Downloadable games were big at this year's E3, but they're nothing new. Here's a the history of downloadable games--and what to expect in next-generation consoles.
Josh LowensohnFormer Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
At this year's E3 Expo in Los Angeles, both Sony and Microsoft pushed upcoming services and devices that allow users to download full games to their hardware. For Microsoft, it's a new arm of its online marketplace that will let gamers download full retail games to their system's hard drives. For Sony, it's the new PSP Go, a slimmed-down version of its flagship portable gaming hardware that does away with its game slot in place of pushing Wi-Fi game downloads to its 16GB of built-in memory.
Both companies are pushing direct downloads as the premiere way to buy new games, and many are expecting the direct-downloading technology to be one of the main selling points in the next generation of gaming hardware. As a side effect, the new revenue model largely cuts out used game retailers, since there's less physical media to resell or swap with friends.
But let's get real for a moment, this is nothing new. In fact, game companies have been trying to get direct-download games working on consoles since the early 1980s. Let's take a brief look at previous efforts to sell console games without any physical media:
Intellivision's PlayCable (1981-83):
Intellivision was the first home console to let users download games via a coaxial cable line. Subscribers rented a special cartridge that hooked up to local cable and would be able to download single games that could be played until users decided to download new titles.
The service's downfall was a result of innovations to Mattel's Intellivision game system, which began using cartridges with ever-increasing amounts of memory. The PlayCable service could no longer keep up, since the special cartridge could hold only a fourth of the total space that newer games required.
The GameLine (1983)
Game consoles of the '80s pioneered the use of cartridges. Early on, many were simply ports of arcade titles and thus retained the coin-sucking gameplay mechanics that kept users playing again and again to get high scores. The only problem was that once the consumer bought the game, that was the end of the revenue stream for the publisher.
Then GameLine came along. This third-party game download service from Control Video (which later became America Online) worked with multiple game consoles and would let users download new games through a telephone line connected directly to a special cartridge. It would then limit gameplay to a certain number of plays that users would have to prebuy.
Despite GameLine's innovative approach to game distribution, it had two big problems. The first is that it never got big game publishers on board, meaning that users were paying big money for smaller titles that weren't available at retail. It also came out the same year as the video game crash of 1983, when most of the hardware vendors and software-publishing houses were going bankrupt.
The Sega Channel (1994-98):
The Sega Channel was a monthly subscription service for Sega's 16-bit Genesis system. Similar to Intellivision's offerings, users paid $15 a month to get access to an ever-changing library of games that could be downloaded directly to a cartridge that plugged into coax cable. Not all of Sega's games were available on the service, but it had several big titles that could be downloaded without leaving the house. It was also the first service to give users special games that were never released as retail offerings.
