Interscription

If you’ve been remotely interested or involved in PC Gaming, a little gem known as Half-Life has probably popped into your gaming world.  I can recall some truly fond memories of the original Half-Life, with A.I. that truly emphasized Intelligence of the enemies.  I remember feeling as though I was part of the actual Black Mesa struggle for survival, with beings experiencing the same hardships I was going through.

I only reference the first Half-Life in this article because of its profound effect on PC Gaming.  Half-Life 2 (due in no small part to some ultra-juicy, undeniably innovative and downright sexy preview movies) has been the last great PC title that I waited for with bated breath.  (Before the flames start, there have been SEVERAL great games since…sheesh)  In my mind, I can’t think of a better pick for pioneering digital distribution of games.  I realize that Direct2Drive was a mildly successful foray into digitial distribution, but with mostly last generation games debuting on the service, it never had the widespread popularity that Steam, Valve’s "owned-and-operated" digital distribution platform, receivied.  Hell, I was one of them, and this was a platform that promised ONE universe at the outset!  After experiencing several bumps and bruises during the launch of such a mammoth effort, the service has proved to be a successful example of painless distribution, all without visiting a brick-and-mortar retail establishment.

As we wade into the "next generation of console gaming" (a topic, it would seem, that drives a noticeable segment of overall measurable Internet traffic these days), the terms "digital distribution" and "episodic content" have started to seep into the gaming vernacular of our favorite M$ and Sony spokespeople.  Is it all that they say it is?

My initial thought on the subject is a resounding "yes"!  Microsoft certainly has pioneered "love for online" with the Xbox Live service, and the Xbox 360 has expanded the concept radically with several interesting and potentially lucrative choices, including Xbox Live Marketplace and Xbox Live Arcade.  The former offers demos of games (not really new in PC circles, but a wildly successful idea for the 360 and it would seem future consoles…), expandable content for current games such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and trailers for games.  The latter offers bite-sized, complete gaming experiences through a digital direct-to-consumer distribution model, very similar to Steam.

Beyond the current offerings, both Sony and Microsoft agree that digital distribution is the future.  Perhaps a frustration I currently experience is that neither of their consoles offer a viable solution for this.  The main concern here is storage space.  Microsoft has seen fit to offer a somewhat anemic 20GB hard drive with the Xbox 360, easily one of the weakest parts of the console.  (As a side note, the almost snobbish independence from the hard drive as an integral piece of the gaming puzzle offends me and manifests itself as the only other real complaint from this blatent Xbox 360 Fanboy)  The Internet is "en fuego" with stories of 360 owners filling up their hard drives (this is happening all the more with the recent Dashboard update, distributed digitally via Xbox Live); it wouldn’t be so bad if you could offload this content to an external USB 2.0 drive, but Microsoft does not allow most types of content to exist there, especially the big stuff like videos and demos!  Interesting choice, guys…maybe you can drop us a supersized drive around X-mas, maybe?

Sony is offering a 60GB hard drive standard in their "premium" system (might as well compare apples to apples, right?), but Sony is also cramming, I mean, um, integrating a Blu-Ray drive into every system, promising that games will easily fill up the 50GB limit of these new discs.  Even if some games only use a third of that, you’ll be able to store a maximum of 2-3 games on this stock drive before running out of space.  I applaud Sony for allowing users to upgrade their hard drive to another SATA (I’m assuming?) hard drive if they so choose (I’m still interested to hear their plan to migrate data from "drive A" to "drive B" when upgrading…), but even a 250GB drive will only yield 10 games max, not including demos, videos, trailers, music, pictures…

Hell, the Wii is supposed to download new content "auto-magically" with it’s 24-hour-a-day connectivity, letting you know there’s more stuff to play with via a small blinking light.  I think I download enough junk without my console telling me I missed some…

I guess where I’m at is this: Can someone from either company tell me why their hardware doesn’t seem to match up with the strong belief (and tangible proof found in Steam) that digital distribution is the future?  Do we have to sweat it out for another 3-4 years before we get another console offering built around this idea, with the storage room to prove it?