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Is there any point to having physical game releases anymore?

Guilty_AI

Member
I doubt it, you have to ignore so much shit its not even funny, basically ignorance is the only argument that can be made regarding this.



Like I said, its ignorance. Its an argument to say it muuuussssst be worth all those features being lost cause "i'm not interested in xyz"

That sounds like a lot of excuses to shave off a few seconds of putting a disk in a tray (ignores all the fucking time thats actually lost in the process of downloading that even fucking nullifies that argument)


So I'd say, its best to just say you want digital, but you have no argument for real convenience


yea but you have hours to wait for that download so.....yea. .



yea and when that dies you can re-download all those games, think of all the time you'd be saving doing that /s




And? The time its taking me to put a disk in a system isn't some hours long event compared to actually DOWNLOADING THE GAME, I'm not playing a game for 5 seconds and then another game in 5 seconds. So the the idea of "switching" from game to game is just irrelevant as clearly gamers are still going to be putting in sessions in games that could be hours.

If you gave so much fucks about those "seconds" you clearly wouldn't be then downloading them, it nuliffies the entire point when you'd be spending more time waiting for something then I would with the disk.


Either way, you wait longer to play a new game then I do, I just put in the disk. We are still downloading updates clearly, but you are downloading the entire game bud, you are not saving shit in regards to time. I've seen literally no evidence of this as you need to literally ignore a shit ton of things.

In terms of time, we are literally talking about something that can be measured and I don't see anyone saving anytime with this method. The fact that one needs to ignore a series of features and benefits JUST to talk about digital speaks volumes. You literally need to um "not care "about many things to claim its really doing anything "superior".
u mad bro? I would've never been able to play half of my favorite games if it weren't for digital releases.

Also, this whole "you actually waste more time!" is stupid. I can leave something downloading while i do other stuff so its not really time wasted, while on the other hand i do waste plenty of time having to go to a store to buy a physical game. I could order it online but that would mean having to wait for days if not weeks, making it hard to plan ahead.

Digital is more convenient no matter how you try to twist it.
 
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Mikey Jr.

Member
I'm honestly still surprised most publishers are still doing physical.

There must still be some profit there for them, even if you take into account used game sales and cost of packaging and shit.
 

Psychostar

Member
Anyone advocating against physical sales is not seeing the full picture here. I buy most of my games digitally however there are games that I will purposely go physical for due to the way sharing games is handled. When it comes to Nintendo games, I frequently find myself sharing smash Bros and mario kart cartridges with my younger siblings when I go on a family visit. These are games that are always full price on the market and whilst enjoyable, I would never purchase twice in a row - nor should I.

A big part of my childhood gaming experience and many others where I am from (Malta) has been to collaborate with friends and family to purchase games that we all find interesting and share/swap them together after we are done. Games have always been expensive here due to average low incomes and many families, mine included , still enjoy this past time. It brings people together and people get to share their joy.

If digital games won't adapt and companies continue to treat our purchases as products we do not truly own, I don't see digital working out in the long term as less people will afford to try different games and more companies will suffer.
 

EDMIX

Member
Also, this whole "you actually waste more time!" is stupid.

No, its factual. You don't really have much to say on it....

Digital is more convenient no matter how you try to twist it.

Is that why you have no points to argue it being more "convenient"?

I can leave something downloading while i do other stuff

Thus nullifying any time anyone is claiming they are saving from switching a disk...

I can also fucking wait for Amazon to bring a game right to my door, play it faster then you and actually have the physical disk to resell.


i do waste plenty of time having to go to a store

Yea, do you think I have to go to the store anytime I have to play game I already bought? =)

You have to re-download with a failed harddrive, a updated harddrive, not enough space etc.

I don't need to GO TO THE STORE to play the same game, you need to go to the hassle and waste more and more time downloading a series of games many times, each harddrive purchase, failure, upgrade etc. I don't need to do any of that shit.

YOU would be the one wasting time doing that... Add it up.

You are not simply downloading once, you are doing it when a new HDD too.

None of that shit sounds "convenient".
 

Psychostar

Member
"It takes two" developers are truly the only company doing digital sharing in the best of spirits and paving a way forward for digital to evolve into something just a little bit closer to what physical purchases provide. I only hope that more companies follow their ambition and also allow for more of this " one purchase" that can be shared with others concept that physical games purchases provide At least the money spent feels more wholehearted.
 
