Sony: PS4 Won't Be "Digital Only"

I hope we can at least have the option to download every game, thereby having a digital backup, and possible re-downloads if necessary (Steam, anyone?). And they better keep it nice and easy to put in our own HDDs into our PS4s! Without unintentionally bricking them with a firmware update...

"Hirai apparently believes that physical mediums will still be around for another ten years at the *most."

*least. There I fixed it for you.

Why don't they implement a system in which a user takes a portable hard drive for example, and downloads the game with some special file (Steam style) which allows them to unlock those files to their PS4?

Releasing the PSPGo without any backwards compatibility was stupid. Even the DS can play Gameboy Advance games. Of course, the new PS3 no longer comes with the necessary hardware to play PS2 games, so its no surprise then that Sony would go this route.

The problem is that internet connections are not growing as fast as the content they must provide. It takes me hours to download modern games off of Steam. Imagine a PS4 game that requires an entire Blu-Ray disk (or two). That would take days with my current connection, and something tells me my cable company won't be quadrupling my speed anytime soon (and no, there's no FIOS or U-Verse in my state).

Unless Sony is going to roll-out fiber to peoples homes, those of use who don't live in Norway, or any other country with 100mbps to the home, are going to need a faster way of playing games. Nothing beats going into a store, buying the disc, and plopping it straight into your console. Even computers are kind of a bummer in that respect, having to install to the harddrive first.

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

Like 90% of the US?

Definitely makes sense too. I do not mind not having to download a 50G game before playing up until we get 100/100 Mbit connections around the US. But I do enjoy the Steam way of purchasing games these days and having fantastic access to them. If they implement that on future consoles when the bandwidth arrives, things may play out different.y

1. It's not like you can't already download digital games and have them unlocked and downloaded. The other reasons I see them wanting to do this is to prevent pirated discs, pirated downloads, and selling used games (rather than having people buy them New and overpriced all the time). Of course, they probably wouldn't want to add those factors.

2. Xbox 720 is the worst name I can think of. Makes people think of 720 resolution... or going round and round again like the red ring of death.

Did anyone really think PS4 would be download only? And Steam sucks. A system like that on a consoles would just drive me away even more. Why would I want to buy something that I have to wait a day to download, and that I can't sell or share? I buy a game on Steam, and it automatically means I can't let my brother play it on his computer without letting him use my Steam account. It's not enough that a company gets to sell one game a household or even per system. Now they want to sell per user account.

I'm just rooting for a switch from slow, scratchable optical media to much more robust flash media. It's more expensive (for now) to be sure, but the consoles could be way quieter and more compact without having to pack in an optical drive, and the games should have much longer lifespans.

All you would really need is a small card reader or USB port, CPU/GPU, and a couple fans. Next-gen consoles really should be no more than half the size of this generation.

I Agree, i think digital is fine as long as the system has a serial port or USB3 plugin so you can hook up a drive if you want to play your old PS3 games. I just think at some point all Digital is the way to go. You
wouldn't have to worry about scratching your disk or loseing it. They could code the game file so that it can only be played on your system and it would allow you to re down load it again if you lost it by way of a format or virus. I think one of the biggest reasons the PSP Go didn't fly is because it went all digital but didn't provide enough on board memory. Plus they decided to use their brand memory on the Card upgrade which is a no no. Use standard SDHC memory and people will buy into it. Use your Sony Memory which is more expensive then nobody will buy into the program. Sony needs to learn that and give up on their own memmory cards. They can produce standard SDHC cards in their factory but they choose not to because they want customers to pay higher amounts for their memmory which doesn't run any faster or last any longer. They need to move on. Go Digital.............

Steam seems to do pretty well.

I wish we could get rid of discs. It's not an option... yet.
Where's my fibre at?

Great! Just include BDXL and DVR capabilities to the mix and this should be fine!

Download contents are good, but I sometimes miss the good ol' cartridge days where the load times were virtually non-existent.

Ummm.. today's game discs are capable of 50GB... Even using the same standard some people just don't have the connection speed to want to wait for a 50GB download.

Can we ban "tradeshoes27" please!

And I thought from the title that we'd be getting a digital + analog CPU in the PS4. Now that would be revolutionary. Analog would mean superior AI, but that is still not fully invented yet.

Forget PS4. I WANT BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY ON THE PS3!!

Awww, I thought that I'd be able to play my vinyl on it. Terrible article title.

PSPgo always was an experiment to test the waters. Even if it flopped they still had the older PSP's on sale (either that or no ones buying them either) which could also handle downloads. Personally I wouldn't mind total downloads but only if there is more than one company involved. PSN has a monopoly for PS3 games and so has steam on PC. Im still buying physical games since its only occasionally cheaper to download from steam tho you can never put a value on handiness of downloads.

Those complaining about not having backwards compatibility were probably the same people that bought and XBox because the PS3 WITH Backwards compatibility were 500$. Now who's laughing. Anyhow, I prefer going to the store and popping in a disc, because they made a great point. Network infrastructure isn't up to par in the US, unless you really wanna pay the premium. So really all the hate about it should be directed toward private sector and government for not making our network infrastructure in the top10 of the to-do list.

So lets say it's Christmas, how do you get games as presents to unwrap? Just a card with a code on it? Also lets say you have 5 games you got in one shot in Christmas, do you have to wait a whole day to download them? Will it kick you past your data cap for the ISP? How do you trade in games for credits once you played them? Can you gift the game to a buddy once you beat it?

It really won't be that difficult for Sony to make a VM that could run PS2 games and deploy it in a firmware update, especially given the power of the PS3 hardware.

yay I wont have to download next gen blue ray disks from an extremely overloaded network opening day. that would be a NIGHTMARE.

well not that id ewer go and buy a xbox 720 but 720p is quite dead for me and all my friends and almost all ppl around me. im not saying i cant live whit 720p, but then the games need atleast 4x anti aliasing. i only got my ps3 for the sole promis of 1080p games. some manage a hig anti aliasing so it worked but i sold it. how much time and money you put in a game dossent mather if it locks like pure crap becouse if it got to low rez "720p" and low anti alians whit lots of stuff it getts cluttered and hard to see a thing.

pspgo somewhat a failure?? is isn't somewhat, it is a failure!
the main purpose of the pspgo was digital distribution. well that didn't do well with the pspgo. so it failed. what does that mean for digital distribution?! it means don't go that route or else you're dead. this statement by sony only proves it.