There was a point in time that the only time you could get a game is if you literally went to the store and picked it up. This would work the same way whether you were using a console system or a PC to play games. As broadband internet connections have become the norm, it seems as if on demand gaming is ready for prime time.

What is on demand gaming?

Think of it the same way as on demand movies. With movies you used to have to rent them from a store and bring the disk or video tape home to watch it. Now there are services through the cable box or even streaming rental services where the customer can view the content digitally through a download. On demand gaming works the exact same way.

Many consoles today still don't release their latest titles on demand. But the latest consoles all have included stores where players can purchase digital content. Some of these are addons to games that you already own while others are full games. Much of these are older platform titles and independent games, but the technology is there to simply purchase new titles and download them. It would seem that the next systems could easily have this type of technology.

With computers, this is practically already a possibility. At first there was the Gametap service that one could subscribe to and play quite a few games that were rented. These could be downloaded to the system and played whenever you wished. There are now more advanced types of services like Steam that let players actually purchase games to own. All the patches, updates, and licensing is taken care of by the service so that the player can simply download and play.

With fast connections, this is most likely how most digital content will be given to the consumer in the future video games or not.