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Is the "demo" going extinct with these next-gen systems ?

2K views 34 replies 18 participants last post by  aaronwt 
#1 ·
Ok, so I bought both a PS4 and XB1 in the last couple weeks. I enjoy both of them to various degrees.




However, one thing that I've noticed about both of them, is that demos of games are few and far between. On the Xbox 360 and PS3, you'd often see a demo of most of the big games, and many indie games would also have demos. In fact, demos were so commonplace, that both online stores would have a seperate area just for the demos. You could go into the store and then click on demos, and you'd see all the demos available.


It struck me as a bit odd that neither the Playstation Store on PS4, or the Xbox Store on XB1 have any section called "Demos". Those sections don't exist right now.


Now, there are a couple of ways of looking at this situation. The optomist, would say that the reason we don't have a specific demo section, is because these systems are so new, and there aren't enough demos to justify creating a whole seperate section just for the few demos that do exist. As more time goes by, eventually there will be more demos, and both Sony and Microsoft will create a specific "demo" section for their online stores, like it has been on PS3 and 360.


The conspiracy theorist on the other hand, would say that the reason there isn't a special "demo" area of the store, is because there are no plans to have a "demo" section. It's not because of the lack of demos, rather, the lack of demos is because Sony and Microsoft are no longer interested in providing all this free content. I think there was a study done by EEDAR (or whatever the name of that company is), that showed that demos actually cause more harm than good for publishers. Is it possible that Sony and Microsoft both agree with this stance ? Demos don't sell games, they just cause people to cancel purchases that they would have made otherwise.


What do you guys think is going on here ? Is it just a bit early to have tons of demos available or is something more sinister at work ?
 
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#2 ·

Quote:
The optomist, would say that the reason we don't have a specific demo section, is because these systems are so new, and there aren't enough demos to justify creating a whole seperate section just for the few demos that do exist. As more time goes by, eventually there will be more demos, and both Sony and Microsoft will create a specific "demo" section for their online stores, like it has been on PS3 and 360.

My thoughts!
 
#4 ·
I have a PS4 so can't speak about the Xbone. However one of the first things I noticed was the lack of demos. It was not obvious where to browse them or download them from. I made this post here and got a great answer - check it out: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1459375/playstation-4/10140#post_23994743 . If you follow that you can find demos for FIFA, Lego Marvel Super Heros, NBA Live and a few others. Hopefully they are limited because the console is so new. My guess is that most are looking to buy games since the consoles are so new, and that once the initial rush is over, things will get more competitive among games and they will look to things like Demos to help promote their product.
 
#5 ·
They'll have demos. It is just too easy to snag a sale through dd anymore. It would be short sighted not to.


I think with the rush to get games out on day one a lot of features were left for updates down the road.
 
#6 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by sfumat0  /t/1501969/is-the-demo-going-extinct-with-these-next-gen-systems#post_24000198


I was thinking the same thing, wanted to test out Kinnect.



Im hoping they just havent set up an area for it yet.

If you want to test out the kinect, try the Kinect Sports Rivals demo. Also, try Xbox Fitness.
 
#7 ·
It seems that Microsoft has officially commented on the lack of demos, which says to me that there has been a noticeable uproar about the lack of demos on Xbox One compared to Xbox 360. Peggle 2 just came out, and there isn't any demo included, and apparently MS has received a lot of complaints about the lack of demos :

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-are-there-so-few-xbox-one-demos/1100-6416642/



Not that Sony is doing any better. There aren't many demos on the PS4 either.



It's a conspiracy I tell ya... a CONSPIRACY !
 
#9 ·
They were already under the gun to get the games out for the XBOne. To create a Demo probably would have taken up what precious little time they had to get the game ready for this year. So the lack of game demos it not really surprising. I would expect more to come out next year though. Especially for some of the games already released since they might have more time now to mess with pushing out a demo for their product.
 
#10 ·
So, everybody that thought that I was jumping the gun with my "conspiracy theory", what do you guys think about the fact that the Dead Rising 3 demo is restricted to only two uses per Gamertag ?



Is a new era upon us ?


The first time I saw a restriction on how many times you could try a demo, it was with some demos on the Nintendo 3DS eshop. I remember downloading a Resident Evil demo on the 3DS, and it was limited to like 7 tries or something. I thought it was pretty crazy when I saw that, but this is only two tries. Kinda weird.
 
#24 ·
So, everybody that thought that I was jumping the gun with my "conspiracy theory", what do you guys think about the fact that the Dead Rising 3 demo is restricted to only two uses per Gamertag ?


Is a new era upon us ?

The first time I saw a restriction on how many times you could try a demo, it was with some demos on the Nintendo 3DS eshop. I remember downloading a Resident Evil demo on the 3DS, and it was limited to like 7 tries or something. I thought it was pretty crazy when I saw that, but this is only two tries. Kinda weird.
I remember once coming across an Xbox 360 demo for an EA sports game (probably FIFA or Hockey) that had a 2-3 minute time limit on it before it would time out. Talk about obnoxious.

I think the dearth of demos is due to a number of factors including a general scarcity of games and probably a more complicated game development and installation system that makes it hard to offer just one level or a similarly limited sampling of a game. That, and I'm sure Sony and MS aren't above taking advantage of gamers starved for new content.

Still, there are more demos popping up; I recently tried the Thief demo for the Xbox One and actually liked what I saw.
 
#11 ·
Welcome to the shrinking demo world. We've been dealing with it for almost a decade now. For every 25 games that come out, you're lucky if even 1 gets a demo. Game quality has been on the decline for years, and in order to keep sales volume up, they dropped demos. Can't really find out if a game is bad until you buy it (reviews are bullcrap nowadays).


