How much do you want to bet that even with the movement to DD you won't see a price drop on a per unit price? The AAA companies are too happy to take the savings into their profit columns.

Physical retail space for PC games has been shrinking here in Canada so badly that there is usually nothing more than a back shelf with a few pawed over copies of games and sandwiched between umpteen copies of "The Sims" and Barbies horsey adventures.

Although I have to admit, walking into a NZ game shop was a pleasure when I saw a full back wall covered in games (and not just bargain bin stuff). The only downside was the prices, even with the exchange rates, were ridiculously high.

Many recent PC games have already been pushed to $60 (despite lacking the consoles' reasons for being $10 more) and you can bet this sort of thing will continue with a fully digital future. Competition might potentially drop prices here and there but many big-budget games compete on marketing and review scores and such rather than price.

As for New Zealand game prices, buying through digital distribution can end up cheaper. Many games are arbitrarily more expensive than the US price but this often works out lower than the NZ retail price. One problem with this approach is that quite a few games are banned in Australia and thus also unavailable digitally for New Zealand (despite retail copies being readily available). The other huge problem is data caps (as with my previous example of Crysis 2's 10GB size blowing half my monthly allotment).

I love me some boxes but obviously I am in the minority. It makes sense for companies to go the other way. It does bum me out though, I like my games as products, not services.