The Forgotten Kiosk Concept That Physical Media Needs
16 hours ago
- Physical game retail struggles with supporting many platforms and outdated stock, despite disc formats being standardized for decades.
- The UK once had the EDOS (Electronic Distribution of Software) system in the early 1990s, allowing stores to duplicate games on demand across multiple formats (cassette, floppy, CD).
- EDOS was operated by Software on Demand Ltd and supported by over 20 game publishers and retailer John Menzies.
- The system duplicated and verified each copy at the point of sale to reduce returns, but failed financially due to losses of £311k in 1994.
- The concept was ahead of its time and could be revived today with modern storage like dual-layer Blu-ray discs.