Online game sales not yet 'viable'
Services like Steam the exception
Services like Direct2Drive and Steam may be going strong, but games sold and distributed online remain the tip of the iceberg, Screen Digest predicting that the shift to online dominance will be a slow one.
Apparently, big gaming firms are still too concerned about their relationships with traditional retailers to release full-blow, triple-A releases from launch day online. Instead, smaller or older titles are the focus in most cases.
"While the online console market is growing strongly and will provide welcome revenue in later years, today's consoles have been consigned to the important, but ultimately limited, online market role of 'transitional' devices as the industry only slowly makes its way to a more online-console orientated framework," reads a new report (thanks VG247).
"There will be a substantial addressable online market to exploit towards the end of the cycle, but it is likely that this opportunity will remain significantly untapped and it won't be long before the industry will be forced once again to prepare itself for the next generation of hardware."
Your thoughts on this, players?
