Moore reckons physical media will be sticking around for a while

  • Posted October 19th, 2009 at 11:13 EDT by Mike Harradence
  • 2,865 views
  • 48 Comments

Peter Moore, president of EA Sports, has stated his belief that physical media will be doing the rounds for a while longer, with the games industry not expected to do away with disc-based content for at least another decade before firmly embracing digital distribution.

“[The industry is] at least a decade away from saying goodbye to a physical disc. The more important question is what does the next generation of console look like,” said Moore, speaking at the PLAY conference at UC Berkeley, California. Elsewhere, the executive also touched on the subject of next generation platforms, believing that his former employees at Microsoft will be first out the door with a new console.

Prior to his days with EA and Microsoft, Moore served as head of SEGA of America during the days of the Dreamcast, and recently conceded to playing a significant part in the company’s decision to cease production of the trouble machine back in early 2001.

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What are your thoughts?

  1. DonMatteo | DonMatteo13

    • 11:16am BST - October 19th, 2009

    what about the lazy gamer :P

  2. netherdragon | netherdragon

    • 11:26am BST - October 19th, 2009

    sounds about right, Physical media will be around for a fair bit yet, digital distribution has too many pitfalls right now to work effectively (slow net speeds, people wanting to cling on to physical media through distrust of digitaldistribution, etc).

  3. crippled5 | wlchrbandit

    • 11:28am BST - October 19th, 2009

     I like to have a physical copy of the game,  I like having the box and booklet!

  4. GradJackson

    • 11:41am BST - October 19th, 2009

     Well, that will be the day i quit gaming. I did not buy the PSPGo for this very reason. 

  5. area51employee | pitofskulls

    • 11:44am BST - October 19th, 2009

     well of course he would say this...he's from microsoft...they don't want disc based games to survive...and once again you would have to have a harddrive or storage device that is well over a terabyte in size to accomodate having a few games.  what then?

  6. Dan_Lero | Dan_Lero

    • 11:48am BST - October 19th, 2009

    @5 He's from EA

  7. higgos22

    • 11:51am BST - October 19th, 2009

    If it was all digital media there would be little need for publishes

    The Dev could contact Sony and Microsoft directly and upload it themselves to psn couldnt they?

     

  8. dc89 | Stiss

    • 12:10pm BST - October 19th, 2009

     @3

    Me too!

  9. dc89 | Stiss

    • 12:10pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    Sorry double posted =[ 

  10. terminator12259 | tacitassassin25

    • 1:02pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    i think it will last longer than that. i would say most people want to have something in their hands when they spend 60 bucks on it i know i do. and plus with games especially on the PS3 taking upwards of 25 gigs or more, DD doesnt really make sense unless everyone has a huge harddrive which even still a 250GB HDD will only hold about 10 games

  11. DarkVincent07 | DarkVincent07

    • 1:03pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    #3 and #4 i lovah you.

     

    higgos, you bring up a really interesting point... I wonder whats gonna happen eh?

    Guess we will have to wait and see..

  12. enemyjeep

    • 1:36pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    If we all started downloading games instead of buying them at the store would the prices come down to a reasonable level for a brand new release? How about $40 or $50 tops.

  13. REEEPR | REEEPR

    • 1:45pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    It would kinda do away with used games wouldn't it? That would be a sad day, When you can't buy a used game from the game store or pawn shop. Face it, Everyone might not be well off enough to buy new ones forever. I am also thinking movies will be all digi before games are.

  14. Drew1987

    • 1:56pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    UGHHHH I just got YLOD for the 3rd TIME!!!!!!

  15. lloyd_yayo | lloyd_yayo

    • 2:04pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    i can answer "what does the next generation look like:

    answer = PSP Go

  16. Empty_Cans | Empty_Cans

    • 2:24pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I hope it takes longer than that, because I like having the box, art work and booklet, also being able to borrow games etc.

  17. Sufi

    • 2:28pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    lol @ 14.

    Moore: No **** sherlock.

  18. tremblingwater | tremblingwater

    • 2:36pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    like most others have stated, i like the fact that i have a physical disc, booklet and even the case. Sure, i agree, the concept is good and could help save money but with the issues already stated and just out of pure satisfaction, i dont like the idea. This is why i feel they made a big mistake with the pspgo.

