Unfortunately retailers have a lot of power right now and this would piss off all of them, and both companies still need retailers to sell their consoles. Also on another important reason this would piss off a number of customers as if they did not have good enough Internet they would have to wait in some instances days to play the game whereas if it comes out on day one on disc also they only have to wait for updates to install instead of the entire game.

I think digital being pushed similar to on PC will happen, maybe even before the end of this generation, but not any time soon.

I wonder how fesible that is. For Destiny given the rock solid states of the Alpha and Beta, sure. What about all the game's who launches were disasters? What about all the game that had day one patches? Pushing those timelines back might not be so easy. I totally agree, getting it early would be a huge draw for digital. So far I've only bought digital for old games that are harder to find in stores. Like I rebought Halo 2 and Halo 3 digitally because those disks got scratched.

I always wondered something.

When a game passes cert, that means it's ready to go. It then has to be manufactured and pressed into discs, and shipped to stores, so there's unavoidable lag time.

Why are digital downloads not posted and activated the moment the game passes cert?

The industry seems to want digital distribution, and this seems the way to encourage it. Get it three weeks early!

But then when would they have time to work on the day one patch?

The asynchronous release may make people question why digital purchases are priced to include physical costs that don't exist.

But if they make that a preorder perk...... It might just work.

I suppose digital downloads is one of my biggest peeves right now.

I have no doubt at all I am being punished by MS for digital downloads of new releases. They sold us on the whole digital ownership and I have yet to get one serious perk for it.

I can't resell or trade in my digital copies. I'd dump Forza 5 if I could.
Pre-loading before release is barely getting off the ground.
Pre-orders for digital are not offering much if anything yet.

One benefit that maybe saves me money is if I have multiple XB1. Then I can play on any XB1 in the house and someone else can play on the Master XB1.

Not owning a hard copy ever again was my goal and I do have that even if it saves me nothing but space.

I always wondered something.

When a game passes cert, that means it's ready to go. It then has to be manufactured and pressed into discs, and shipped to stores, so there's unavoidable lag time.

Why are digital downloads not posted and activated the moment the game passes cert?

Because if you do that, Gamestop will not give you any shelf space. The deal between the publisher and the brick and mortar retailers almost surely precludes giving any significant head start to digital distribution. At the very least, they'll want a same day release. The exception seems to be the preloading stuff, where between when the game goes gold and the official release date, portions of the game are loaded onto a PC or console.

I may be lame, but I have always enjoyed picking up the game at midnight at my local Gamestop.

I totally agree. I bough digital for PS4, but I am going to my Gamestop at midnight to pick up a physical copy for the 360.