Edios is trying something new with the latest Tomb Raider game called Tomb Raider Anniversary on the Xbox 360.
The game will initially be released Episodic style with the first two chapters being available for download on Xbox Live Marketplace in September. The last two episodes will be available later this year. The entire four chapter game will cost gamers 2400 Microsoft Points or $30 USD.
There is always a catch though. In order for you to be able to download and play the game, you will need to have the Tomb Raider Legends disc. Our guess is that there will be an update to Legends that will enable the downloads similar to how the Halo 3 beta worked within Crackdown.
If you’d rather have an actual DVD of your game to trade in , trade with others, resell on ebay or keep in your collection. A retail version is also planned after all four episodes have been released. There will be a free teaser level available called Croft Manor and Edios is also planning some premium downloadable content such as gamer pics and themes.
On a side note, analysts are predicting that digital distribution of games will exceed $289 million by 2010. Maybe it’s just that we’re old, but we like to have something we can hold in our hands for our $60. Unless they’re planning on dropping the price of games digitally distributed, I think we’ll pass. Though Edios didn’t announce how much the retail version of Anniversary would be for Xbox 360, we’ll guess it’ll be $59.99. With the digital version only being $30, it appears that at least Edios is passing the savings of middle men, publishers and manufacturing on to the gamers. Lets hope this trend continues as digital distribution picks up steam.
