Microsoft Experimenting With Cheaper Downloads For Xbox One Games

Microsoft MSFT -0.51% may be getting a little more aggressive about pushing digital games, if recent activity is any indication. Studio manager Mike Ybarra recently tweeted about dropping the price of downloads to compete with physical discs, and it would appear that some recent discounting is part of a larger experiment for the Xbox One platform.
“Lot of people asked for better deals on our digital marketplace, so we’re testing some…,” he tweeted, before announcing a sale on Ryse: Son of Rome for $39.99. His first tweet echoed Larry Hyrb a few weeks ago, who said that discussions about the price of digital games were definitely “on the agenda.” What’s most interesting, however, is how Ybarra ended the little series of tweets:
“That’s far better than the used price at GameStop GME +1.49% and others! Go digital!”
That, of course, is the crux of everything that’s going on here. When Microsoft announced this console, it served as a warning shot against the basic idea of disc-based games — while that went over about as poorly as it could have, plans like this remind us that the company is still very much interested in using its store to capture a larger portion of game purchases. The big difference is that back in the summer, it went negative by taking away some of the traditional advantages of physical media. It’s bound to find much more success by simply undercutting used games prices on the digital storefront.
Still, while discounting a fairly new game like Ryse is a big step, a much more aggressive move would be discounting brand-new titles, something I doubt we’ll be seeing for a long time.
Elsewhere on the internet, prominent developer Cliff Bleszinki also thinks that we’re going through a sea change in how we purchase our games, though he’s focused on the PC. “The old guard,” which to him represents the publisher/disc model, is dying quickly, he told Gamasutra:

I’ll never make another disc-based game for the rest of my career, and [at E3] they’re trying to woo buyers from Target TGT +0.59% and Walmart?

I tend to think that the Ybarras and Bleszinksis of the world are right, but they may be a little bit confused about the timeframe. Both Xbox One and PS4 just feel a bit more comfortable when dealing with discs, as a result of connection speeds and hard-drive space. On top of that, Sony and Microsoft need Gamestop to push their hardware, so they’ll only be poking the bear so much. I’m sure there will be a time when the steam model largely replaces Gamestop in the console realm, just not for a little while. Most console players are just looking for a simple, effective way to play games like they always have, and old habits die hard