The Escapist Bulletin: Destination digital distribution

The ubiquity of the internet has changed the face of our hobby. While once confined to isolated pockets, gaming is now a distributed social system, and a world of potential team mates, friends and rivals are only a few button presses away.

The internet may end up being something of a double edged sword for the console manufacturers, because getting it wrong in the current climate of multi-player focused, persistent meta-scores can deal your product a blow that could take years to recover from.

The oft verbose Michael Pachter has predicted that an Xbox Live Gold membership will double in price over the next few years, due to declining profit margins for Microsoft.

But while Pachter may be quotable as all hell, his predictions fail to take into his account that Microsoft - as much as its detractors might argue - is not stupid, and it isn’t going to run the risk of alienating its userbase with higher prices. Especially when it’s the only one of the big three that’s charging.

In many ways, Microsoft is simply being honest about Xbox Live. It acknowledges that it costs money to maintain and develop a worldwide online service, and by charging for it, it allows itself the funds to expand the service and make it a more compelling experience.

Sony, on the other hand, charges developers a fee based on the number of downloads a product receives and so pays for the service that way. The online capabilities of the Wii aren’t quite as robust as its rivals and Nintendo doesn’t make such a big deal out of it, but, again, hosting and distributing content isn’t free, even if you invented Mario.

Pachter’s right about one thing, however: Xbox Live is going to get more expensive, especially if Peter Moore is even half-way correct and physical media is on its way out.

Even if the next generation of consoles does not rely solely on pulling games from the ether and continues to have disk drives, all three of the platform holders are going to have to increase their online capacity, and sadly servers and bandwidth do not grow on trees.

The consumer is unlikely to have to bear the brunt of the cost, but somebody is going to have to pay for it, be it developers, publishers, or even advertisers.

The established models for gaming are in flux at the moment, and as internet connections increase in speed the capacity for even greater change grows. Console manufacturers are going to have to figure out new strategies that go beyond simply expanding upon current functionality and signing up new media partners.

It’s not going to be enough to bolt new elements onto an existing paradigm because, eventually, the strain will become too much and it will break down in much the same way the music industry is struggling to keep up with MP3s and digital distribution.

The bottom line is that the next console you buy is probably going to be very different from any you own at the moment, and, if not, the company that made it might be in trouble.