     

    Ash

  19. PsychoMantis | KuruptX

    • 3:05pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    its obvious the PSPGo was a test dummy for digital distribution, they will see how it reacts over time and if it don't work out psychical media will stay.  If digital distribution grows I see gamestop and ebgames coming under pressure or just selling download cards for games...

  20. hush404 | hush404

    • 3:40pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    Wow... that's prob the closest thing to a smart comment this guy has ever pushed past his lips.

  21. SuPeR-67 | SuPeR-67

    • 3:44pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    one thing no one said, is the fact that if u get banned or lose or HDD youll have to A redownload everything which would take a year, and if your banned from psn could u even get your data back? prob not. im not the type to get banned but just the fact that u re dl everything if u lose it. but i like dl content just wouldnt guy full games without a disc.

  22. hillybilly | apeh

    • 4:20pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    @6 he used to work for Microsoft so @5 is kinda right but yah he works for EA now

  23. Overcast | Gamenificent

    • 4:27pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I reckon so too. If it ever evolves to digital only I can accept that but then you have to come up with a viable way to take your games around like say to a friends house and then a system for proper user recongition so people won't pirate and share their games with everyone they meet. On top of that it has to a proper user interface just in case you end up with a corrupt hard drive or something and you don't have to repay to redownload items you already payed for. PSN does a good job of this by only allowing you to download to 5 different systems before it locks you out. But if it's always on the same system you can do it indefinitely. There are a lot of pitfalls concerning this format that have to be worked out.

    Kudos by the way to Sony that actually don't care if you choose to game share with your 5 console downloads for a purchase. That's the bee's knees.

  24. MarcRecon | MarcRecon

    • 4:45pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    He's about 5yrs off

  25. TensaZ | matrixcoder

    • 5:46pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    The only way to convert me to buy from pure digital will only happen if the prices is 30-40% less then the physical counterpart, I already kicked GO out of my list since no UMD conversion.

     

    And last I like to hold the cover in my hands.

  26. darthrazorback

    • 6:15pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    As I said in 2006 when people demanded Sony was nuts in creating a larger physical media storage disc, digital distribution as the main source of game sales is something we will have in 2015 MAYBE. First, we have to get the hard drives much bigger and CHEAPER.  Like a couple of TBs not just 250GB and under $100.  Plus, we will need to see Internet speeds around the globe increase tenfold.  Until then, physical media is here to stay.

  27. claud3 | Libertycity2008

    • 6:27pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    i want to be bot a lazy and active gamer

  28. sicstar

    • 6:42pm BST - October 19th, 2009

     firmware updates take long enough to download, imagine the time it would take to download a game of 6GB at current speeds

  29. Overcast | Gamenificent

    • 6:44pm BST - October 19th, 2009

     @28 not to long for me, I'm averaging about 12,000 kb every 7 seconds with my service. Cost a bit more but my downloading speed on PSN is fast.

  30. Sonan | Sonan

    • 6:44pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    Good. I always prefer disc over download.

  31. PSX_Legend | KillZone3000

    • 6:57pm BST - October 19th, 2009

     Ten years from now consoles must have some big a** HDD to store every game i buy.

  32. jaewest304 | jaewest304

    • 7:18pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    my opinion is that no form of media will ever be digital only. I say this because there are too many reason to have the phisical copy to many people. I do believe that we will see both digital and physical forms but never just one or the other

  33. kopkiwi | Kopkiwi

    • 7:32pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    Phyisal media will be around forever, why? Because you can't on sell a downloaded game once you have finished with it.

  34. ttech10 | Scheller

    • 8:09pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    This is one of those articles that you just go 'well, duh'.

     

    Like many, I believe that there should always be a hard/physical copy of a game. Of course, I can see publishers wanting digital only so then they can force everyone to pay full price since it would make buying used games impossible.

  35. Bigdoggy | Gypscrew

    • 9:23pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I knew it would be before Moore even decided to announce what he thought.  Seriously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that.  All it takes is common sense.

  36. Silentkiller223

    • 9:48pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    all i can say is that if they are moving to downloadable games then they better hope all the people that buy games have fast internet, b/c i have pretty slow internet and there is no way i'm gonna leave my system on for 12 hours to download a game,lol

  37. zombieking36

    • 10:16pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I hope so, I greatly prefer physical media.

