I was wondering is there anything legal preventing Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo from collectively deciding to go to all digital distribution? I could see some none legal reasons not to do this but I was just wondering is there a legal reason they couldn’t collectively decide to do this.

Quote: Original post by Spinoza
I was wondering is there anything legal preventing Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo from collectively deciding to go to all digital distribution? I could see some none legal reasons not to do this but I was just wondering is there a legal reason they couldn’t collectively decide to do this.

The EU, probably.

For all of the EU's faults, they do have a good reputation of preventing us from being shafted by large corporations.

They managed to bully Microsoft and Apple into playing nice, so that just leaves Sony and Nintendo.

For what reason would the EU want to stop something like that happening? I don't see how it can violate any consumer's rights by just switching to digital distribution method, as long as they provided a way to download and burn to your own media for backup/non-network transportation.

Do you know how many tonnes of wastes are generated every year for packaging of games?

Personally I'm a fan of box art, but for those that just toss the box it is a waste that the world really doesn't need.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper

Quote: Original post by Spinoza
I was wondering is there anything legal preventing Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo from collectively deciding to go to all digital distribution? I could see some none legal reasons not to do this but I was just wondering is there a legal reason they couldn’t collectively decide to do this.

The EU, probably.

For all of the EU's faults, they do have a good reputation of preventing us from being shafted by large corporations.

They managed to bully Microsoft and Apple into playing nice, so that just leaves Sony and Nintendo.

I am clearly misinformed, but I have heard old news where the EU basically screws over corporations by abusing its power. Maybe I misinterpreted what I saw, but didn't the EU cause a big deal that Windows came with Internet explorer by default?

>>I am clearly misinformed

yes you are, not surprising since most of the best PR ppl are on the side of the corperations, whatever negative effects corporations/ppl portray the EU of having they on the whole do actually benefit the consumers. The reason is obvious corporations care about one thing + one thing only pleasing the shareholders, if pleasing them also coincides with pleasing the populace then thats a lucky break its certainly not the intention.

Its still far to early for total digital distribution a doublelayer blu-ray disc is what? 50gb, not to mention youve gotta have a reasonable sized HD to hold all the downloaded data. The worlds not technically ready yet, perhaps ~2017-2020

You have misunderstood slightly. The EU have a reputation of acting in favour of the consumer, and US based corporations have had to bend quite considerably to suit the European market.

Apart from Microsoft's anti-trust issues, the EU are also rumoured to have twisted Apple's arm into allowing the Spotify app for the iPhone and I'm willing to bet that the raison d'être for the iPhone 3G was because Europe doesn't use the stone age US-centric communication standards that the original used and apparently, even now, 3G is ropey at best in the US whereas in Europe it's ubiquitous. Wouldn't surprise me; some of the seemingly archaic technology featured in the original iPhone I'd never even heard of, simply because Europe doesn't use it and has never used it. The EU, as much as plenty of UK citizens rail against it, has some good perks such as this.

What I'm saying in the context of the "Big 3" collectively deciding to go all digital distribution is that there would have to be systems in place to ensure fair distribution across regions and, more importantly, fair pricing. We all know how much UK consumers love being charged double the price for the US for a limited selection of dross, whereas the US have a Library of Congress amount of material for dirt cheap and this is laid bare by Xbox LIVE; there are BBC produced shows (which we pay for the production and broadcasting of) available on the US Video Marketplace whereas we don't even get TV shows at all on XBL in the UK.

Enter the EU to shield us from the greed and provide us with something approaching a moderately fair deal. Europe is an important market - play nice and it'll pay off, screw them around and watch the traffic to The Pirate Bay spike considerably.

Quote: Original post by Spinoza
I was wondering is there anything legal preventing Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo from collectively deciding to go to all digital distribution?

AFAIK, this would be unenforceable as restraint of trade.

The EU certainly isn't stopping them going all-digital in other markets, though. They could, if they wanted to, go all-digital in the US. But they haven't, so there must be some other reason (I would guess, like zedz, that we're not technically ready just yet).

Personally, I don't think the EU has as much influence as it likes to think. I mean, sure, they made Microsoft release that special version of Windows with no IE, but did that actually do anything? As far as I know, nobody actually uses that version, and even if they do, it's clearly had very little effect on anything else that Microsoft does.

Quote: Original post by Codeka
I mean, sure, they made Microsoft release that special version of Windows with no IE

You are thinking of the special version of windows without media player and no, nobody bought or used it.

The version of windows 7 without internet explorer was scrapped in favour of a selection screen asking the user to choose which browser they want to use.

Who populates that list?