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[Housh]

I love buying and collecting physical console games. However, now that I have a powerful gaming PC and a lot of big multiplatform games are going digital--I've found myself doubling down on PC. Console exclusives seem stupid if everything is digital.

I think next gen I'm going to be full PC and maybe the next iteration of Steamdeck or Switch--most likely Switch for Nintendo exclusives.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Did you play PC games before Steam existed?

This is completely my take on your statement, it isn't an indictment of any kind, its just the first thing I thought of when I read that post.

What I inferred from reading your comment (may be completely wrong).
1) You got into PC gaming after Steam was the dominate form of game acquisition.
2) You like that you can activate keys on Steam that you have acquired from other sites/means.

No I actually played PC well before I got Steam. I did start playing PC right around when Steam came out, but was mostly a console gamer back then.

No, I was saying that I like you can get games from other sources, not that I use or like them thb. Key sites are nice though.

 

[MrA]

I remember the exact same argument for the compact disc better quality , charts show people buying them more than those pesky iTunes downloads which were crappy quality and you don’t own them!

Look where we are now.

It’s coming , you can’t fight it, you can’t run from it , it is inevitable.

You can of course still buy CDs but it’s a throwback and ease of access cost and barrier to entry will always be king.

Behavior and course is complete different, CDs utterly collapsed physical game sales are holding steady at this point,
The use of music and games is hugely different
music is listened to. Frequently passively or when in motion (i hate the term consume that trash was a recent invention and should be rejected we listen to music watch movies read books play games they aren't gone after use such a manipulative term) drastically different than games are played

Sony's numbers on % digital and Gamepass.

I've definitely noticed that retailer markdowns are a lot rarer now because of the low supply. Getting deals is a lot harder than it used to be.

You mean that percent that flattened the last year then actually moved in favor of physical the last quarter?
Or gamepass that seems to have completely stalled on consoles and is only growing on pc
Also less discounts you mean like the buy 2 get 1 free target just ran in June
Or best buys current sale with nearly 300 games discounted?
Or the rather substantial clearance game section both stores have
You have found sales in stores as you are like a criminal and the police you're not looking for them

 

[Edmund]

There'll probably be a detachable disc drive that u can plug into your future console so that you can still play physical copies of your games.

 

[L*][*N*K]

Our grand kids will find them in an attic and tell their friends “I think my grandad was in an electric company or something, any way want to go get some oxygen”

 

[bitbydeath]

Console exclusives seem stupid if everything is digital.

Are PC exclusives stupid too?

 

[LavitzSlambert]

If it was like $5 for a digital game like Fallout NV GOTY then fine, but they actually think they will charge full price. And if physical games are done for, why would they ever be incentivized to drop the price? This is all about company control through and through.

 

[StereoVsn]

Behavior and course is complete different, CDs utterly collapsed physical game sales are holding steady at this point,
The use of music and games is hugely different
music is listened to. Frequently passively or when in motion (i hate the term consume that trash was a recent invention and should be rejected we listen to music watch movies read books play games they aren't gone after use such a manipulative term) drastically different than games are played

You mean that percent that flattened the last year then actually moved in favor of physical the last quarter?
Or gamepass that seems to have completely stalled on consoles and is only growing on pc
Also less discounts you mean like the buy 2 get 1 free target just ran in June
Or best buys current sale with nearly 300 games discounted?
Or the rather substantial clearance game section both stores have
You have found sales in stores as you are like a criminal and the police you're not looking for them

Yep, or used games. Or promotion Amazon just ran for B1G1 Free or many others. Gamefly for example has great used sales quite often.

Plus outside US especially often games are quite a bit cheaper at retail. Well, Europe at least.

I like digital just fine and have a ton of digital titles across all three major holders. And if course a lot more between Steam and GoG. But I also have digital titles for 360, PS3 and Vita, and those will be lost sooner then later. Let's not even mention Wii or Wii-U.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I dunno what everyone else is going to be doing - but I'll be doing the same thing I'm doing right now. Inserting my physical media into my game console and playing them whenever I want until I'm dead.

