Quote Originally Posted by Mythirax View Post
Not every place is bound to this. But some places are. PSN I think might be one of them. The game just isn't unlimited. PSN has to buy CD-Keys off the publishers and then sell those keys in the store. It just happens to all be behind the scenes. Again, not everywhere is bound to it, nor is the example I'm using 100% correct. PSN may not be one of the places that does it, I'm unsure how they do it now.
Yeah I've seen Valve run out of keys for games in the middle of Steam sales in the past. I believe PSN and Steam both buy keys in advance still. Microsoft have a lot more money to throw at their POS system and seem to have figured out a way to generate licences and what they call 5x5's (25 digit codes) on the fly. Apple seems to be generating everything on the fly also as they imbed the owners details into the purchased files metadata as a really weak form of copy protection.

In Apple's case the reason you preorder is not because they will run out of copies. It's because the content will be available instantly when it is released and in the case of many big releases now on iTunes it may even be available to you before release. I had 5 tracks prereleased from Linkin Park's new album before it ever hit shelves. I see banners on iTunes all the time for movies including blockbusters like Star Trek Into Darkness and Frozen saying you can get it on iTunes before the official release.