A number of trends have surprised folks within the gaming industry, and one of those happens to be the furious rate at which console adoption has occurred. By the end of this year, both the PS4 and Xbox One will have had unprecedented console sale numbers, and the same can be said for full digital game downloads.

As hard-drives continue to get bigger and gamers learn of the convenience of being able to download a full game, the number of full game downloads will rise. EA is one of the major publishers in the industry and they, as much as anyone else, have seen the value of digital sales, as COO Peter Moore discussed.

"In launch week, we're seeing somewhere in the low 20's as a percentage of overall game sales, those are direct downloads to console hard drives. We expect that to continue to rise and still believe in giving players choice. Obviously, physical media is still a very important part of what a lot of gamers like. They like the ability to own a disc. They like the ability to put a disc in a tray and it plays immediately. On the other hand, three out of every four games sold on PC were downloaded and the other was a piece of physical media,"

Moore said at the ATMTC.

From a majority standpoint, it's hard to say when digital game sales will surpass physical sales, but the projected behavior of gamers is moving in that direction. Publishers are incentivized to get gamers to purchase titles via digital, since the used game market doesn't come into play at that point and that's why you sometimes see certain benefits of buying digital versus physical.

Games these days are created to be experiences that last for months and months beyond their initial launch and Battlefield 4 is a great example of that. Moore described the type of community that still exists within the world of Battlefield 4, even two years after its initial launch.

"We look at a title like Battlefield 4, which launched two years ago, and the engagement levels are still in the millions of people playing every single day on that title. When we release content, we do see more of the base games sold and [Battlefield 4] is a game that to be blunt had a rocky start, but as it has stabilized and as more content has become available, then the game sales have picked up and it's a very important part of our portfolio. I believe the same thing will be happening with Star Wars Battlefront,"

Moore said.

Posted: Dec 03, 2015 3:34 pm
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/ea-says-20-percent-of-games-sold-on-ps4-xbox-one-are-digital-downloads