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Looking Let Me Think GIF by TipsyElves.com
 

EDMIX

Member
"It takes two" developers are truly the only company doing digital sharing in the best of spirits and paving a way forward for digital to evolve into something just a little bit closer to what physical purchases provide. I only hope that more companies follow their ambition and also allow for more of this " one purchase" that can be shared with others concept that physical games purchases provide At least the money spent feels more wholehearted.
For those who enjoy purchasing their games digital I would want nothing more than for that to be a reality in the future.

My issue is of course Publishers not being able to be trusted especially when you look at the ridiculous prices on digital games they would basically keep those games at a high price with no real incentive to lower their price with a closed Market

My next issue which I don't even believe would even be able to truly be addressed is the continuous need of having to re-download with a new hard drive or transferring a shitload of data from one hard drive to another simply to play a game.


The convenience of simply putting in the disc and physically owning the game without having to worry about all this other bullshit is something I don't see happening with digital.

I would love more than anything if one day they had some sort of system set up where you could just put the game on a USB or even burn it on a disc if you're the owner of the digital game or something like this, but outside of anything illegal I see it unlikely you're going to see the market adopt something like that, but I would love to be wrong in that area.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
No, its factual. You don't really have much to say on it....
Is that why you have no points to argue it being more "convenient"?
I spent a whole paragraph with my reasoning, to which you answered. Stop being disingenous.

Thus nullifying any time anyone is claiming they are saving from switching a disk...
Last i checked i can't do anything else when i have to get up, pick up discs, switch discs, etc. Besides, i didn't even include this in my argument.

I can also fucking wait for Amazon to bring a game right to my door, play it faster then you and actually have the physical disk to resell.
"Oh boy, i so want to play Mega X Blade Unity 5 Valhalla! I'm buying it right now!"
Digital: please wait 3 hours for this game to download, "Now i'll just leave it overnight and play tomorrow when the holiday starts!"
Physical: please wait 1 week while the box arrives "Oh no! i'll lose the holiday! Whatever shall i do!"

Yea, do you think I have to go to the store anytime I have to play game I already bought? =)
Yeah, do you think i have to wait to download a game i've already downloaded? What kind of reasoning is this?

You have to re-download with a failed harddrive, a updated harddrive, not enough space etc.
Heres how many times i had a hard drive fail on me on 20 years of gaming: 0. Its probably one of the most reliable pieces of hardware we have.
Also, update a hard drive? What are you even talking about? And if theres not enough space in your cheap 1TB HDD, you can just get another cheap 1TB HDD so you can have 2TB of space, without having to re-download anything.

I don't need to GO TO THE STORE to play the same game, you need to go to the hassle and waste more and more time downloading a series of games many times, each harddrive purchase, failure, upgrade etc. I don't need to do any of that shit.
Like i said, i never wasted any time downloading anything cause i just do other stuff, or leave it downloading overnight. I can also upgrade without having to redownload any of the stuff i already have installed

YOU would be the one wasting time doing that... Add it up.
no u

You are not simply downloading once, you are doing it when a new HDD too.
No i'm not, or rather, why throw away a perfectly working HDD? As i said, they rarely break.

And since we're talking about storage failing, what do you do when a disc gets damaged? Something that happens far more frequently than HDD breaking, without even the possibility of backing up your game? Thats right, you lose your entire game

None of that shit sounds "convenient".
The problem is that this "shit" is just some imaginary hassle you're coming up on your own
 
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drotahorror

Member
Only games I make sure and buy physical are Nintendo games. Their resale value goes really far. I value digital a little higher than physical when it comes to other consoles though. I much prefer not putting in a disc and just having shit ready to roll. Then again I've always preferred digital since I play mostly on PC.
 

Quezacolt

Member
"Oh boy, i so want to play Mega X Blade Unity 5 Valhalla! I'm buying it right now!"
Digital: please wait 3 hours for this game to download, "Now i'll just leave it overnight and play tomorrow when the holiday starts!"
Physical: please wait 1 week while the box arrives "Oh no! i'll lose the holiday! Whatever shall i do!"
Funny, because when i order a game online, i get it the very next day, hell, if i pre-order, the stores i usually buy from send me the game ealier so i can start playing the day before the official launch, or in the same day. Where do you live that you need to wait 1 week for a game to arrive? Unless you order everything from amazon, while not living on the US or UK, that should never happen.
 

EDMIX

Member
Digital: please wait 3 hours for this game to download,

Yea....and continue to do that anytime a new harddrive is purchased, I don't need to go to the store to re-buy the same game anytime I want to play it.


Yeah, do you think i have to wait to download a game i've already downloaded?

IF YOU GET A NEW HARDDRIVE. Read the post maybe....

Heres how many times i had a hard drive fail on me on 20 years of gaming: 0.

