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Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and some other guy are comin' to reclaim their DLC.
At this point almost all of us have purchased some sort of downloadable content, whether it be a full game or an expansion for our favorite titles like Grand Theft Auto or Mass Effect. It's everywhere: Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare, Virtual Console, PlayStation Network, and even your smart phone.
This new space in the market has created a heyday for indie developers and has given us a convenient avenue to replay some old classics. We all know how much Nintendo loves to find new ways to make us rebuy its landmark titles — 'cause, you know, we're too weak to resist.
(On a side note, each system should have some sort of sobriety-test peripheral that you need to blow into before you're allowed to purchase a game online. It's scary to think that I might wake up after a night of drinking and find that I've mistakenly bought a bunch of Super Nintendo games I've beaten a dozen times.)
But anyway, getting back to my point…. DLC is all well and good — for the moment. But what happens when we move on to the next generation of hardware? I know a lot of people have invested quite a bit into their current console. I'm thinking especially of those who have filled out their Rock Band catalogue with hundreds of pay-to-play songs. What's going to happen to them?
In the past, we've seen a simple solution to big software investments from consumers: backward compatibility. But this is problematic; it's only a physical-media solution. In addition, Sony and Microsoft have already shown that they don't much care about supporting their old platforms. To a lesser extent, Nintendo has, too.
Cloud storage is the only real solution that I can think of. As consumers, we've bought so much DLC. Our purchases should always be backed up onto a cloud-storage system. And the next console we buy should just download or stream the game from that cloud.
Valve already does this; you can download your library from any computer that has Internet access. But unfortunately, consoles feature nothing quite like this at the moment. It's possible that Microsoft or Sony might introduce a feature like this in the future, but I doubt that Nintendo will ever let you move data from system to next-gen system. Did you buy NES and SNES games on Wii? It's likely that that's where they'll stay. This might be a bit of a snafu for Nintendo's "Wii 2" since I'm fairly certain no one will rebuy Virtual Console or WiiWare games.
If you have access to them, you can just plug your old consoles in and play away. With hard copies, you never lose your possessions. But the whole point of digital media is "ease of use." You shouldn't ever have to go to the store. Ideally, everything is right on you console.
We'll just have to wait and see for now. Do Sony and Microsoft have a plan for importing this our investments over to next-gen hardware? 'Cause if not, a lot of people are going to be angry. And if that happens, the corporate dream of eliminating physical media may never come to pass.
