Sony: time not right for download-only

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 7 October, 2011

Uncharted Vita close to 4GB.

Now is not the right time for a download-only console, Sony has insisted.

Why? Because in some parts of the world, broadband internet isn't quite there yet.

Oh, and because people still like shopping in real life.

"We believe, for some consumers, the time is [right], but for other consumers, the time is still not [right]," boss of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida told Edge.

"So we believe the time is still not right to go download-only as a platform. 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.

"Also, 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."

New Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Jim Ryan concluded: "There are consumers in parts of the world - this is a global device - where the digital model has not yet fully been embraced."

Ryan and Yoshida's comments echo those made by ex-SCE boss Kaz Hirai, who said last year that a digital future is still 10 years away.

"We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn't as robust as one would hope," Hirai said.

"There's always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium.

"To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even 10 years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (64) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • lambchop #1 8 months ago

    good to hear some sense.

  • Toothball #2 8 months ago

    I'll be treating the Vita as a download-only console regardless. I just hope they stick to their previous claims that they would release all physical releases on PSN too.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #3 8 months ago

    Hurray, but as long as all games appear in both everyone's a winner, just try to be a bit competitive on price please.

  • kingcrowbar #4 8 months ago

    Well the current trend of nearly £60 on the PSN store versus at most £40 from a shop *might* be a tiny factor, no?

  • Mister-Wario #5 8 months ago

    I admit I quite like trying out consoles in shops and the like, given the option. And I also like having hard copies of games, so this article is good news for me.

  • Stuz359 #6 8 months ago

    Where is this magical shop where the shop clerks are knowledgeable?

  • Toothball #7 8 months ago

    @kingcrowbar

    I'm not so concerned with price as I am with convenience. I own a PSP Go and really liked storing games on the device rather than having to carry a separate pouch of them or something. Plus with the disappearance of UMD and Sony's track record with formats, sticking to digital seems like a better plan for the future.

    Still, if a game come out for £40 in the shops and £60 online, I'll probably wait for a sale.

  • bivith #8 8 months ago

    They would say that, considering their investment in Blu-ray

  • Goodfella #9 8 months ago

    Does anyone know why prices are higher for digital copies (Steam is guilty too)?

    Is it purely greed?

  • funkateer #10 8 months ago

    "They would say that, considering their investment in Blu-ray "

    Wait a minute, the Vita plays blu-ray?

  • monty2k #11 8 months ago

    Glad to hear that they heard the criticisms of the PSPgo and took them to heart.

  • uknortherner2000 #12 8 months ago

    @Toothball: "Plus with the disappearance of UMD and Sony's track record with formats, sticking to digital seems like a better plan for the future."

    There's nothing to stop 1) Your hardware failing, 2)Your hardware (and virtual gaming collection) being stolen or 3) Sony switching off the authentication servers. At least with physical media, it'll go on working for years to come and it will continue to be easy to amass a gaming collection from sites like eBay years from now. You can't really say that about digital downloads.

  • 2099net #13 8 months ago

    Some Sony PSN regions aren't ready for download only either. Sort out your EU PSN Store first Sony! With the state the current store is, the notion of even discussing download only is just laughable.

  • funkateer #14 8 months ago

    "Does anyone know why prices are higher for digital copies (Steam is guilty too)?"

    Lack of competition I'd say.

  • ZizouFC #15 8 months ago

    "Also, 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."

    Wow. He get it.... He gets it.

    and

    /South African on a 1mb line with a 20gb cap. Which for SA is pretty good.

  • MattEdWithCheese #16 8 months ago

    I'll buy a Vita when it has built-in memory to the level of the current PS3 SKUs, I pretty much exclusively download games on my PSP and I'm fed up of supporting proprietary Sony memory formats for them to abandon them the with the next hardware generation or so... If the PSP Go had LOADS of internal memory and compatibility with Memory Stick Pro Duo (rather than M2) I may have got one at the right price...

  • 2099net #17 8 months ago

    @MattEdWithCheese - but there's no games for a PSPGo. The EU store has a fraction of the titles available in the US, especially PSOne classics. How could they expect people to buy a download only machine when they can't be bothered to put stuff up. Any enquiries at to why something is missing usually gets the same, stock response: "technical issues" No apology, no indication of if a title when or will be released... nothing.