Sure bud, what ever you say. 100TB is the way and you'll never need to re-download anything and HDD's don't fail /s

When your argument starts to boil down into "this won't happen to me doe", its clear this method isn't as time saving as many claim. Basically digital is great if no HDD fails and everyone is ok waiting 3 hours every time they need to play a game they deleted before.....

The problem is that this "shit" is just some imaginary hassle you're coming up on your own

Sure bud. I came up with HDDs failing and ISP caps don't exist. Have fun with that lol

You simply can't get around that putting in a fucking disk and owning it to re-sell doesn't need to factor ISP, HDD failing, re-downloading shit, moving info from 1 HDD to another, stores closing down etc.

Put the disk in and game.

Thats it, vs having to fucking re-downloading an entire library because of a HDD failure or buying a new HDD.

If the game gets scratched, thats 1 game, thats not hundreds of games being downloaded once again with a chance that some of them are removed from the store or the store doesn't exist at all anymore or something. So even your argument of a disk scratching isn't some massive shit compared to re-downloading a whole ass library lol Or should I go with the ignorance argument like you and say no disk has ever gotten scratched in my home EVER?

So I don't need to do any BS of deleting and re-downloading a shit load of games with physical, as I don't buy you've had 1 HDD for 20 years lol


So if I stop playing that game, its not like I have to wait a "week" for Amazon to ship me the same game.

When you delete a game, YOU NEED TO FUCKING WAIT "3 hours" EVERYTIME you go to re-download it if you wish to play it. YOU go thru that each time its deleted, I don't go thru the entire online shipping situation every time I want to play the game if I stopped playing or something.

So I'd rather wait that "week" once and be able to freely resell the game, install it my self and game right away vs 3 hours every time it needs to be downloaded, but hey, I'm expecting your next argument to be you never delete games, nothing fails on your HDD, you never got a new HDD, it has infinite space and zero issues lol
 
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HTK

Banned
Been digital since the PS3. Also, buy games the way you want Physical or Digital.

Sony and Microsoft clearly see that physical games are still important, that's why you have a disk drive on both next gen consoles.
 

EDMIX

Member
YES.

Physical games are cheaper, better for conservation and you actually own them.

People that go full digital are either naive or simping for companies.

Agreed completely. A whole list of situational crap needs to happen to even find those so called "benefits".

Be like "HDD can't fail and never needs to be upgraded.....ever" and or "ISP doesn't have a cap" or "I love waiting for sales and not being able to buy it cheaper thru the year on disk"

I've yet to see any real actual benefit and those arguing for it legit need to make the fakest situations where apparently nothing ever goes wrong or something.

Physical is cheaper, not just some times, all fucking year round. I can sell someone anyone of my games for $1 if I wanted it, I can share my game with my friends freely, sell it later if I don't want it, play it right away vs (let me wait "3 hours" to download it....EVERYTIME its deleted, we must do this) and on and on.
 

Housh

Member
I was able to lend and give my nephews my PS4 games which has made them really happy.

Physical games are cheaper and I like displaying stuff on my bookshelf. I buy physical games and 4K UHD blurays.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Yea....and continue to do that anytime a new harddrive is purchased, I don't need to go to the store to re-buy the same game anytime I want to play it.

IF YOU GET A NEW HARDDRIVE. Read the post maybe....
where are you getting this idea i need to keep buying hardrives all the time? Or keep changing an old one?

Sure bud, what ever you say. 100TB is the way and you'll never need to re-download anything and HDD's don't fail /s

When your argument starts to boil down into "this won't happen to me doe", its clear this method isn't as time saving as many claim.
Your argument fails because i can say the same thing about discs. Just as you're exagerating saying HDDs will keep breaking one after another - even though we both know this doesn't happen - i can keep saying discs will keep breaking, getting scratches, rotting, etc.

Basically digital is great if no HDD fails and everyone is ok waiting 3 hours every time they need to play a game they deleted before.....
HDDs rarely fails, and if you still have plans to play a game then just don't delete it.

Sure bud. I came up with HDDs failing and ISP caps don't exist. Have fun with that lol
And i can come up with discs failing and fuel costs. Have fun with that too.

You simply can't get around that putting in a fucking disk and owning it to re-sell doesn't need to factor ISP, HDD failing, re-downloading shit, moving info from 1 HDD to another, stores closing down etc.
My internet doesn't have cap, HDDs failing are extremely rare so stop with that argument already, re-downloading stuff is rarely an issue since its not like i keep deleting games randomly, i rarely have to move from one HDD to another so stop with that also, i can back up games if the store closes down.