 

[digitaltrance]

They need to make digital resell-able.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Do you think our physical discs will become no more than cup coasters? Or will there be a way to one-time redeem our discs for a digital license of the game. This is, of course, assuming future consoles will be backwards-compatible, which seems to be the trend.

We would live in a post apocalyptic utopia... Later they would sell us oxygen tanks or sex would be with holograms or the worst case scenario we would eat our food with a straw.

 

[MrA]

They need to make digital resell-able.

why? you don't actually own anything digitally, you've temporarily licensed it. Why do you think big corporations like pushing it so hard, eliminating used game sales is something they salivate over, fortunately Huge swathes of the public have rejected that short-sightedness
Whenever you say "I can't wait for physical to die!" guys like bobby Kotick and strauss zelnick lick their lips and rub their hands together knowing you're championing giving up control to them.
fun fact sony and ms also own anything you make on psn and live (oddly Nintendo doesn't and is like that crap's your responsibility)
Now, I license digital games, but I accept I don't own them, if I like a game enough to want or I plan on playing it long term or through at full price then not again or for sometime I buy physical (and in the later case resell, cost me 8 dollars to play Callisto protocol)

 

[Destruction-1002]

A lot of PC gamers have been digital only for a decade now. It happened so fast and Steam did it so well that the landing was fine. I've been buying retro hardware and games on the side, so I understand. For me anything starting at PS360 you're just better off on digital. The installs and patches kill it for a lot of games. I just moved a few months ago and I'm happy I didn't have a case for each of my 700 Steam games. If I was accruing a collection that big on consoles I would be a little more nervous about it. SNES and PS2 I really prefer original hardware and CRTs, so that can never go digital.

Download speeds on PS3 Store were freaking slow, many games didn't got digital releases

The Xbox 360 didn't have HDD by default, so games were designed to stream off DVD drive.
That how you got loading times and pop-in even when games are installed on HDD

New Xbox Experience: DVD vs. Hard Disk Face-Off

For a dashboard upgrade supposedly aimed at attracting the 'casual' audience, New Xbox Experience actually has a lot of…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[TonyK]

Or will there be a way to one-time redeem our discs for a digital license of the game.

That will not happen. When music changed from cassettes to CDs or video from VHS to DVD, no company redeem previous media in new one. The reason is that meanwhile you have the physical device that can reproduce that obsolete physical media there is no reason to give for free a digital version for new only digital devices.

 

[Banjo64]

Play them on your current compatible hardware rather than selling it. Case closed.

I can still buy a SNES or N64 on eBay for sub £50 in case you’re worried about yours breaking. The PS5 physical will cost sub £50 when it’s 33 years old (probably less than the SNES considering the SNES’s legacy in comparison and the difference in units produced).

 

[Banjo64]

Or, sell your physical games now and wait for digital sales to swap over at minimal (or no) cost.

Most games that are a year or so old are less than £10 on sale.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Fun fact the digital encroachment actually has been rolling back so far this year physical media isn't going anywhere no matter much digital only lazy corporate pawns salivate at the idea of less options and more corporate control

How about you sprinkle some punctuation on your posts before you start calling people “lazy corporate pawns” for not wanting rows and rows of tacky plastic boxes adorning their living rooms.

(Seriously, I had to read your post three times for it to completely make sense. It wasn’t worth the effort.)

 

[A2una1]

The difference being that for movies, Blu Ray (potentially) and definitely UHD disks are going to offer better sound, picture, and arguably convenience when compared to streaming. I'm all in on digital games now, but I've started to invest pretty heavily in a physical movie library at this point. I just got tired of having to figure out what is streaming where and when due to streaming feeling more like cable TV now. That's not really the same situation with games, since Xbox has it's storefront, Sony has theirs, Nintendo has its own, and most people on PC are going to be utilizing Steam (or getting codes from elsewhere and then entering them on Steam).

