Will Virtual Games Migrate to Future Consoles?

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Will Virtual Games Migrate to Future Consoles?

Submitted by Bill Tangeman on April 16, 2008 – 1:14 am6 Comments

Between the Wii’s Virtual Console, the 360′s Live Arcade, and the PS3′s PlayStation Network, I have well over fifty virtual titles. As I was downloading Ikaruga this weekend on the 360, a very disturbing question crossed my mind. Will this copy of Ikaruga work on the Xbox 720? Will Superstardust HD work on the Playstation 4? Will my beloved Splatterhouse work the Wii 2? I don’t know the answer to these questions, and that scares me.

This concern may seem to be so distant in the future that it isn’t worth worrying about yet, but I can guarantee you that a lot of thought is already going into the next next generation. The Xbox 360 launched in 2005 for pete’s sake. How far away can the next one be?

Consider this a humble request to the video game gods at Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Do the right thing for your customers. Make it a priority for the virtual games you are selling today to work on your systems of tomorrow. If I had that kind of promise, I’d be spending even more than I am now on downloadable titles.

Tags: future gen console, virtual console

http://www.aeropause.com Stephen Munn

I’m confident they will. On Wii, the games you purchase are tracked in My Nintendo on the website, so you can redownload any that are lost. They may make you “deauthorize” your Wii in order to put them on another console, like you do with iTunes’ DRM system once you’ve reached five computers. As it is, there’s a similar function in the menu to transfer ownership of the console: it disconnects it from your My Nintendo account and deletes your downloaded games.

I would imagine the more advanced system that Xbox Live is would have an even simpler way to do this. I’m not familiar with how PSN works, but I’ve heard that like the 360, protections on it are very light, and you can actually download games using your username and password on a number of systems.
Levi Thornton

Funny, because I was thinking the extract same thing the other day. It does have me worry about that. It sort of like backwards compatibly of the next gen. Its a great selling point for any next gen console.

We know we are only a few console generations away from full out digital distribution which this does raise questions for not only the small arcade games but the new full out games like Bioshock 3, Call of Duty 7 and Halo 67.
http://www.farbot.com/ Paul Munn

Don’t give them any ideas about charging more, please. They’ll start doing what PC software vendors sometimes do with digital downloads. “Sure pay $29.95 to get this software, and add $5 on to be able to download it again up to 2 years from now. Otherwise you can only download it again during the next 30 days.”
paintball745

i bet they will work on the next gen systems because im pretty sure almost all will be focused on hdd games and less on optical media.they will probally have something like the transfer cable for the 360 or just redownload them.
james braselton

HI THERE CAN NOT WAIT TOO SEE IF NASA GOING HAVE A WII DSI PSP GO PS3 OR A XBOX 360 ON THERE SPACE STATION MOON OR MARS TRIP I WANT TOO SEE IF DEEP SPACE MULTI-PLAYER WOULD WORK FROM A NON EARTH ENVIROMENT
james braselton

HI THERE CAN NOT WAIT TOO SEE IF NASA GOING HAVE A WII DSI PSP GO PS3 OR A XBOX 360 ON THERE SPACE STATION MOON OR MARS TRIP I WANT TOO SEE IF DEEP SPACE MULTI-PLAYER WOULD WORK FROM A NON EARTH ENVIROMENT