On the other hand with physical i'd have to factor in: "Is this game even available on the store? Do i have to order it online? How long do i have to wait? Will it get here in one piece? Will it cost me more than normaly i'd have to pay for?"

Put the disk in and game.
Click the icon and game

Thats it, vs having to fucking re-downloading an entire library because of a HDD failure or buying a new HDD.
I've already said why these arguments are stupid so i'm just scratching it off whenever you bring it up.

If the game gets scratched, thats 1 game, thats not hundreds of games being downloaded once again
Thats one game lost forever you mean. Re-downloading something seems far less like a problem than having to rebuy it entirely.

with a chance that some of them are removed from the store or the store doesn't exist at all anymore or something.
Even if they're removed from the store you can still download them, you just can't buy them. Besides, unlike with discs, i can back up digital games so even stores closing down won't be a problem.

So even your argument of a disk scratching isn't some massive shit compared to re-downloading a whole ass library lol
It is because you lose your game forever.

Or should I go with the ignorance argument like you and say no disk has ever gotten scratched in my home EVER?
Relax, even if they do get scratched you can just copy them to another.... oh wait.

So I don't need to do any BS of deleting and re-downloading a shit load of games with physical, as I don't buy you've had 1 HDD for 20 years lol
I do have HDDs from 15 years ago that still work. Though i didn't put them in my PC that still uses the same HDD and SSD from 6 years ago when i built it.

I did copy some files from them like you'd do with your discs when.... oh wait.
So if I stop playing that game, its not like I have to wait a "week" for Amazon to ship me the same game.
lucky you, cause i usually have to wait more with fingers crossed.

When you delete a game, YOU NEED TO FUCKING WAIT "3 hours" EVERYTIME you go to re-download it if you wish to play it. YOU go thru that each time its deleted, I don't go thru the entire online shipping situation every time I want to play the game if I stopped playing or something.
Then don't delete it.

So I'd rather wait that "week" once and be able to freely resell the game, install it my self and game right away vs 3 hours every time it needs to be downloaded, but hey, I'm expecting your next argument to be you never delete games, nothing fails on your HDD, you never got a new HDD, it has infinite space and zero issues lol
I do delete games i don't plan to play anymore anytime soon, hardly an issue.
Nothing has ever failed because of my HDD, thats just the reality.
Of course i did get new HDDs, though i still use the same ones from my build from 6 years ago. If there's files i need to get from any older one i just copy them like you'd do with your discs when.... oh wait.

Funny, because when i order a game online, i get it the very next day, hell, if i pre-order, the stores i usually buy from send me the game ealier so i can start playing the day before the official launch, or in the same day. Where do you live that you need to wait 1 week for a game to arrive? Unless you order everything from amazon, while not living on the US or UK, that should never happen.
And guess what, not everyone lives in the US or UK
 
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Nehezir

Banned
Sounds like a problem for you consolebois.

Legit tho? I bought a 200GB card for my switch recently. it's easy as hell to swap in and out. and honestly, if I have to redownload something it isn't much of an inconvenience. Neither is driving to a store to pick up a copy of the game, though.

We live in extremely convenient times.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Yes, there definitely is.

I'm happy that people are completely content with a fully digital library across all and every platform. For me, I'm happy with digital on PC and nowhere else. Especially until the prices of digital goods can drop.

As long as consoles have physical copies of their games that are the exact same price as their digital counterparts, I'm always going to go with physical. Especially if it includes having a physical collector's edition.

I just think that if I'm going to pay the exact same price for a physical item as I would a digital item, I'd rather have something physical. It just makes sense to me.
 
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Quezacolt

Member
And guess what, not everyone lives in the US or UK
I know, im one of those people, and when i want to buy a game, i dont order it for a store that's in another country and then complain it takes ages to arrive.
Just as an example, i bought Monster hunter rise collectors edition, i pre-ordered that in a store here, not only did i get the game on time, but i also had a 15% discount, and that usually applies to most games i bought recently.
Paid less for them than the digital option and got it at the same time.
You could say that one of the benefits of buying digital is that you can pre-load and play on midnight, but is that really a benefit at all? most people have to go to work in the morning, so start playing a game that late isnt really that fun when you have to go to bed soon after.

Then there's the prices along the year. A friend of mine gifted me God of War back in 2018. She was considering getting me the digital version, but on the ps store it was priced for 70 euros, she decided then to get me the physical copy, wich was only 40. Only months later did the PS store price go down.
 
