Microsoft are trying in on the Xbox 360, Apple have been doing it with music and movies for a while now, PS3 has started doing it with games and movies as well, Direct2Drive has a pretty good library of PC games for download as does Steam and to be fair Direct2Drive and Steam at least have recent titles but it is deemed to be easier to distribute PC games, but I feel they are not pushing this enough. The games you can download for example on a console are old and have been around for a while. I would like to see new games available on day one of release in a digital format on a console. I would also like to see a price reduction in digital distribution as currently there is no real incentive to use the digital distribution channels unless you just physically can’t be arsed to either get to a shop or order online for delivery.

We don’t need boxes, we rarely read manuals (at least I don’t) so by distributing in a digital format surely there is a cost saving to the producers of the titles. There is no jewel case, there is no printed inlay, there is no printed manual and there is no disk. These must cost in terms of production and therefore there must be a saving when these are not produced. I can also pick up a movie from an online store or shop with all the above for less than I can by downloading it through iTunes, Zune Movies or PS3 Store. So why would I pay more for less, and at the convenience of saving the distributer some money? This does not makes sense to me.

The games available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for example are old titles and all priced at £19.99. WHY? GTA IV is £19.99 at the time of posting this blog I can buy this from Game or EBay for as little as a half of what Microsoft are going to charge me through the Games on Demand.

Digital Distribution of Movies and Games saves money for the producers of these titles, if they were brave enough to actually put some weight behind the distribution of titles on digital channels and pass on the saving to us the consumer then I believe more people would adopt this method of obtaining their media. I for one would happily download my games as this would prevent my shelves from the inevitable collapse they are due to have.

Internet speeds are becoming quicker and quicker allowing more and more data to be transferred in a shorter period of time, I believe the infrastructure is ready for this move to a digital download society, just not sure the masses are ready and I am not sure the greedy distributors are ready yet either.

My suggestion would be try it, why not release a “AAA” title on Digital Download across all platforms a week before the box hits the shelves. Find out how much appetite there is. But offer some value to the consumer, by making it cheaper for example.

I would buy all my movies and games online if I could, would you?

Ok it is still in development phase but that did stop the thousands of people getting on board to ride the Google Wave. Now this is not the first time that Google have spat out a not quite complete package and yet again it would seem that the PR campaign which essentially this was, again has actually paid off. They had a lot of press coverage on Google Wave and a lot of buzz was generated within the industry. The question I want to pose is this:

Is Google Wave actually any good?

From what I can tell this is just a great way of getting everyone to signup for a Gmail account, those of us that do not have one of course will be unable to access Google Wave.

The idea of a real-time collaboration tool actually appeals to me however as yet I think the masses are probably not ready to have all their eggs in one big Google basket.

I am sure with development Google will once again be onto a winner with this though, whether it serves as conduit for the even more advertisement remains to be seen. Or whether it is a tool to try and get masses to sign up for Gmail and other Google services who knows?

My guess would see Google Wave change a lot over 2010 and maybe something amazing will be born, but until then it isn’t much fun and with 30 invites still needing to be sent to people who quiet frankly could not care about Google Wave, then something really special needs to happen with it.

I have started a new job in London this year and I intend to throw everything I have into my work and family in 2010. I have a real interest in the world wide web, social media and new media in general so I will be blogging a lot about these subjects over the coming year.

The next week will be me playing with this installation of WordPress and also sorting out The Sims.co.uk forums which I have recently wiped and reinstalled with a new version of Vbulletin.

I will leave this post here, but I just wanted to wish all those who stumble upon my website a Happy New Year, and I hope 2010 is a good year for you also.