SAN FRANCISCO — Shoppers are buying an increasing amount of their music and movies via Web downloads. But video game sales remain firmly rooted in old-fashioned stores because many games require enormous software files that can take hours to download.
That's now poised to change.
One company, OnLive Inc., showcased one such effort at the Game Developer Conference on Tuesday night. The service promises to let players buy or rent the latest games and start playing within seconds on their television or computers.
The Palo Alto company says it will do for fast games, of the type playable only on discs, what others have done for relatively slow-paced titles such as Tetris or solitaire: Store the games on its computer servers so they can be played over a high-speed Web connection.
OnLive, whose investors include Warner Bros., says it can do so by rapidly compressing and decompressing the files so the game acts as if it's on a player's computer or console.
The service, scheduled to launch next winter, has signed up 10 game publishers, including heavy hitters Ubisoft Entertainment, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and THQ Inc.
Though the vast majority of games are sold as shrink-wrapped discs, analysts say a big chunk of the $40-billion game software industry will eventually shift online, changing the way players buy games. OnLive, for example, hopes to entice consumers with convenient, instant access to games and the ability to try them before buying.
"Companies that make disc-only games will be the dinosaurs of the future," said Billy Pidgeon, analyst with IDC.
Players in North America spent $1.9 billion downloading games last year, up from $981 million in 2007, IDC said.
Publishers have a few years to adapt, however. And many have already started to cash in on digital sales in various forms.
Take-Two recently used Microsoft Corp.'s online marketplace, Xbox Live, to release a downloadable expansion pack with new characters and other features for Grand Theft Auto IV. Activision Blizzard Inc. has sold 35 million songs for its Guitar Hero games via Xbox Live and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Network.
THQ distributes some complete games as Web downloads through Wild Tangent Inc. of Seattle.
