The Wii U and 3DS are going full digital download-enabled very soon.
That looks to be the case, Nintendo has announced. As any multiplatform gamer who owns more than just a Nintendo Wii well-knows, digitally downloading the latest retail releases is becoming more common these days, although having every full game available to download the same day it hits stores is still something of a rarity… and has not been fully integrated into the current-gen of systems completely; outside of the PlayStation Vita (Sony’s next-generation handheld that replaced the PSP, and competitor to the 3DS).
However the Xbox 360 and PS3 do offer a smaller, select number of full retail games that you can download and have offered them for quite some time now. With new digital titles hitting every week.
PC gamers meanwhile have been downloading virtually every game released digitally for years now; pushed in many ways by the online platform Steam (run by game developer Valve). Either way you slice it, full digital distribution is now considered normal (not just with games, also with the movie, book and music industries), and that participation from manufacturers and publishers of making everything (all titles released) available to download digitally on the day the game releases is definitely on the horizon. One would expect that the Xbox 720 and PS4 will surely offer every single game for full digital download.
Since the Wii U is coming out first, it looks like Nintendo (wisely) decided to jump the gun and offer digital downloads as well. In fact, Nintendo announced that it will first head into “full digital distribution” on the Nintendo 3DS with New Super Mario Bros. 2 (releasing this summer, in August) and will continue with an upcoming all-new Brain Age game for 3DS. One assumes other new games and the rest of their upcoming titles will also be available via digital distribution on the 3DS eShop. Of course, this will be more difficult (full digital downloads of retail releases) on the portable 3DS due to the fact that space to save the game files via SD cards is limited, and the files will be large if they are full retail titles.
Of course, all of this begs the obvious question… It is hard to go fully digital if your game system does NOT have a hard drive. Does this little fact mean that the Wii U will FINALLY have a hard drive? You’d think it would have to in this day and age, especially given that hard drives in consoles started with the original Xbox released all the way back in 2001, and continued on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2005 and 2006 (respectively).
So in addition to all upcoming first-party games being available in both digital and physical varieties day-and-date with their release, Nintendo also announced that gamers will be able to buy digital titles at brick-and-mortar retailers like GameStop; at which point they’ll receive a 16-digit download code that gives them access to the game (this essentially allows you to buy a digital game physically, as you can do right now with at videogame retailers for select downloadable titles from Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare or Nintendo eShop. Although these games simply come on a card, and don’t come in a box or case or include a paper instruction manual). Other downsides of “going digital” include the fact that you can’t lend your game to friends, and the games will be restricted to only the system you downloaded it on. Nintendo also confirmed that downloading games digitally will not be much cheaper, if any cheaper, than buying games physically (although hopefully Nintendo will realize the savyness of offering games for super cheap in sales like Steam does… but I doubt it).
Either way, the digital revolution is coming soon. Get ready. We’ll find out much more solid details on the Wii U at E3 2012 from June 5-7th.
Here’s an awesome guy with a mega sinful videogame collection behind him (I am coveting) discussing the new Nintendo digital download strategy, one that not many Nintendo fans saw coming… given Nintendo’s outright defiance of fully embracing the Internet age to the degree that other platform manufacturers have… something that seems to be changing. Which is definitely a net-positive.
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