There’s no question that Digital Distribution is the wave of the future. The success of Steam and Xbox Live Arcade make this clear enough.

However, with the release of yet another (seemingly excellent) digital distribution platform, I’m finding myself getting a little overwhelmed.

I currently have used Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, The Playstation Store, Gametap, Stardock’s TotalGaming.net, and now I find myself wanting to get into CD Projekt’s GOG.com offerings. Oh, and I better not forget about Wizards of the Coast and their Gleemax/D&D Insider stuff. I better include EA, since the Spore Creature Creator was distributed using EA’s digital distribution platform.

WHEN WILL IT END?

By all appearances, not anytime soon. And with all these platforms, if I want to get ALL the games I want, I have to install clients for each network. At least on the PC side.

IMHO, true digital distribution won’t really take off on consoles until mass storage becomes cheap and plentiful. $100 for 20 GB? Uh… no. This is definitely one of the biggest strengths of the PS3 at this point. It is the only console of the current generation that allows the end user to upgrade the storage capacity without breaking laws.

I sincerely hope that 2 things happen:

• First, Sony takes advantage of their upgradeable storage to really start sticking it to the other platforms. Offer full titles that are downloadable onto the PS3 hard drive. Granted, a 40 GB or 80 GB drive may not cut it for more than just a few titles, but you can now pick up 250 GB drives for $10-$15 more than what the Xbox 360’s 20 GB drive is selling for.
• Second, the other platforms get competitive. I wish Nintendo and Microsoft would offer full USB hard drive support. Then, you can hook up any old hard drive for storing saved games and downloaded content. Rumors of Nintendo considering USB hard drive support have been percolating for a while now. Gosh, that would be so awesome.

Assuming that all the consoles got on board with full digital distribution support, that still leaves the problem of wrangling all the various distribution networks on the PC. I suspect that much like the early days of the computer industry and the tens of different operating systems and hardware platforms, we’ll see some consolidation around one or two platforms. Obviously, Steam will feature prominently in the future of digital distribution.

A concern of many people (including myself) is how long will I be able to access my content. If Steam or Stardock were to merge or go bankrupt, what would happen to my games when it comes time to reinstall? That’s got to be one of the main advantages of keeping these old, archaic forms of distribution. If the publisher implodes, I can still default back to my original disks.

As long as they don’t get too scratched up…