[quote name='Calinks']Another thing that nobody ever mentions but I think has some import, is the fact that this also utterly destroys the rental market. No more gamefly, Redbox, Gamerang, Blockbuster, whatever. The only way the rental market can be saved is if they got some special copies of games that worked universally or they were able to do some digital rental system.
Hmm.. digital renting does sound pretty cool actually though lol.[/QUOTE]
Digital Rentals? Only way it'll work is if they have a more dynamic downloading system implemented. For an example: with World of Warcraft, whenever a game is patched, it has three stages - setup, available, playable. During all three stages, data is downloaded, but during Available and Playable, you can actually start playing the game, and more data is downloaded in the background, with stuff needed right now getting prioritized. In the current system...does anyone really want to wait for 25 gigs to download?
As you alluded to, if Microsoft really wanted to, they could work with the rental companies to get a solution. Press special rental only discs...have rental services synch up to your account to grant access to that game while you have it rented...codes that grant temporary access to a game...