yukoasho

Pretty much. It's not that Sony wouldn't like the mythical "broader market" dollars, but they understand that you need to start at the core and work your way outward. MS wanted to start at the outside from the off, didn't really understand what people buy these boxes, as opposed to cheaper stream boxse like Roku and Chromecast, for. And like many pundits, they bought into the idea that the consumer doesn't want ownership anymore.

Then there's that 3rd console slump being a factor. The Nintendo and Sony had their falls from grace with the N64 and PS3 respectively (though Sony managed to eventually turn the ship around). It seems almost inevitable in this industry that console makers that enjoy huge amounts of success tend to get fat and happy... Though MS is odd in that only one of its previous two consoles was successful, compared with two for Nintendo and Sony. That's a much quicker zero-to-complacent time than I imagine we'll see again soon.

Overall, this IS a victory for Sony, but moreover, it's a victory for competition. Without multiple console makers pushing against one another, consumer options are greatly reduced, and companies are able to more easily screw them over. Makes me wonder how awesome things would be if Nintendo were actually competitive, or Sega hadn't drilled themselves into the ground...

You know, maybe it's just me, but I figured "PC Elitist" would be more easily understood as being different from your average PC gamer, much like console fanboys are different from the average console gamer. We've all seen them: the ones who unironically refer to themselves as the "PC Master Race" and who are constantly mocking console gamers whenever they get a chance. I had actually just come off a GameSpot article on the outage whereby several PC elitists were doing just that, and the attitude definitely seemed to deserve a "bastard" tag.

However, it seems I made some erroneous assumptions about how that would be perceived and, as I stated a few posts back, I should have been more diplomatic. Perhaps "partisan" would have been a better phrase?

In either case, I apologize to anyone I offended with that bit. Certainly not the best way I could have gone about it.

@demoskinos - Would Steam sales be happening in an environment of no comptetition? If it weren't for Gog and Humble Bundles and Origin and Uplay and gamergate and all the other outlets? Because an environment of no competition is exactly where consoles would be if they went all-digital. Like myself, I don't use Steam because of my distaste for DRM, so I go to Gog, and all's good. Competition, as we learn again and again, keeps companies honest. If I didn't like the terms of XBL or PSN's marketplaces, those boxes would be paperweights in a digital-only world.

It seems to be going up and down. I see people talking about how things are fine, but then when I try to log on either service, it all goes to pants for me. At time of writing, the XBL service status site says that social and gaming are "limited," meaning they're clearly still being affected...

Well, 2014's had so many controversies, I guess some script kiddies were like "hey, what's another one?"

Well, you can still get your system repaired. I've sent a whole bunch of my older game systems off for repairs and mods lately. You have to do some looking around, usually, but googling for a bit will get you plenty of repair services that can get you back and gaming for a lot less than taking it to OEM will. While I'm at it, allow me to put a plug here for rapidfiregaming.net, one of the truly amazing repair services out there. Great service all around, and fair pricing to boot.

And that's where I reiterate the point I made in the original post. I'm not against using the internet. I really am not. The problem is that, if the people who would love nothing more than to see physical distribution end get their way, we're left with no fallback options. At least with DRM-free stuff, you can burn that shit to a disc or back it up to another drive and not have to worry about being able to get into your account.just to get a game of Freedom Planet in. That reminds me, I gotta get a new backup drive... Mine's old as crap and not working like it used to...

While I focused on games because this is a games site, you are absolutely right about the broader concerns. We saw it with the whole fiasco with The Interview, where Sony Pictures lost productive time and personal/corporate information. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing that more and more often as companies tie themselves exclusively to the internet more and more.

Oh I still play old games. Games don't stop being fun once they're not new.

And I think everyone would agree that a hybrid market (a TRUE hybrid market, not just putting codes in stores or requiring online activation for physical releases) is the best, and honestly likely, outcome. There are going to be people, as you mention, for whom digital is fine. Good on them, and if DRM in games goes the way of DRM in music, I might welcome it a bit more. However, the prevailing ideology by digital-only zealots and much of the gaming press is that one has to preclude the other, and much like @meatball, I feel like it's little more than reveling in the idea that other people's needs will be ignored. There's certainly no reason not to have both, if only so people can buy a more permanent version of that game they bought for $1 on some Steam sale and ended up enjoying...

Don't forget the part where he slams another company for the exact thing only a few months before he does it.

I'll admit I could have been more diplomatic. Lesson learned, don't blog immediately after reading a comment section. So many PC gamers mocking console gamers having to put up with this, it's actually quite infuriating.

I tried to do the backup thing. You have to log into your account to install the backups, and unless they've fixed it, installing from backups is quite slow compared to installing from stand-alone game installers. And yeah, everything has its issues; I just think there has to be a serious discussion instead of "it's the future, shut up!"

First off, thank you for being the only person on the pro-digital-only camp not to come off as dismissive of my position. It's quite refreshing to be able to look at someone on the other side and not have my blood boil, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Funnily enough, I came to my position over the course of time as well. I had a Steam account and didn't really think much of it. In... 2009 was it? Long while ago, but somewhere around then, Steam servers got knocked out because of a thunderstorm, and instead of going into offline mode, the client just wouldn't let me start my games. It was then that I started having doubts. The 2011 PSN hack pretty much cemented my decision to pull back from DRM-based gaming. I've replaced nearly all my Steam games with either physical console releases or DRM-free alternatives such as GOG or humble store games marked DRM-free. It's a bit more of a hassle, sure, but I feel a hell of a lot more secure in the knowledge that I'll be able to play my games regardless of what goes on online. While I certainly respect people's liking digital, I don't see why so many people find it so offensive that some of us would rather not have that be the only option.