For games to make 100% transition to digital distribution, there are 3 barriers that need to be destroyed:

1) Size of games: 4k @ 60 fps games are the future, but the size of games cannot be held in a 100GB Ultra Blu Ray disks for long. This requires another physical storage medium, or elimination of physical storage medium completely, eliminating the limitation that games have to be certain file size. You can develop/publish a games that could be 200-300 GB for example.

2) Saving games: Even if you could develop/publish a game that is 200-300GB, it can fill up your typical 1 TB SSD drive pretty quickly. Therefore the storage/drive medium in which your games are saved through digital distribution, must have sufficient storage space as well as be reasonably affordable. There are SDcards that can go up to 128TB. Can there be a NVME SSD Drive that is 128TB with quick read and write speeds without costing an arm and a leg?

3) Digital Distribution Download Speeds: 5G and Wifi6 and Wifi6E has just been implemented, and it will take a while for it to gain momentum. The quick download speeds will help further reduce the need for physical media because people dont like waiting 2-3 hours to download games. I personally think that when 6G and Wifi7 take off, it will finally destroy the need for physical media. 6G can go up to 1 TB/sec which is just insane. Wifi7 speed is equivalent to USB 4.0 speeds (up to 40gigabits/sec)

I think games will eventually make the need for physical media to go away. For point 3, I think wifi7 and 6G may even eliminate the need to 'download' games. People can just stream games just like movies and music with Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, etc. in a seamless matter. Its great that Microsoft's Xcloud has been launched, and within 5-10 years i dont even think they will release anymore Xbox consoles (just personal hypothesis)
 
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Megatron

Member
The ability to Sell/trade/lend is still a major reason to buy physical.

Also for the most part you can buy physical console games cheaper than digital.

So if price is important to you, then Physical is great to have as an option.
 
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Selling/trading/lending is still a major reason to buy physical.

Also for the most part you can buy physical console games cheaper than digital.

So if price is important to you, then Physical is great to have as an option.

This is another benefit for developers/publishers, game streaming or downloading *may* eliminate secondary sales and increase there revenue with greater return in there initial investment/development costs. Just my personal opinion.
 

Megatron

Member
This is another benefit for developers/publishers, game streaming or downloading *may* eliminate secondary sales and increase there revenue with greater return in there initial investment/development costs. Just my personal opinion.

That benefit can go both ways though, for every one who buys a used game someone had to sell the game. Tons of people buy a game knowing they will recoup their costs by selling and use that money to buy the next game. If you eliminate that, you will reduce their ability to buy new games. And buying a used game still gives you the opportunity to buy dlc from the publisher. So they are Earning money even through used sales.

its like the piracy phallacy. Not every used sale will become a new sale if used games are eliminated.
 
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Lupin3

Targeting terrorists with a D-Pad
Oh boy...

I doubt it, you have to ignore so much shit its not even funny, basically ignorance is the only argument that can be made regarding this.

I made plenty of arguments as to why digital fits me better. I ignore nothing, I pick and choose.

Like I said, its ignorance. Its an argument to say it muuuussssst be worth all those features being lost cause "i'm not interested in xyz"

That sounds like a lot of excuses to shave off a few seconds of putting a disk in a tray (ignores all the fucking time thats actually lost in the process of downloading that even fucking nullifies that argument)

Now you tell me why I would make an "excuse" for this when I could go the physical route as well, but choose not to.

So I'd say, its best to just say you want digital, but you have no argument for real convenience

Yes I do. And you've read them.

yea but you have hours to wait for that download so.....yea. .

No I don't. I'm not on a hand cranked 56.6k. And it would take me at least one hour by car (one way) to reach the nearest place that even sells games. So that's 2 hours + gas and milage on the car. Something that would've had to be done on the weekend only because work.

yea and when that dies you can re-download all those games, think of all the time you'd be saving doing that /s

Yes, memory cards die all the time. I've experienced no less than 0 broken drives on my PC and closer to 0 SD card failures during my life time. And if that were to happen? Fuck me! I'd have to spend a couple of hours downloading every single game I currently play again. Which would be almost impossible to do while I'm at work, of course.

And? The time its taking me to put a disk in a system isn't some hours long event compared to actually DOWNLOADING THE GAME, I'm not playing a game for 5 seconds and then another game in 5 seconds. So the the idea of "switching" from game to game is just irrelevant as clearly gamers are still going to be putting in sessions in games that could be hours.

You see no problem in switching discs, good for you. I prefer the convenience of not having to. Just as I use a remote for my TV. It's convenient. This may come as a shock to you, but not everyone spends hours in one session, with one game. I don't.

If you gave so much fucks about those "seconds" you clearly wouldn't be then downloading them, it nuliffies the entire point when you'd be spending more time waiting for something then I would with the disk.

