Thinking back to last week, there were a number of items that were talked about in the larger presentation (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) that we left alone because I was just too busy to really get into them. Today is slow as hell so let's bring up one of them - full game downloads for Xbox 360, otherwise known as digital distribution. Welcome to 2005 Xbox 360...

Microsoft is upping the ante in a move that could be seen as a hit on successful PC services like Steam. Instead of motoring over to the local StopGame or ordering from Amazon, you'll be able to download full versions of Xbox 360 games right from Xbox LIVE. This is actually big news and I'm sure we all saw it coming as soon as NXE went live and we could install games to our HDs; this is just the logical extension of that.

In a post over at Shacknews, Microsoft says that you'll be able to get your hands on a good collection of games starting with at least 30 in August and additional titles every week after. The titles that we can expect include Mass Effect, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2, Civilization Revolution, DiRT and Rainbow Six 2. While none of these are new titles, they are relevant enough for this to still be cool. Obviously we all hope for new releases to be put out like this but we might have to wait a bit for that.

In addition to providing the downloads, XBLIVE is not going to do the funky MS Points for full games, instead they are going with dollar amounts. If you think about, they are probably doing this because if they were to use points you would see crazy amounts like 3200 MS Points for a game. That might give people a bit of a sticker shock.

This certainly is a good development that hopefully will get Sony moving their asses. More to the point, Microsoft better get working on providing new releases or this will promising feature will die on the vine.

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