    Everytime a game is delayed in retail, we get informed and a new release date. When a game is delayed on the PSN store we just seem to get shrugged shoulders at best. See the non-release of Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection and the responses to enquires about that for example.

  • Ryze #18 8 months ago

    True talk.

  • Toothball #19 8 months ago

    @uknortherner2000

    But there's also nothing to stop your hardware failing or someone stealing your physical games either, or any other real world issues like fire or flooding. Just because things can go wrong doesn't mean that they necessarily will.

    Also, as physical games get smaller, they become much easier to lose or leave in your pocket when you wash your clothes. As careful as I am with my DS games for example, I've still managed to mislay a couple of them over the years. Vita games look like they're even smaller than those. Can't lose a digital copy though, you just download it again.

    I'm not saying that digital gaming is a perfect solution, but neither is physical gaming. I've just come to prefer the advantages that digital has to offer.

  • hoster #20 8 months ago

    "talking to knowledgeable store clerks"

    Ahahahahahahaha

    Oh Yoshida, you wit, you.

  • Darkmessiah24 #21 8 months ago

    Time is not right for download only...ever.

  • homerramone #22 8 months ago

    Then what sony.. what was the go all about ;-)

  • ballshock #23 8 months ago

    Yeah i hope games are NEVER download only, you have much less choice, cause there's only one place you can buy from, so prices will be bumped

  • Zozzilla #24 8 months ago

    I have a 2.5mb broadband connection as I live in the arse-end of North Yorkshire where BT doesn't really give a toss about upgrading the old copper lines to fibreoptic lines, so the longer games stay in a physical format, the better for me.
    Edited by Zozzilla at 07/10/11 @ 10:18

  • MattEdWithCheese #25 8 months ago

    @2099net I'm currently playing DJ Max Fever, SMT: Persona, Dissidia Duodecim, Blazblue, Disgaea, Tactics Ogre, Patapon 2, Ys I & 2 Chronicles, Ys: Oath in Felghana, FFVII and Z.H.P. some of which were never released over here at retail, I have around 50 downloaded PSP games and 10 PS1 games so I use my PS3 as overflow as my 8GB Pro Duo is nowhere near enough. Even if the Vita launched with no games but it had high memory capacity, I'd buy it so I had all of my games with me without arsing around deleting and transferring whatever I want ahead of when I'm going to use it...

  • jablonski #26 8 months ago

    ZizouFC
    "South African on a 1mb line with a 20gb cap. Which for SA is pretty good."

    Don't worry, it's much better in Shepherds Bush where you will inevitably move too at some point.
    Edited by jablonski at 07/10/11 @ 10:23

  • -cerberus- #27 8 months ago

    Never is the right time for a download-only console. Hardcopy or no sale.

  • Bennicus #28 8 months ago

    Perhaps they should've investigated things like network infrastructure in various parts of the world before wasting time & money developing the PSP Go.

  • scuffpuppies #29 8 months ago

    I will always want to have a physical copy of a game I've just spent £40+ on. A hardware company will continue have a system that will fail if they go the digital only route. The PSP GO was not too early, it was wrong from the start. OnLive is like a rental service. No thanks.

  • ZizouFC #30 8 months ago

    @jablonski

    Nah. Not enough decent jobs for me to steal in Sheperd's Bush! ;)

  • bikmate #31 8 months ago

    Not that it would matter to you Sony, I've got fast unlimited internet in Romania, yet we still don't have a PS Store, so people who bought the PSPgo got screwed over big time while not having it on the PS3 is still an inconvenience we have to live with (or get around if you like to tie your purchases to a fake account)

    The lack of broadband is what they cited back in 2006-07 to justify the unavailability of Stores for some countries.

  • carrotcake #32 8 months ago

    I am download only. Steam for PC games and going to use PSN for Vita games.

  • DigitalDelay #33 8 months ago

    After my 3rd ps3 blue ray drive has now failed, I'm now warming to the idea. If it wasn't for the mad price on the ps store (and the fact I didn't see it there before I bought it) I would have downloaded Fifa12 this year. Perhaps playing more games from the hdd would have saved my console.