UHD is definitely pricey and pretty niche, but these boutique companies definitely know what they're doing.

You will buy them again as re-re-remasters, with slightly changed colors but at full price ...

 

[Barakov]

Physical goes away and consoles lose part of their appeal for me. These companies are doing everything they can to go in that direction because they want full control and are dead set on deciding when and where you can access their content. So I'll continue to resist as long as I can.

 

[Ginzeen]

next gen consoles will be 100 percent digital only. Can't wait.

 

[Tsaki]

You will keep the last console you have with disc-based BC and play your games that way. No need to overcomplicate things.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

There is a big difference between digital-only and online-only.

There is some people who argue in bad faith and think they are the same. They are not.

The difference is where the code is stored. If the code is on your house on your hard drive, then it is yours. If it is on a server owned by a game studio or console platform, then it isn't yours.

What difference does it make?

Well, very early on in the days of new Internet, there was the humble E-book. People purchase digital books and read them on little low tech tablets. But then one day a major E-book seller Amazon found out a 3rd party publisher didn't have the right to sell the "Animal Farm" and "1984" by George Orwell. So they refunded the books and deleted them from the devices REMOTELY.

Legally it made sense, but customers are outraged that Amazon basically went into their homes and took the books back.

Note that Amazon had since updated their policies so now if this happens again, they would NO LONGER delete the customer's downloads. Because they know it is the customer's E-book and they have no right to do that.

That is the difference. If you play an online-only game the studio can delete the game any time they want because it is on THEIR servers. But if you can put the code in your own hardware at home, it is yours even if it is no longer on a CD/DVD/Bluray. You can own that code and it is near impossible for the owner to take it away from you.

Will nearly everything be Digital? Yes, likely. Will nearly everything be accessible online only? Over my dead body.

 

[cireza]

You will keep your physical games and enjoy them on the consoles that accepted them. Nothing should change.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

Do you think our physical discs will become no more than cup coasters? Or will there be a way to one-time redeem our discs for a digital license of the game. This is, of course, assuming future consoles will be backwards-compatible, which seems to be the trend.

You realize that the disc-based consoles don’t spontaneously combust. I am still playing PS1 discs on my PS1.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

You realize that the disc-based consoles don’t spontaneously combust. I am still playing PS1 discs on my PS1.

It is a pity CDs are not as indestructible as they were marketed initially. When they were new, promoters were claiming that they are immune to scratches and that they last hundreds if not thousands of years. But the reality is that the glue used to stick the layers together can be defective causing it to fail way sooner. And because it is impossible to detect the bad glue you don't know which batch will go bad until it is too late. And writable discs are even worse.

 

[GamesDontSuck]

My view is that if consoles become digital only people will turn to pirating to play old games.

If the ps6 is digital only it will eventually be hacked and then people will just use a USB or SSD to play the entire games library. It won't be physical conservation but digital conservation.

 

[Rien]

They will be taken by Klaus Schwab.

 

[DaGwaphics]

The disks would just keep working on the systems that they were designed for until they rot.

Hopefully we get a transitional phase before they go completely disk-less, that being having an attachable drive as an option. Assuming the vendors use half a brain and build the detachable drive based on a standard interface (usb A or C), there's a possibility that the drive could remain compatible with future hardware iterations as well.

 

[jshackles]

They need to make digital resell-able.

Robot Cache is trying this out

Robot Cache

Robot Cache - The world's first decentralized video game distribution and resale platform using the block-chain.

store.robotcache.com

The implementation is... less than ideal. When you're done with a digital game, you can press the "resell" button to list it back up for sale on their website. Then, the next person who buys that game in essence buys it from you (instead of from Robot Cache). You get 25% of the sale, the publisher still gets their 70%, and Robot Cache gets 5%.