  38. jaybiv | jaybiv

    • 10:27pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    Until the storage issue is resolved, physical media will be king. Granted storage of physical media can be a problem, but the storing of digital media is down right frustrating.

  39. Centurion-Legion777 | Centurion-Legion

    • 10:59pm BST - October 19th, 2009

     problem with non physical is that you cant sell used or buy used games... you can make copies and people would sell USB flash memories with games or in the case of the PSP, sell games on the cards. i will always prefer physical media over digital

  40. Alpha2

    • 11:30pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I swear to god. I need to be an analyst because I said Physical Media would stick around for atleast a decade a year and a half ago. even with MS pushing the digital media agenda for movies and Sony withthe PSPgo. People with collector mentalities can't feed that need with digital files. we're a materialistic society we WANT THINGS, not ethereal ones and zeros that may not be there in another ten years. If a gamer wants to be lazy and not go to the store there's always amazon.com.

  41. Decode1976

    • 11:36pm BST - October 19th, 2009

    I think a lot of people feel that it will be a good decade before streaming media really becomes the standard.  I am not a fan of this however as I like to own a hard copy.

  42. ptmww3

    • 8:33am BST - October 20th, 2009

    If this happens...it's because of xbox, M$ doesn't want to put a Sony Blue-ray player in their crapy box(make sence). So they trying to go this digital f***ing distribution, so the Sony won't make any money out of puting a Blue-ray player and every Blue ray disk that sells. As we all know the sales figures for xbox sales and xbox games, this will be like picking up money from trees for Sony.

    If this happens, this will be the end of me playing games. It's good for people who like to download them, and it better have at least 20-25% off the normal price for a disk game. Also i don't want to wait for google search page to load for more than 30sec after downloading a game like MGS4.

    This suite for PSPGO because you don't have to carry your UMD everywhere you GO. But who the f**** wants to carry a console? It's for the living room!

  43. Iron Erro | Iron_Erro

    • 2:24pm BST - October 20th, 2009

     @42 all i have to say is well said. i dont like buying digital that much unless it is psn games. the prices on regular games is just ludicrous. they dont have to produce the game. they put it up and allow people to download it. not worth $60 in my book. too much work to download something that big too. i like the hard copy for big games. ive got what #40 said "collector mentality". still have all my ps2, N64, Super nes, gamecube, and gameboy games. a point of pride in a way.

  44. GunTeng

    • 2:36pm BST - October 20th, 2009

    We have been stating this in the PS3 Forums when others were claiming disc based medium on the PS3 was a waste ( clearly a poor defense for MS's approach to storage medium).

    We don't need Moore, or any of the droves of analysts re-iterating our very own statements. And 10 years is very optimistic.

    Besides..hes about 1 year to blooming late ¬ ¬.

  45. jello_snake

    • 9:26am BST - October 21st, 2009

    more than a decade. Are you saying in the future most gamers will have access to internet connections so fast that they can download a 50 gigabyte game in a reasonable amount of time? Physical is here to stay.

  46. pspfanboy89

    • 9:51pm BST - October 21st, 2009

    DD or physical discs should be at the discretion of the gamer and last i checked dd games dont take up too much rooom on the HDD im thinkin you can fit more than just 10 games and dd games cost less than 59.99

  47. Muzikguy | Muzikguy

    • 9:56pm BST - October 21st, 2009

    I agree with #3, if they EVER go to just digital media I'm done and will find another hobby. I would much rather have a physical copy. Example: I just had to buy a PS3 Slim because my launch PS3 YLOD. So naturally I signed back into the PSN like I had on my other system. Only to find out that I couldn't redownload ANYTHING that I had before. Now I know they have this 5 system rule or whatever, but there is no way in h3ll that EVERY game I had downloaded was on all of those 5 systems. Plus, I can't even think of 5 systems I had my username activated on. Just one of the many downfalls I see with digital distribution

  48. Wallin | Wallin

    • 12:57am BST - October 22nd, 2009

    I think there will be ages until Digital Distribution of games will take off. As most people today dont have high internet speeds and most likely they wont like to wait for 7 hours downloading a game when u can go 10 down the road and buy it... if u have them 2 options almost everyone would take the walk.

    Personally i get anoyed at a 20 min download... so yeah, digital distribution is not for me :P I prefer having a real disc in my hand and a booklet. A physical copy.

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