One of the perks of buying games on Steam is that you can often buy them prior to their launch and pre-download them onto your PC. After that all you have to do is wait for launch day to come and — Bam! — you’ve got a brand new game ready to play, no annoying download times necessary at launch.

It appears that Sony will begin to adopt this practice, as well, reveals Gamasutra. Gamers will be able to pay for upcoming PlayStation Network titles, and they will have the opportunity to pre-download them to their PlayStation 3 consoles. The first game that will use this functionality is the upcoming PlayStation Move title Sorcery, which will hit the PlayStation Store next week.

Being able to pay for and download a game before it releases, and then having the file unlock at launch is definitely a great practice, and one that should be the norm for consoles. I’m certain plenty of gamers will agree that having access to a game right at launch is great, but the best part of it all is that you don’t have to get super anxious as you wait for the game to download that day.

Follow this author on Twitter.