I agree. I just bought Monkey Islan 2 for the XBL arcade, and would love it if that license extended to my Iphone.

even Modern Warfare 2. I have friends who play it on the PC, but I can't. I only have it on the 360. I'd love to join those friends on their, and Also, when I get a PS3, I'd want to jump on that!.. that right there's like 120 more dollars just for those 2 platforms.. Not to mention the 60 more dollars i'll have to spend on Map packs!

it'd be cool if they did go all digital with gaming and you buy a License for a game and can download and install it on any platform you wish. . . Than can support it anyway.

I definitely see the point in this. The only problem with it that I foresee is the need for a proprietary distribution service (ala Steam) which might venture into monopolistic territory. I might be stretching the definition, I dunno. If this became the case, digital distribution would eliminate the need for multiple consoles, assuming this would completely replace disc-based gaming.

For multi-platform games, I'm curious to know the cost of porting or developing for multiple consoles. Developers would say you should pay full price for both PS3 and 360 games because of the work that goes into making them, but obviously both would not be built from the ground up. So I wonder what it would take for both versions to be packaged together. Tack on $10? $20? Publishers would probably say, "why sell them together for $80 when we can sell them separately for $120?" But if gamers are only willing to pay once for $60, then why not sell them together for $80?

I do agree that if you purchase a downloadable game for a console, it should also count for a portable version. I don't necessarily see a need for it to count for multiple consoles [like PS3 and 360]. I'm sure my opinion would change if I was into online multiplayer games, especially if I had different friends on different consoles. But, for instance, Monkey Island on both PS3 and 360 wouldn't make much sense to me.

Anyway, these are just my layman assumptions.

Here's where Valve really did it right. If you buy a game over Steam that is available for Mac OS and Windows you get both versions of the game for no extra charge.

Is this you trying to justify your piracy of Fallout 3 and Dragon Age Link?

If you say that out loud, you might get shot.

It'd require more cohesive development for games. Right now with different teams working on the same title, just on different platforms.

There's some snags, though. What if the title is the only thing in common? How would they be priced now that you're getting a different content license ... you've singlehandedly driven up the cost of a single copy by a large amount. If studios continue their current practices, how could content ever be cohesive?

There's tons of simple solutions, of course ... just ... very few publishers would ever consider it. Few content producers would consider it in general.

In the entertainment industry getting people to, literally, buy something they bought before is an enormous part of company's bottom line. So, it's very unlikely that this will happen any time soon ... even though it should. It SHOULD be more about the content not how you're getting it.

Nah, you're safe. In order to monopolistic there would have to be no other way to get the same content. With PC games there is Steam and Direct2Drive so there's competition right there. If digital license distribution became the norm you can bet your sweet ass that Amazon, Walmart, Blockbuster (if they are still around), shit basically every major retail chain would be in on that action because they could bundle them all differently. Plus you would still have hard copies you could buy so that is in direct competition as well.

Companies could sell licenses in bundles to different companies so you'd have tons of competition. It would be like selling certain amounts of actual copies to stores.

I can see this working for movies and print, but video and computer games are a different animal. It's not simply a matter of copying the code from one system to another, it has to be designed around the system itself. With a book, I could read it on paper, my computer or kindle. The same program can be used to read any book converted to digital format.

And maybe I'm in the minority here or never bothered to look but when I buy a DVD and I want to take it with me I rip it myself so I can watch it on the go on my Zune. I'm not sure of the legality of that but how the fuck would they know that's not my only way of watching it? Well, besides when I rip it on my PC to put it on my Zune that is. So never mind on that argument.

the only problem I see in this is that money won't go to all the companies. If a game is for both PS3 and 360 and you buy it for the 360 for it to work on all consoles you will either A. have to pay much more or B. one company loses out on money

I agree you should get a back up on your game and have cross-console online, but games that work on all consoles who make someone lose money

Totally a awesome idea but the draw backs are enormous. Crono touched up on the important parts. However cross platform communication is a reality since Phantasy Star Online (heck even the blue burst private server had DC to PC support) and FFXI. I doubt that games would follow movies though, this is an UBER competitive industry, It would be like another blue ray vs. HD DVD.

Hi, I'm a guy who owns 2 copies of MW2 and 2 copies of the force unleashed . fml