One of the biggest announcements, at least to my mind, didn’t take place during a conference - Microsoft announced that it would be offering full game downloads for their system. I was sort of expecting Sony and Microsoft both announce something on this level, and Sony did in a way - the PSP Go! is a device that almost entirely removes Gamestop from the equation. Without a UMD slot, the only thing Gamestop gets to sell is the device itself - a contraption which is nothing less than a stake in their own heart. I’m sure they’ll love that.
In reality, their power is such that they can exact a cut of your digital profits in exchange for selling your hardware. That is in addition to artificially maintaining retail pricing for digital downloads, which were supposed to herald an era of unmitigated consumer power. I typically opt for digital, because the convenience represents a significant value - but it might have been premature to suggest that the rise of digital necessarily represents the fall of the dedicated games retailer.
