That's a good point, although the fact that console online distribution is very limited kind of illustrates my point. Console have hard drives and they'll need internet connections to get this "extra" content. So why rework the disc format when online distribution is (probably) the future -and just so happens to limit second hand sales anyway. The advantage is to the publishers in that they can effectively, if only partially, sell the game as a service (and charge per use) rather than as a product --but it's hardly a plan with longevity.

With online distribution (like steam) they could stop second hand sales altogether, and as a bonus you don't need a silo for your discs. Pretty awesome in my opinion.

I think I read somewhere about h.264 hardware decoder chips for mobile devices being readily available. I guess a flash video plug in wouldn't support those. So it'd kill batteries.

This probably has something to do with Windows Phone 7 right? I mean, there are some nice H.264 decoder chips out there for portable devices, which will save battery life vs software decoding. (Steve Jobs told me!)

This story is 3 days early.