Wow! Feeling the heat here! Mad much?
Also, you seem confused. Do you for some reason believe I download a game every`time I return to it?

Either way, you wait longer to play a new game then I do, I just put in the disk. We are still downloading updates clearly, but you are downloading the entire game bud, you are not saving shit in regards to time. I've seen literally no evidence of this as you need to literally ignore a shit ton of things.

Do I? I see a new game I wanna play, I pay and download it right away. And there it is, playable after a short download, without the need of spending multiple hours in my car trying to find a physical copy (if there even is one) while burning gas. Or order it and wait a a day or two. Tell me again how I'm not saving time. Also, I don't care, at all, how long it takes for you. I really, really, really don't. If you can walk out the door, buy a game around the corner, get home and install it and start playing within 10 minutes, than that's just fucking dandy. I can't. And I don't want a physical copy.

In terms of time, we are literally talking about something that can be measured and I don't see anyone saving anytime with this method. The fact that one needs to ignore a series of features and benefits JUST to talk about digital speaks volumes. You literally need to um "not care "about many things to claim its really doing anything "superior".

Well, you've read it a couple of times by now. If you don't understand, then there's nothing I can do about it.

These are facts many don't want to hear.

See all the shit above.

They only want to talk about what they like, they literally fucking hate hearing that fact and try to ignore it.

Who hates what? Sure you're not talking about anti-vaxxers now? You seem angry. Why do you think I hate re-selling, lending and whatnot?

They literally spend more time downloading 1 fucking game, then it takes for me to switch disks for the entire fucking generation.....

You're right. It probably takes more time to download GTA V than to insert the disc. Thing is though, GTA remains installed once you've done it. Amazing facts right there, Batman!

I'm literally playing Persona 5 right now, in the next 100 hours, how many games do they think I'm going to be randomly fucking switching to exactly? lol

I don't know. Who are they? Do they care about you?
 

AJUMP23

Member
My brother doesn't have high speed internet at his home in a rural town, so I think he likes physical releases a lot.
 
That benefit can go both ways though, for every one who buys a used game someone had to sell the game. Tons of people buy a game knowing they will recoup their costs by selling and use that money to buy the next game. If you eliminate that, you will reduce their ability to buy new games. And buying a used game still gives you the opportunity to buy dlc from the publisher. So they are Earning money even through used sales.

its like the piracy phallacy. Not every used sale will become a new sale if used games are eliminated.

When you purchase a Ultra-Blu Ray movie, you also get a Blu-Ray Copy, a DVD copy, and some sort of code to download, and possibly stream I think. Lets say you download the 4k version, and dont need the physical copies anymore, and you want to sell it. You make money which is great, but how does the movie studio make money?

similar to..

Audio CD's. You have the CD physical copy of your favorite artist's album, but you already have the mp3 version. You also then realize you dont even need the mp3 version cause the same album from the artist is available for streaming from Spotify, YouTube, apple music. You sell the CD to your friend, but then how does the artist and record company make money?

Just trying to understand that's all.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Now that many games have become practically unplayable without multi gigabytes of patches physical games have become less useful.
This really isn't true. I went without the internet for the 1st few years of last gen and I was still able to play all of my games
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I know, im one of those people, and when i want to buy a game, i dont order it for a store that's in another country and then complain it takes ages to arrive.
Just as an example, i bought Monster hunter rise collectors edition, i pre-ordered that in a store here, not only did i get the game on time, but i also had a 15% discount, and that usually applies to most games i bought recently.
Paid less for them than the digital option and got it at the same time.
You could say that one of the benefits of buying digital is that you can pre-load and play on midnight, but is that really a benefit at all? most people have to go to work in the morning, so start playing a game that late isnt really that fun when you have to go to bed soon after.

Then there's the prices along the year. A friend of mine gifted me God of War back in 2018. She was considering getting me the digital version, but on the ps store it was priced for 70 euros, she decided then to get me the physical copy, wich was only 40. Only months later did the PS store price go down.
eh, lucky you being able to order from a local store. I looked for monster hunter rise and i pretty much have no choice but to order it from outside. From amazon it'd arriver here between April 14 - May 6.

Local stores still don't seem to sell it and the quickest option would be to get from someone selling on the open market for a rather salty price and no guarantee it'd arrive at all.
 
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drotahorror

Member
I do have HDDs from 15 years ago that still work. Though i didn't put them in my PC that still uses the same HDD and SSD from 6 years ago when i built it.


