Take-Two Interactive: Gaming will be “100% digital” in 5 – 20 years

Take-Two Interactive (owns Rockstar Games and 2K Games) president Karl Slatoff took to the Credit Suisse 21st Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference to talk about a number of things, including the age of physical game copies coming to an end.

According to Slatoff, the digital future is anywhere between five to 20 years away, but it’s coming.

“I think over the long-term, it will be 100% [digital]. I just can’t predict whether that’s five years, 10 years, or 20 years. It’s probably less than 20 and maybe more than five, but I think it ultimately gets there. That’s the zeitgeist. Things are moving in that direction.

“Why I think it’s a little quicker than people imagined is honestly, Sony and Microsoft have done a really nice job with their services. You’ve got more people on Xbox Live, more people on PSN, and it helps. The friction is going away at a quicker rate because these platforms have been really well developed, and the consumers love it.”

Physical sales are still reigning supreme, which means that most publishers won’t be quick to abandon that space, but there’s a shift coming in trends.

“The truth is physical retail is still the majority of our business, and very important partners of ours. And we want to do everything we can to support that environment. And we do. They’re very strong marketing and distribution partners for us. But again, it’s out of our control. Whether we want it or not, it looks like it’s going to happen eventually.”

The digital gaming future is looming above us, whether we like it or not.  Trends have already begun showing a rise in digital purchases and major companies considering ways to support digital purchases. EA has been talking about the digital future for around a year now and Activision is reporting that more than half of Destiny 2’s sales were purely digital. Cuphead’s physical release simply contained a digital download code in the box and Xbox has been tinkering with the concept of trading in digital games, not to mention that they have already begun offering a Netflix-like subscription service for games.

The real question is timing, when will this happen?

[GamesIndustry]