Why are only certain games "on demand" on live?

beniah

beniah

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I just moved to Israel and my access to 360 games just got very limited.

So I have this huge harddrive and a decent internet connection, but the selection of 360 games on demand is sort of ho-hum to me.

There are a lot of titles, but why are some available, but others are not?

It would make sense if only older games were up, but you can get Assassins Creed II now.

Does anyone have any insight?

Todah Robah,
Zach

P.S.- does any cool CAG wanna make some money by helping me get Kinect when it comes out? I really want that and it won't be offered here. Ordering off Amazon is out too 'cause I'll be taxed about what it costs to buy the hardware.
 
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I'm sure a majority of the game producers still think their titles can sell in stores for full price so they hold off on putting it "on demand."

As for the others, imagine you are a retailer and you just purchased 5,000 copies of a game to sell at your establishment. 2 weeks later MS decides to put it online too. You won't be very happy if you're stuck with extra copies so next time you order less copies.
 
Do you have the entire on demand catalog? I heard some aren't available in certain countries.

The whole on demand thing is very cool - but the prices and games need a overhaul. They should have sales on games (I can't believe all the people paying $30 for Oblivion when you can get the GOTY edition for around the same price.) and newer games need to be released around the same time. Imagine pre-downloading a game like Dead Rising 2 the day before it comes out - then able to play it at midnight - that would be a huge selling point to me.

Only game I can think of worth buying was Beautiful Katamari because it was $20 when most ebay sales are around $25ish - but you still get that physical copy.
 
I'm with you Monsta Mack! Especially the new Fallout...man I want that game!

Actually- I am going to pre load Fallout through Steam...but if it were an option through Live I would do that as I really like playing on my Xbox.

I think I have most if not all the on live catalog- I checked market place's website and it seems to match up.

With the slim's hard drive I really hope to buy more digital games. Steam has basically cured my need for shiny discs- and I haven't touched instruction books in like a decade or two.
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']newer games need to be released around the same time.[/QUOTE]

I would easily drop money on a download of Reach and RB3 to have them on the hard drive at my fingertips at all times.
 
I think games available on-demand are popular titles with high sell-throughs. I very much agree the pricing needs an overhaul. Plus, the biggest disadvantage is, I can not resell or trade away these digital copies; and because of this, the pricing structure needs to take that into account.

for example, Shadow Complex, available via XBLA only, when on-sale for $7 is an easy buy. But may have people hold back at $15.

in the same token, Burnout Revenge, available via on-demand for $20/$30 is way over-priced. Considering the lack of its resell/trade value; and the availability of inexpensive retail copies (disc-based), most consumers can easily conclude the lower net cost version.

1. digital copy price - resell = net cost. here, resell is always $0, so digital copy price is always net cost.

2. retail copy price - resell = net cost. here, resell is a variable, plus retail copy prices typically drop over time, so net cost can be more attractive to buyers.

success of digital copies depends on how competitive their net cost to consumers can beat out their traditional retail net costs. it also depends on how much savings publishers and (M$, Sony, NoA), wish to pass on or how much to reduce their margins.
 
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So I guess the question at hand here is, will XBL ever find a way to regulate prices at a measure that doesn't completely rip us off? I'm still begrudgingly trudging to GameStop or CL for finding used games, and until XBL shows me that they're trying to make it cheaper on us, I'm not buying any physical games via them.
 
[quote name='Mospeada_21']I think games available on-demand are popular titles with high sell-throughs.[/QUOTE]
Not even close. It's just whatever publishers are willing to submit to Microsoft to put up on the service (NFL Tour, Facebreaker, NHL 2K9, and more).
 
As another poster mentioned, at this point in the game, publishers still need to maintain good relationships with places that sell physical copies of games. They are not going to release something like New Vegas on demand, because all they are going to do is piss off many of their partners.
 
[quote name='sinwazikashi']So I guess the question at hand here is, will XBL ever find a way to regulate prices at a measure that doesn't completely rip us off? I'm still begrudgingly trudging to GameStop or CL for finding used games, and until XBL shows me that they're trying to make it cheaper on us, I'm not buying any physical games via them.[/QUOTE]

You need to check out Goozex.
 
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