New Era of DLC Games
 

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Say hello to the brave new world of console gaming | Games Blog - Yahoo! Games

If DLC was the way to go with these new platforms, I'm totally passing on that!

There are serious flaws in the idea of a console that requires a high speed internet connection. For starters, especially in the U.S., internet speeds are relatively slow compared to many other technologically advances countries. If you live in a rural area, good luck getting anything other than a satellite internet or, if your lucky, slow DSL. With consoles requiring high speed internet, that would eliminate a huge portion of the market. Especially considering that 40% of Xbox systems are not online at all.

Another problem is capped data. If you're lucky enough to live in an area where you have super fast internet without a data cap, then you are truly one of the lucky few. Many internet providers, especially those that provide wireless internet solutions, cap your data consumption or severely limit your speed after consuming so much data. Imagine trying to buy 3-5 blu-ray sized titles in a month, only to get smacked down by your internet provider. Not a pretty picture. This is especially scary in places where data limits are 25 GB or less.

If the next generation is going to attempt to kill the physical media aspect of their market, then console video gaming will be a bleak and barren wasteland for the immediate future.

Also, anyone who uses the "iPad" argument is going to lose. iPad's and tablets account for a much smaller portion of the gaming market. The games for those are also smaller consumption games taking up a few MB's or less. there are the occasional heavy hitters like Infinity Blade, but those are very few and far between. And while Apple claims about 50 million iPad sales since the devices inception, those are cumulative across all models, and don't take into account people who have upgraded from previous models. Where as the 360 has about 66 million, the PS3 about 62 million and the Wii about 95 million worldwide sales. that's a lot more devices that use games in the GB's, rather than the much smaller MB's that tablet gaming uses.

Considering I'm not a fan of DLC for this generation of console gaming, I don't see myself becoming one for the next. I'm a supporter of owning what I buy in physical formats, not just owning the rights to play something while it's around. I want the option to sell something if I'm done with it and recoup some of my lost funds.

But, that's just me.

I do see a lot of our sources of entertainment moving fast down the digital highway of streaming and downloading, and I'm saddened to see this.