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Posted by Chuck Corbin on Jun 1, 2012

Sony Considered Going To A Download-Only Console

A few months ago there were rumors that the next Xbox was going to eschew the disc drive altogether. While those rumors seemed to have been debunked, it seems that their major competitor, Sony, was seriously thinking of the same thing at least for a little while. Instead, according to a Wall Street Journal article Sony eventually decided to go ahead and give the next PlayStation an optical drive.

According to the WSJ’s sources, the reason why they decided to forgo the download-only route was because of inconsistency in internet speeds around the world. While there are a lot of people with Xbox 360’s and PS3’s who have broadband connections for their consoles, I know of quite a few people, especially in rural areas, who simply can’t get a broadband connection, or the broadband connection they can get is too slow to be useful in downloading a 10 GB game. Sony felt like they would be hobbling customers in those areas by the requirement to download those games.

However, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a download-only console relatively soon. With the success of platforms like Steam, and the fact that broadband internet is reaching more and more areas of the world every year, it’s only going to be a matter of time before a console maker decides to get rid of the disc drive and just make you download the game. At this point, however, the idea is just a little too fresh, and it needs to mature a bit before being unleashed on the masses. When that happens, stores like GameStop are going to need to adapt or die. Perhaps that’s why GameStop has been getting into the digital sales market over the last few years, in an attempt to keep the company relevant in the face of new trends?

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