    It's good to see it was an option with fifa though. I agree that we do indeed need the choice to do either.
    Edited by DigitalDelay at 07/10/11 @ 11:35

  • consoledelight #34 8 months ago

    If it all becomes Download only then we will lose all those Special Editions. No more Driver Cars, Elder Scrolls Dragons, Bioshock Big Daddies. I like to collect that sort of tat and can only see it being made for Spec Eds.

  • weejok #35 8 months ago

    I was with you up until "talking to knowledgeable store clerks" :(

  • ectotropic #36 8 months ago

    Download only is a problem when more and more ISPs are trying to limit or cut down on bandwidth usage of "high" users (caps and/or throttling are all but ubiquitous). Recently I've had issues with my ISP and my downloading and most of it is just Steam stuff - and I haven't even bought Rage!

    As for download only prices - difference is because publishers set the price on download, while retailers set it for shops. If publishers set the download price of a game to less than the RRP the retailers would have a fit (and rightly so) and publishers don't want to piss retailers off. If a title is download only it is likely to have a lower publisher set price than a title also available in retail - though of course publishers are likely to set the price as high as they can.

  • fizzyfish #37 8 months ago

    @consoledelight - I'm sure you'll still be able to buy collector's items that have a download voucher/code for the game thrown in the box.

  • darkcult #38 8 months ago

    I agree with SONY . Not interested in this cloud thing at all myself.

  • curryking3 #39 8 months ago

    I agree. The time is right for downloading games, but not for download only.

  • Max.Power #40 8 months ago

    Unbelievable quality for the portable game, day one purchase or ... erm.. download for me. Jeez, that`s only the first generation of games for VITA)
    Edited by Max.Power at 07/10/11 @ 12:48

  • steagz #41 8 months ago

    it is never gonna happen with any console ever. people need to stop talking out their arses. if the day ever did come around when this came into force it would be the beginning of the end for gaming.

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #42 8 months ago

    So nobody reading this story is concerned about the likely price of PSV games when the physical media is a 4GB+ proprietary-format memory card? Ulp.

  • Toplinkar #43 8 months ago

    " 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."

    Hooray, they know I exist. XD

  • chub #44 8 months ago

    @steagz
    What about iTunes? All iPhone games are download only.

  • Toothball #45 8 months ago

    @chub

    Also all those Indie games, PSN only games, XBLA games, Wii Ware games and so on that are only available digitally.

    That sort of thing is what turned me around on digital games. Initially I only bought them digitally because that was the only way. After getting used to those I'd rather buy digitally wherever possible.

  • JumpinJackFlash #46 8 months ago

    Publishers and developers keep going on about a digital only future, but let's not kid ourselves here, this is mainly for the benefit of those that publish and develop the games. They simply want to see the death of the secondhand market and digital goes just one step towards that. A digital only future is never for the benefit of the gamer. Any firm that says so is just spinning the usual PR bullshit.

    Also, i don't believe for a second that games will be cheaper just because they are digital. Look at Steam, the new releases are £30/35, yet there is no box, manual, disc or distribution costs involved. Yet the games are full price? Utter madness, i personally don't entertain such prices and never will.

    And what of that game you bought and thought it was shite via digital distribution? You can't sell it because it's locked to your account, you can't trade it, you can't lend it to a friend. Hell, you can't even give it away for free. Basically, you're fucking stuck with it, like it or not and there is nothing you can do about it. Not exactly a bright future for games, is it.

    I don't think that even if every gamer out there had excellent broadband connections that digital would be a success, just because there are too many out there that prefer hard copies of their games.

    The day this industry is digital only is the day the gamer loses control over ownership of their games, which they paid good money for. And when that day comes, it'll be the day i buy less games, if any.

    Edited by JumpinJackFlash at 07/10/11 @ 13:46

  • tajd #47 8 months ago

    no to only download console

  • RawNinjaKid #48 8 months ago

    I really don't want to download more than a 500MB for a brand new release. I am just better off with a physical copy.

  • Miths #49 8 months ago

    @chub
    With perhaps a select few 1+ GB exceptions, even the largest iPhone/Android games are only several hundred Megabytes in size, aren't they? And the overwhelming majority are much, much smaller in size.

    Not that I would personally mind going digital only as I'm on a 50/5 Mbit uncapped connection for a very reasonable price here in Denmark, and I can see that my ISP now offers 111/11 Mbit for only around €12 more than I'm currently paying.