Nu2HtcP.jpg



That "D:Old" drive is easily the most frequently used HDD in my system and I bought it in 2011. Zero issues with it and I use it daily for transferring files, downloading files, storing files, etc.



Samsung HDD's and SSD's are god-tier from my experience. I've also never had a thumbdrive fail. I have a 4GB thumbdrive from a decade ago or more that still works.

And my WIndows drive is an OCZ Vertex 4 (256gb SSD). I bought it in 2012. No issues. I have never had a hard drive fail in my 25+ years of using computers and consoles.
 
When you purchase a Ultra-Blu Ray movie, you also get a Blu-Ray Copy, a DVD copy, and some sort of code to download, and possibly stream I think. Lets say you download the 4k version, and dont need the physical copies anymore, and you want to sell it. You make money which is great, but how does the movie studio make money?

similar to..

Audio CD's. You have the CD physical copy of your favorite artist's album, but you already have the mp3 version. You also then realize you dont even need the mp3 version cause the same album from the artist is available for streaming from Spotify, YouTube, apple music. You sell the CD to your friend, but then how does the artist and record company make money?

Just trying to understand that's all.
Simple. They might try to dissuade you from doing that but they're not naive. They cost that inevitability into the base price. This is just one of the reasons that digital should be cheaper than physical, not more expensive as it often is now.
 

ripeavocado

Banned
Agreed completely. A whole list of situational crap needs to happen to even find those so called "benefits".

Be like "HDD can't fail and never needs to be upgraded.....ever" and or "ISP doesn't have a cap" or "I love waiting for sales and not being able to buy it cheaper thru the year on disk"

I've yet to see any real actual benefit and those arguing for it legit need to make the fakest situations where apparently nothing ever goes wrong or something.

Physical is cheaper, not just some times, all fucking year round. I can sell someone anyone of my games for $1 if I wanted it, I can share my game with my friends freely, sell it later if I don't want it, play it right away vs (let me wait "3 hours" to download it....EVERYTIME its deleted, we must do this) and on and on.
Sometimes games are cheaper in physical form even during digital sales.

and every game is very cheap if you exchange or sell them, that would be temporary ownership like with game passes
 

GMAK2442

Member
Maybe physical release should have a Steam access. This is true although.

But I say that looking at the offices or gaming desk around, collecting box could be important. I could be One. And this could nice for the rich that are important.
 
I am 100% digital on PC, it's easier that way and in the PC space it makes more sense since I mod just about everything I play.

With my Switch I am 100% physical. Nintendo's physical games hold their value indefinitely so even if I were to sell them off eventually I'll likely get back what I paid.
 

Nehezir

Banned
For games to make 100% transition to digital distribution, there are 3 barriers that need to be destroyed:

1) Size of games: 4k @ 60 fps games are the future, but the size of games cannot be held in a 100GB Ultra Blu Ray disks for long. This requires another physical storage medium, or elimination of physical storage medium completely, eliminating the limitation that games have to be certain file size. You can develop/publish a games that could be 200-300 GB for example.
tbh, disc media is garbage. we should have moved off them a LONG time ago. this calls for microSD cards. fast speeds, cleaner, easier storage, etc. discs are bulky, sensitive, and slow.
 
This thread made me realize something...

There might be a generation or 2 of consoles left, but after that, I dont really think you need consoles because with seamless streaming (assuming no lag and faster connections equal to 6G with 1 TB/sec) developers will eliminate the final barrier:

4) To play 4k 60fps or 8k 60fps, or even games in virtual reality/holographic settings: game developers will use supercomputers/data centers and artificial intelligence for unlimited computational power without needing native hardware containing discrete APU's for hi fidelity realistic graphics.
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EDMIX

Member
My internet doesn't have cap, HDDs failing are extremely rar
I do have HDDs from 15 years ago that still work.

Then don't delete it.

I do delete games i don't plan to play anymore anytime soon, hardly an issue.

So basically everyone, those who favor digital never have HDD failures, their answer is to never delete games off your HDD and if you do, it won't be an issue to continue to re-downloading it, a move that doesn't need to be done by someone who fucking owns the game physically as they are not just going to the store EVERYTIME they want to play the game again, well you sir need to download it once its deleted every time, but hey


Every negative thing on digital is "hardly an issue" and nothing ever effects you apparently.

I've experienced no less than 0 broken drives on my PC and closer to 0 SD card failures during my life time

yea ok.

Suddenly HDDs never fail, ISP caps don't exist, no one ever upgrades their HDDs and no one deletes games at any time ever.

