How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive?

[apex05]

It's an idea that will probably never happen, but brick and mortar retailers could still survive if they keep a database of the bigger games and people take their own flash drive, possibly with some kind of security builtin and you pay for the download, it's a way to combine physical and digital distribution in some way in the future, and because developers are whining about the used game market destroying the industry, they will fight to reduce physical products

[goshogun1]

I want physical Boxes and Manuals. Having them all in some weird grey area consisting of data isn't what I want. Lets say the game company shuts down a few years down the road, and the download disappears? Or lets say your HDD gets fried? Think about it. Also, I don't want to ONLY have to be able to use my credit card on game purchases.

[Shrygue]

Like everyone has said before me, if I'm going to buy a game, it'll be bought from the store or ordered online and it'll come to me on physical media, ie boxed with disc/cartridge and manual. Downloadable content like some small games and and stuff is okay but not for big full featured games.

[wraggster]

personally i like to knnow that i can install the game when ever i feel like it, physical media all the way for me.

[Spanishpeacock]

Yeah, it's nice to be able to put in a game and play it off of a disc instead of wasting you're whole hard drive for 3 or 4 games. I've purchased smaller games on the PS store, but with a 40GB PS3 and a PSP with a 4GB ms, it gets a little frustrating when I want to put a movie on my PSP and I have to delete a game to do it. Then I have to re-download it (because you can't transfer a game from PS3 to PSP unless you're connected to the internet).

[MicroNut]

They really want to eliminate the secondhand market and remove merchants from the picture.
As soon as they can leverage 1 million 10gig (on average) downloads across the world to deliver a product they will cut out physical media entirely.