  • betonos #50 8 months ago

    I'd really like to call this impressive, but frankly speaking it fails to impress me. The graphics quality (especially shaders and texture resolution) are closer to PS2 than PS3. So, with PSP giving us sub-PS2 experience and Vita PS2++ experience, it falls short on the premise of PS3-quality in your pocket. And sorry, there is iPhone 4S, iPad 3 on its way, not to mention all those Android power beasts (Samsung Galaxy SII and others). In my opinion whatever edge Vita has here, this border will soon be crossed by other mobile devices.

    Talking about the gameplay I also do have kind of "mobile" feeling to it. And I'd really like to have this "big console" feel. Can't nail the problem here, but this is how I read it by the trailers...

    Having said all that, I will buy Vita on launch. Just as I did with PSP Go. Which failed to generate enough interest and revenue.

  • steagz #51 8 months ago

    @Chub

    i meant proper gaming. xbox playstation wii pc.

    the iphone is like playing games on facebook. basically nobody cares

  • HyperTails #52 8 months ago

    I'm glad that a DL only future is a long way off. I look back at my games collection over the years and, you know, it gives me a different feeling than if it was DL games. I couldn't look at a DL library and feel satisfied.

    I'm sure i'll be DL'ing smaller games when I get my Vita, but retail games will be bought via retail. Its great that Sony's giving people the option as well... people like me get to have a physical collection, people who like DL games can DL instead. Everyone's a winner.

  • DRUNK3N-_-DRAGON #53 8 months ago

    tigerwoods the masters...£57.99 now that is extreme and yes! its not the time for download lol.

  • sourc0r #54 8 months ago

    i'm glad they realised that

  • Snake_2011 #55 8 months ago

    bivith looks like most people say it as well including me will want physical for a long time to come. they would save money without blu-ray numpty costs would go down.

  • SeesThroughAll #56 8 months ago

    To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even 10 years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.

    Hold on there, buddy... In 10 years from now it is feasible to go download-only.

  • makeamazing #57 8 months ago

    Why? Because in some parts of the world, broadband internet isn't quite there yet.

    Some... they mean most right, as UK (which is a big part of MS and Sony sales)... the UK internet is still rubbish. Though i've started seeing BT stick posters on their new Infinity boxes around where i live, unfortunately it states "Infinity is here".. not if you live only 500m away from this poster it doesn't!!

    I think speeds in some parts of Asia were faster 10 years ago than what they are upping a few people to in the UK on the infinity service... to me that just shows how unswitched on we are.

  • electrolite #58 8 months ago

    I can think of much better reasons to not do away with retail. Competition drives prices down. One possible company to buy games off = one possible price.

    Wanting a download-only future as a gamer would be very similar to turkeys voting for Christmas/Lemmings jumping off a cliff

  • Jon1292 #59 8 months ago

    Gotta love how they had the balls to say this without even the slightest mention of the PSPGo

  • KongRudi #60 8 months ago

    @#9 - Goodfella
    Does anyone know why prices are higher for digital copies (Steam is guilty too)?
    Is it purely greed?

    I think it got more with the lack of need to clear out shelfspace.
    So, for the store it's less important to lower prices to sell away older product in order to make room for new releases.
    So they take lower sales at a higher profit margin longer.

  • gandhimaster #61 8 months ago

    personally, i use spotify and stream movies online via lovefilm/xbox live iTunes etc. so I'm all in for download streaming only, but i completely understand the reasons for being against it.

    for me, its not an issue but it would be a brave move by whoever does it first. i bet its MS, doubt Sony will want to go that way. somebody here already brought up the blu-ray reason, and thats what i think too. Sony are too invested in optical media right now. which is fair enough, by the way!

  • stormbringer_2011 #62 8 months ago

    i think the thing they're missing out on is giving the customer choice. i personally only buy downloaded games now but i can completely appreciate that people prefer to buy physical media. surely the best situation would be to let the consumer decide how they want to spend their money

  • stormbringer_2011 #63 8 months ago

    @steagz basically nobody cares? speak for yourself. the 20th century is back that way mate.

  • Kaminari #64 8 months ago

    Until the next PSPGoGo.