Microsoft Against Day One Digital Releases

In the light of speculation of how digital downloads will affect the next generation of consoles or if they will become more prominent in this generation Microsoft has come out and down played digital downloads. They have essentially said that they dont want games releasing on their games on demand system at the same time they are released in stores. 

Speaking to MCV Microsoft's UK product manager Pav Bhardwaj stated that their main focus is still retail 

"We don't do Games on Demand on day one, we focus on boxed retail for day one, That's where our focus has always been and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. We release a game roughly six months after it arrives at retail at full ERP. That's our model and we'll be sticking to that. It's a successful model, so why change something you don't need to? 

"The customer has the choice of going to retail on day one if they really want to buy a particular title, or to wait a couple of months and buy it full price from the Xbox Live marketplace. It's a successful part of our business, we're very pleased with the growth and it continues to do really well. Clearly there's an audience out there who are happy to purchase a product at full ERP six or so months after [its retail release]."