Sounds like you folks need to hope for a lot of shit to not go wrong for this to work correctly cause I don't buy any of that lol
 

dcx4610

Member
Convenience always wins out unfortunately. I'm a firm physical media collector when it comes to movies. If I'm going to watch a movie, it's hardly a hassle to pop a disc in and then sit on a couch for 2 hours. With games, I do admit it's a little more inconvenient because you may not want to play the same game every time you sit down to play.

Sadly, convenience is the utmost importance to people. The big one for me was CDs. I was a massive CD collector. When MP3 came out, I thought it was cool to sample music but I still bought the CD because I wanted to physical own something tangible but most importantly, the quality was better. Thankfully, quality is the same for digital and disc so I don't have to fight with that in my brain. I'm perfectly fine with digital for PC because Steam has a proven track record and if they close, it would be pretty monumental. Plus, I can always download the files and have full control over them unlike on a console.

While there are plenty of reasons to stay physical on console, I just think the mainstream consumer will force everything to digital because it's convenient. It's just like movies and music. Not everyone or even most people have a wall that they can dedicate to physical media. Also, most people don't play games after they beat them. They move on to the next

The mainstream is what dictates the future, not the ethusiast and with the ever increasing digital sales, I see the next gen still offering the option of disc but this time it will be reversed and the digital version will outsell the disc one or, certain games may not even come out physically to force people to go digital.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
So basically everyone, those who favor digital never have HDD failures, their answer is to never delete games off your HDD and if you do, it won't be an issue to continue to re-downloading it, a move that doesn't need to be done by someone who fucking owns the game physically as they are not just going to the store EVERYTIME they want to play the game again, well you sir need to download it once its deleted every time, but hey
It won't be an issue because if i delete it i won't be playing it again for years probably, if ever. Besides, downloading game isn't as much of a hassle as you're trying to make it out to be since its an automatized process that doesn't require my presence.

Also, lets stop pretending physical games nowadays are like in the ps2 days where you just need to put in the disc and play.
Many require installation, meaning you'd still have to wait as well as uninstall old stuff you don't plan to play anymore.

Every negative thing on digital is "hardly an issue" and nothing ever effects you apparently.
They don't affect us precisely because they're hardly an issue, you just decided to blow things out of proportion to try make it look like digital has no advantages, even though thats clearly not the case.
Even now, as you still keep bringing stuff up like "HDD failing" as if thats an actual common issue, it just makes it look like you're in denial at this point.
yea ok.

Suddenly HDDs never fail, ISP caps don't exist, no one ever upgrades their HDDs and no one deletes games at any time ever.
They rarely do, they exist but i don't have them so it isn't an issue for me, HDDs rarely need to be changed and can be stacked, only delete games when you have no plans to play it anymore.

Sounds like you folks need to hope for a lot of shit to not go wrong for this to work correctly cause I don't buy any of that lol
If you even consider rare issues like "HDD failing" to say we're "hoping" for a lot of shit to not go wrong, i could actually say the same about gaming as a whole.

For a physical game to work you would have to "hope" that:
The disc is in working order.
The disc reader is in working order.
The console/pc is working properly.
The HDD - thats right, that HDD that keeps failing on you - is working order since many games require install nowadays even on console, not to mention saves.
There isn't some 15GB update blowing out your data cap.

That sure is a lot of things you have to "pray" to got right eh? Stop with the disingenuous argument already.
 
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JayK47

Member
Been thinking about this a lot lately. And you are right. So many games come out unfinished it is hard to imagine playing them without an internet connection. I feel Nintendo games and most Japanese games are still high quality out of the box, but other games? Pretty much everything all the way back to the PS3 and Xbox 360 had a lot of content off disk and several patches.
 

Lupin3

Targeting terrorists with a D-Pad
So basically everyone, those who favor digital never have HDD failures, their answer is to never delete games off your HDD and if you do, it won't be an issue to continue to re-downloading it, a move that doesn't need to be done by someone who fucking owns the game physically as they are not just going to the store EVERYTIME they want to play the game again, well you sir need to download it once its deleted every time, but hey


Every negative thing on digital is "hardly an issue" and nothing ever effects you apparently.



yea ok.

Suddenly HDDs never fail, ISP caps don't exist, no one ever upgrades their HDDs and no one deletes games at any time ever.

Sounds like you folks need to hope for a lot of shit to not go wrong for this to work correctly cause I don't buy any of that lol

What's the point of this if you don't even read the posts or try to understand? Let's put it this way: I'm doing what's best for me. I'm doing what I want to do. I'm not doing what I don't want to do, or what you think is best for you.

And since you seem so damn caught up on this particular detail, let me share something with you. I don't have an ISP cap.
 
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