I think it will make a difference for those 360 owners that have lots of digital titles. I don't think having retail 360 titles will move the needle much though.
I don't know... Personally I've never really bought the bc only matters when it's for digital titles argument, but I've seen this notion presented a lot. Just curious why?
My guess is:
1) Downloadable games are yours forever whereas physical games get sold off (for reasons such as space or need for money) and therefore people have no games with which to use the BC.
2) Convenience factor. Not having to take the disc out of the case.
My responses to those two anticipated reasons:
Response to 1) Reason 1 is logical and reasonable, but my question is if those physical purchase people sold their games doesn't that kind of indicate that they didn't really care to play those games anymore? Whether on their current console or in anticipation for the next gen console. This reasoning hinges on the assumption that people desire to play anything and everything they own, but not enough to want to keep the game around.
I feel like gamers have a bit more foresight than that, meaning they should be able to tell when they've got a game they may want to revisit in the future and would therefore keep it. Also this scenario sort of presents the general gamer as someone who doesn't have much direction or volition in their choice of game to play and instead just kind of turns on their console and decides to play everything they own on a rotating basis. But I think the majority shows the opposite doesn't it? They buy a console and then buy few major blockbuster games and put in quite a lot of time into that one game before moving onto the next big thing. I think most analyst type people here would agree that it is the AAA, 1000 person team games and the people who buy those games that drive this industry right now and not people like us on GAF, who appreciate gaming history, have extremely varied tastes and appreciate things like BC (because I see it pounded in time and again here that we are the MINORITY). The minority is not going to move the needle.
Response to 2) As for convenience, this makes sense on the surface as well, but is taking a disc out to play really the reason why physical BC is worthless and digital BC is the bee's knees? I mean this minor inconvenience (in my opinion) is a reason digital BC is more useful, but yet it's not a big enough inconvenience for make digital purchases overtake physical in the console space? What about the inconvenience of downloading the games and the inevitable inconvenience of running out of HDD space and having to delete and redownload? Doesn't that at least go a ways to balancing the inconvenience of physical out?
Some reasons I disagree with this argument that digital BC is more important than physical BC:
- Physical BC in the past has been near or 100%, whereas the Xbox's new BC for digital is nowhere near.
- Wii U has Wii digital BC that is 100% and it doesn't seem to have helped much. Vita has a good amount of PSP digital BC.
- We have information for time spent on games from the major console holders, and rarely if ever do you see significant time being spent on old, digital download or retail games. Yes I know Minecraft is an exception but that game is like Lego for kids and will probably get played forever regardless of BC or not, and I don't believe that's an indicator for the greater argument that gamers want to play their old games catalog.
