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Digital Only Consoles - Scott The Woz

ParaSeoul

Member



Scott's not in my top fave youtubers but I do enjoy his videos from time to time. He prefers physical to digital for the most part but does understand the appeal of digital games but feels like most digital only console editions don't have prices low enough to justify not being able to play physical media. He brings up the Series S as a good example of a digital only console.
 
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reksveks

Member
Space in my flat is sadly a zero sum game.

Unfortunately for 'Games', they lose to Blu-rays movies and other crap.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Unfortunately for 'Games', they lose to Blu-rays movies and other crap.


Mad Season 2 GIF by Rick and Morty
 

Soodanim

Member
Without having watched the video (I have never heard of this guy except for someone on Era not liking him being in that Smash thank you video), digital consoles definitely have a place but they’re always going to be divisive.

Between resale, BC, and movie/TV collections that’s far too much for some people to sacrifice (especially if they just want one device), but at the other end of the spectrum you have people that just play what PS+ gives, get all of their other content through Netflix and Spotify, or simply don’t care about resale, digital only doesn’t really harm their experience.
 

Drew1440

Member
PSPgo was such a nice console for the time, sadly it as crippled when it came out since not all PSP games were digital. Some early titles were UMD only and many games on the PSP store were sold for full price years after they came out with little to no discount.
Xbox One Digital was a let down, they should have replaced the blu ray drive and used the space for a 3.5in 2/3TB HDD rather than sticking to the laptop sized drive.
 
I feel like that would be more applicable to an analysis video than something like this
At least give us a TL;DW. Since you're posting the video, one would assume you watched it, so you could sum it up in a sentence or two.

If you can't give a TL;DW, at least tell us why we should watch the video (since you watched it and felt like it deserved a thread, it should be easy to tell us that).
 

kingfey

Banned
The enemy of physical games is space in your house. And the enemy of digital games is account deleted.

The difference is "YOU". You are the one who will have to make the decision, which one will you spend with the rest if your life. Filling out your house with junk games, or living in fear that your account will be deleted.

I am lucky that all my games are digital. I can't imagine 600 games in the shelf. That is too much physical copies.
 

ParaSeoul

Member
At least give us a TL;DW. Since you're posting the video, one would assume you watched it, so you could sum it up in a sentence or two.

If you can't give a TL;DW, at least tell us why we should watch the video (since you watched it and felt like it deserved a thread, it should be easy to tell us that).
Done. I just assumed people interested would watch it since its fairly short.

Thanks for another low ass effort thread.

You can stop crying now.
 
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ParaSeoul

Member
The enemy of physical games is space in your house. And the enemy of digital games is account deleted.

The difference is "YOU". You are the one who will have to make the decision, which one will you spend with the rest if your life. Filling out your house with junk games, or living in fear that your account will be deleted.

I am lucky that all my games are digital. I can't imagine 600 games in the shelf. That is too much physical copies.
I get most of what I really want to play physically,digital for multiplayer if I ever want to or games I'm kinda meh about.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I have a PS5 DE, love it. Would not swap it.

The value in adopting digital at the moment is the console/game sharing aspect. That way games are actually half price. If I wasn't sharing, I'd probably still be on a normal console and using shopto.net

Also digital sales are probably artificially higher because if they undercut retail completely then the retail market would just die. It's pretty much already on life support. This is offset with really good limited time sales. The premium of digital is usually launch sales, most older stuff is cycled trhough periods of reduced prices which are often better value than the likes of CEX etc.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
It’s funny that digital in itself allows for patches and dlc. Things that no gamer would give up. And physical releases are useless because of patches and dlc.
but you guys just keeping hanging on..

I mean what’s the end game for you? A room full of game boxes? Large containers in storage?

I’ve been gaming for over 30 years and I have giving a lot of stuff away over the years and still have containers full of games in my garage that I never play. But do you know what games I do play? All the digital purchases I made in the 360 that i can download to my XsX that includes games from the original Xbox.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Physical is only important today for the ability to sell your games. Longevity or ‘not owning it’ doesn’t mean anything. If MS/Sony really want to kill physical they just need to give you the ability to sell your key on an open market and they can have a 20% cut.

The ability to sell/trade games is a key point though. That disc is effectively giving you the ability to sell the "key" without giving MS/Sony a dime.

MS tried to give users the right to sell digital games with the Xbone. People cried. It is possible to create a scheme where you can sell the license disk or no disk, it just has to include a cut to the rights owners like what MS tried to do. Selling games on ebay still costs ~ 13%, it would be great to give that cut to devs for selling digital games you are done with.

I've been trying to find details of what MS supposedly did, but all I'm seeing is references to used games.


So how/when did MS try to give users the ability to sell digital games? I've speculation that what MS proposed might one day lead to that, but not a word from MS saying it would happen as part of their proposal for Xbox One.
 
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Kupfer

Member
Bethesda putting out 500,000 plastic boxes for Fallout 76 with nothing in them but a digital code is the nightmare future.
Yes it is. But I wouldn't consider this as a physical retail version of the game. It's digital plus an extra mile.
 