3DS demos are 30 uses btw.


I haven't bothered with a demo in years. If I'm sure I want the game I buy it. If I only sort of want, I'll wait for a really cheap sale on Steam. Hence why I'm very much primarily a PC gamer (aside from higher res, better visuals, mods and KB/M controls lol, but that's a different thread entirely), and only got my XBO for Forza and Halo. Everything else I'll rent via Gamefly since prices take forever to come down
 
#13 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Two Cents  /t/1501969/is-the-demo-going-extinct-with-these-next-gen-systems#post_24097253


I wouldn't want to put a demo on my HD considering we currently don't have a way to get it off.

Damn....



I should have thought about that before I downloaded Zumba Fitness World Party demo, lol.
 
#17 ·
I would expect them to implement some kind of storage management before the vast majority of people have any storage problems.
 
#18 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by AHDTVDiet  /t/1501969/is-the-demo-going-extinct-with-these-next-gen-systems#post_24098237


It's a demo, why would you need to play it more than once or twice? You test the demo, if you like it you get the game, if you don't you don't get the game. I prefer that to not having any demo's at all.


How long have you been working at Microsoft ?


Just Kidding, but seriously.... Nintendo has the policy of 30 plays, which is perfectly reasonable. Even 10 plays is probably reasonable... But two plays ? Two ? Seems kinda crazy if you ask me. It's just another sign that things that we normally got in previous generations we aren't going to get in this current generation. We used to get cheat codes, and now we have to pay for cheat codes. We used to get unlimited demos, and now we get severly restricted demos.
 
#20 ·
Do they still have cheat codes? I don't recall entering cheat codes on my 360 before. I remember them when I used to do PC gaming, but that was before the 360 came out.
 
#21 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt  /t/1501969/is-the-demo-going-extinct-with-these-next-gen-systems#post_24103575


Do they still have cheat codes? I don't recall entering cheat codes on my 360 before. I remember them when I used to do PC gaming, but that was before the 360 came out.

They do but not as prevalent due to achievements/trophies. GTA still has cheats as well as a few others.
 
#22 ·
I'm bumping this thread, because I still can't believe how few demos are on PS4 and XB1.


We are almost at August 2014, and these consoles released last November, and still demos are an extremely rare sight to see. I just posted in a Madden 15 thread how I really hope there will be a Madden 15 demo to see if it was improved enough, but then I just came to the realization that demos are about as rare as Haley's Comet. :)
 
#25 ·
There are always rentals. I hate dealing with discs but I will make an exception for rentals. I've rented Wolfenstein on my XBOne and Second Son on my PS4. Because of the rentals I know I want to get Second Son at some point when it's on sale for around $40. I also know now that I won't get Wolfenstein unless there is a big sale. Like two thirds off for around $20.
 
#23 · (Edited)
I hope we get a demo of NHL & Madden, way before the actual release date.

I hope to be proven wrong but there is just no way in my opinion that EA actually invested substantial time and money into this gen. yet that we would benefit from, making these games truly meaningful for X1/PS4 owners.

Just look at MLB The Show. The pinnacle of sports games and well funded. Even they conceded and just said #uck it, let's port over the PS3 version.

My brother and I bought a PS4 just for that game, boy did we get screwed, barely turned it on since.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Is the "demo" going extinct with these next-gen systems ?




Dude, you're always saying the same thing and you can't be serious!

What did you expect SCEA to do? Start brand new from scratch when that takes a lot of time and isn't the smartest thing to do? Also, as seen in madden, starting with a brand new engine Isn't the best option. MLB the show on the ps4 is still an awesome game. They still have the best gameplay out of ALL the available sports games and the most sim too. Some people really have unrealistic expectations. If you had the show when it transitioned from ps2 to ps3 you'll see how much that game was a let down. The first version on the ps3 being 2007 was a very bad port that almost looked like the ps2 version only in HD. The next year they dropped 08 and that game was a huge jump graphically and gameplay wise. Just like the ps4 version it was also delayed and arrived late. This isn't trash EA Tiburon we're talking about, who always lies and gives us arcade trash year after year with minimal improvements. SCEA has also been great at interacting with the gamers and do their best to always provide us with the best sim experience possible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#27 ·
Redbox doesn't have PS4 or XBOne games by me either. I am using www.3d-blurayrental.com

In addition to 3D BD titles they also have 2D BD titles and game titles for the PS4 and XBOne. After being with Netflix since early 1999 I recently canceled their disc service and am using 3d-bd rental and Redbox to pick up the slack.
 
#29 · (Edited)
Demo's have been questioned and are on the decline since Xbox days. Here is an old article with an infographic purportedly showing that games without demos sell better than games with demos.

http://www.destructoid.com/schell-game-demos-can-cut-game-sales-in-half-244605.phtml

I'm a huge fan of demos, but I have to admit that may demos have stopped me from buying games that I would have bought if I hadn't played them.

-JR
 
#31 ·
Just wanted to bump this thread, because it appears that Demos really are officially dead now.


I remember back in ye good ole days on the PS3 you could go to the PSN store, and there would be random demos so that you could check out and sample a ton of games.

Demos nowadays are so few and far between that for all intents and purposes, demos are dead. What sucks about this, is that you can really get a good idea of the exact image quality you're going to get from a game, unless you try to go rent it or something, and don't get me started on the whole renting thing.

RedBox in my area FINALLY is renting PS4 and Xbox One games, but they only have like 3 or 4 total games. Sure, I know... gamefly..... Evertime I've been a Gamefly user it's sucked in a major way, plus there is this thing called "renters guilt" that I'm not a huge fan of.

Man, I guess demos negatively affect sales, because the death of the demo has been swift and official...
 
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