Microsoft Meets Exent; First Step toward the Death of Retail?

Microsoft has partnered with Exent Technologies in order to digitally distribute Microsoft games. Valve did it (poorly) with Steam, and now MS is jumping on the band wagon, lending more credence to the idea. It's just another baby step toward the death of retail, that glorious day when we're not paying $20 for a box and $20 for a game. Instead, we'll probably just be paying $40 for just the game, but at least it'll go into the developers' pockets rather than a publisher. If bandwidth were a stock, I'd start buying. Digital distribution is only getting bigger.