MoreJRPG

Suffers from extreme PDS
If you bought digital you got scammed. Physical game’s go on sale quicker and more frequently. If you refute this you are in denial. I approve of this video.
 
If you bought digital you got scammed. Physical game’s go on sale quicker and more frequently. If you refute this you are in denial. I approve of this video.
One of the biggest reasons physical games go on sale quicker is competition. You have several retailers all vying for your money. With digital there are fewer places to buy games so you end up paying higher prices. Some consoles only have one sole source to buy digital games. When that changes prices will come down.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
One of the biggest reasons physical games go on sale quicker is competition. You have several retailers all vying for your money. With digital there are fewer places to buy games so you end up paying higher prices. Some consoles only have one sole source to buy digital games. When that changes prices will come down.
The main reason is availability of shelf and storage space at retail. New games need that space so retailers drop prices to move old product to make room for new products. The longer something sits on a shelf the more it costs a retailer. Something else could be occupying that space that does sell. Digital doesn't have this constraint, so there's less downward pressure on digital prices.

The reason I buy digital is the same as why retailers drop prices. I have limited space for the clutter and have better uses for the space. So I don't mind waiting a year or more to play most games when they're cheaper.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
So how/when did MS try to give users the ability to sell digital games? I've speculation that what MS proposed might one day lead to that, but not a word from MS saying it would happen as part of their proposal for Xbox One.

There were articles back then that went over some of what they were trying to offer. They are hard to find today. I remember one where someone from MS said that they were going to allow a new digital game to be traded once on a digital marketplace (I assume with the entire transaction happening with store credit), where titles purchased from the "used" marketplace could not be traded again. With a fee going to MS and devs. This all came out after they had canceled everything, so maybe they were just trying to make their failed vision sound better 🤷‍♂️

Would have been a great thing for digital buyers if they had pulled that off.
 

Topher

Gold Member
There were articles back then that went over some of what they were trying to offer. They are hard to find today. I remember one where someone from MS said that they were going to allow a new digital game to be traded once on a digital marketplace (I assume with the entire transaction happening with store credit), where titles purchased from the "used" marketplace could not be traded again. With a fee going to MS and devs. This all came out after they had canceled everything, so maybe they were just trying to make their failed vision sound better 🤷‍♂️

Would have been a great thing for digital buyers if they had pulled that off.

Everything Mattrick tried to push back then was so convoluted. The restrictions on physical were not popular at all. Either way, I still don't think third party publishers would have participated. But....we will never know.
 

Holammer

Member
Digital is the future and the future is now.
I expect the industry to eventually move towards platform agnostic special edition merch. With posters, t-shirts and other cheap tat to be released alongside games. For all those Funko pop collecting neckbeards that need tangible junk to express their consoomer personality.
 

drotahorror

Member
This stuff gets you guys heated

One of the very few posts in this topic that is actually on topic and you troll. Buddy had a legitimate argument. What is the point of physical besides resale or collection purposes (AKA your bookshelf with hundreds of cases on it)? Your grandkids aren't going to want to play PS3 and PS4 games in 20-40 years. And if they do, they'll emulate.

Digital is 1000% the future and the majority of sales on playstation/xbox are confirming that. The only console I believe with higher physical sales is Nintendo. And that's because their games don't lose value. It's also why my Switch has a couple dozen physical games and I have like, 1 PS5 physical game and 2 PS4 physical games. Not to mention I have no doubt Nintendo could pull the plug on any digital purchases and fuck the consumer whenever they feel like it. I feel that way about Sony as well but luckily I can still play my digital ps3 games if I want, and redownload them. I do feel like they could take that feature away in the future though.
 
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Digital consoles are fine, it’s good to give people options but the low internal storage for these digital consoles is a problem. Especially in MS cases when the expansion cards are so expensive.
 
At least give us a TL;DW. Since you're posting the video, one would assume you watched it, so you could sum it up in a sentence or two.

If you can't give a TL;DW, at least tell us why we should watch the video (since you watched it and felt like it deserved a thread, it should be easy to tell us that).
Great example of asking someone to do better without being a dick head. Great work Bernd!
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
I stopped watching this guy years ago. Pretty surprised he got so big.

I've been digital only on PC since 2003, but digital on console rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps its the lack of permanence with consoles, or I'm just used to physical media on consoles.

I do think that next gen Xbox and Playstation will be digital only as that is how their customers are buying now, and gives the companies more money by 1. Not printing physical media, distribution, etc, and 2. eliminates used game sales which they have been trying for 12 years now. Nintendo will likely continue physical in their next system because it will be back-compat with Switch, and the majority of their customers buy physical.

Really with virtually all AAA games releasing in broken and incomplete states (outside of Nintendo and Sony), physical media really doesn't matter anymore outside of used games. The solution is stop buying said broken and incomplete games, but these games still sell record numbers each year. A AAA game crash is really needed.
 
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