in a recent interview.
“There are a lot of complex issues to deal with here, especially if you start talking about day-and-date release with retail availability—which is not something that we're talking about at all, today. And publishers have to do some technical work in order to enable this. There will be decisions that publishers have to make from a business standpoint. But when it comes to us saying we want Games on Demand to enable day-and-date release of new titles, then there's certainly a lot of work we would need to go through. We're not anywhere close to that world today.” he says.
He continues by revealing that retail partners are important to Microsoft: “We have great relationships with the retail channel—they're important partners. We sell a lot of hardware and software through retail channels. We have to be smart about how we approach this business.”
Hopefully though the company will make it worth the wait of plenty of gamers around the world who could easily buy a title when it appears in stores and after playing it return it for credit to buy another one.