The industry may be putting increasingly more emphasis on DLC and digital distribution, but SCEA VP Rob Dyer wants to put everything on retail-sold discs again.
Speaking with Gamasutra, Dyer said that he’d like to see the pendulum swing back toward putting content on discs instead of on PSN and XBLA. He believes that disc-based content is the only way that developers will get everything out to the entire playerbase as a whole.
[That] way, 100 percent of the users are going to get it. 100 percent. What are we, north of 70 percent on the network now? 73, I think. Microsoft probably the same… [That’s] still a significant number of people that aren’t able to get, whether they don’t have broadband, whether they just flat out can’t get on the network. Whether or not you do it, they’re not using it. I want it on the disc, that way when they buy it, they get it.
However, Dyer also said he understood why developers and publishers were emphasizing DLC these days. “Now, you can talk about why DLC is important to help limit the used game business and to keep people holding onto [the game]. I’m all about that, too. I love that. But I want it on the disc so that 100 percent out there that can play this thing.”
Wait, now I’m a bit confused, Mr. Dyer. You say you love DLC, but that you also want it on the disc? How does that even work?
As much as I think many people will agree – at least in part – with Mr. Dyer’s comments, I’m not sure his dream is technically feasible. There’s a lot of DLC that is developed (or finished, if it was cut during development due to other constraints) after the game has already gone gold and copies have begun printing. How are developers supposed to put all of that on the disc?
Or is he saying that whenever you release DLC, it should come in physical form as well, like what Rockstar did with its GTA4 expansions? I could see that being the case, but horse-armor-on-a-DVD probably has a very limited market.
