Should NZ gamers thank Sony?

One of the many frustrations New Zealand gamers face on a daily basis is poor internet connection coupled with limited speed – in comparison to the rest of the connected world.

A recently released report from Sony suggests they decided against a download only PlayStation 4 because of slow internet speeds.

The Wall street Journal cited; "The Japanese company considered a digital only offering, but instead opted for an optical drive because customers in countries where internet speeds are relatively slow would struggle to download large game files."

This should come as a relief to New Zealand gamers as the Fibre Optic rollout is still in its infancy, while those who are lucky enough to be connected already are faced with steep monthly connection charges.

Rumours of content via digital delivery methods have been quashed by Sony chief Kaz Hirai however, as he stated:

"Relying solely on networks to deliver content is unfortunately just not possible. It's still very difficult to have consumers download 50GB of data or more."

His comments mirror those made by Shuhei Yoshida in late 2012 who at the time claimed:

"We believe, for some consumers, the time is [right], but for other consumers, the time is still not [right]," the time of Vita launch.

The fact that many consumers still like to buy their games in a physical form – and sneaking away to the nearest game store whilst out shopping with their respective other halves - it appears Sony would not want to remove this experience from consumers.

Whether we should all be thankful for Sony sparing people with dodgy connection speeds and data caps from missing out on large games that may use up your entire month’s data allowance remains to be seen however.

But we should be thankful that disc based media has a foreseeable future and game stores will not be disappearing just yet.

Should NZ gamers thank Sony? Tell us your thoughts below

David Williams