If you're a buyer, you just... buy the game normally. If you buy a game that doesn't have any "used" copies for sale, you are just buying straight from Robot Cache - they get 30% and the publisher gets 70%. Either way, the publisher still gets their 70% for each sale.

The problem with this implementation is that the publisher still controls the price point of the game. So, when you sell a game you're only getting 25% of the price that the publisher is currently charging. If you buy a game for $60 and sell it after the price drops to $40, you're now only getting $10 back. If that same $60 game goes on sale for $10 then now the most you can get back from it is $2.50. And to add insult to injury, the money you make selling your game back to the platform is just money in wallet credit on the platform. Also the platform isn't great to begin with, and this obviously doesn't work with games from your Steam library.

I guess it's still better than Gamestop.

 

[foamdino]

I don't like the idea of digital only from a consumer choice and game preservation point of view, but from an ecological point of view:
* don't need to use plastics etc to make disks & cases
* don't need to use fuel to ship from manufacturing site to all the shops etc
* don't need to negotiate with retail vendors for shelf space

It's just win, win, win from both a business and ecological sense - inevitably the future will be 100% digital - shipping bits > shipping plastic

 

[Mattyp]

I don't like the idea of digital only from a consumer choice and game preservation point of view, but from an ecological point of view:
* don't need to use plastics etc to make disks & cases
* don't need to use fuel to ship from manufacturing site to all the shops etc
* don't need to negotiate with retail vendors for shelf space

It's just win, win, win from both a business and ecological sense - inevitably the future will be 100% digital - shipping bits > shipping plastic

Who cares for plastic we should go back to producing sustainable cardboard boxes, that’s where the love is. And that’s the largest growing part of my collection right now, all those sweet sweet big boxes I binned as a kid..

 

[foamdino]

Who cares for plastic we should go back to producing sustainable cardboard boxes, that’s where the love is. And that’s the largest growing part of my collection right now, all those sweet sweet big boxes I binned as a kid..

Cardboard boxes is fine - cardboard blu-ray discs or cardboard cartridges?

I'm not saying I like the 100% digital future, but I recognise the fact that I'm old and I'm just used to physical media.

 

[rickybooby87]

In the not so distant future, the Church Of Phil will have spread to all corners of the earth, crushing all who dare oppose their digital utopia. Physical copies of games?, tools of the blasphemers! Forbidden relics! Those caught in possession of Prophet Cerny's gift to mankind... face the penalty of DEATH.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Collecting plastic is a waste of time.

This. Life is too short to worry if you will be able to replay your PS1 games in 2050. Spoiler: you won't care then.

 

[daffyduck]

Even if sales of games/music/movies go all digital, why does that mean people are going to suddenly start throwing physical media in the landfill?

 

[peronmls]

Piracy will probably be worse than ever.

 

[K' Dash]

Disc rot probably.

the physical versions people are fighting for now contain unfinished games, some assets or just a key, gone are the days when games shipped complete.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Disc rot is real.

Edit: ^ beat me

 

[ahtlas7]

Who are you kidding? I still watch reel to reel film and read paper books. Physical isn’t going anywhere.

 

[rofif]

There would need to be some way to transfer physical games license to your account.
idk... send them the game, so they add it and destroy it.

But F that. My ps5 is not going anywhere. It is the best system to collect for. Huge library of ps4 ad ps5 games.

 

[EverydayBeast]

People lost physical games due to flooding and fires I thought digital was mainstream since stream was introduced, download times are significantly better today.

 

[rofif]

People lost physical games due to flooding and fires I thought digital was mainstream since stream was introduced, download times are significantly better today.

Downloads are great on steam.. terrible on psn here. Game installs faster from disc on most days honestly.

 

[NeverYouMind]

They will be digitized (physical media is only an arbitrary encoding of digital data) and if you want to continue to use them you will need a software adapter to emulate its use or maybe programmable circuits will become mainstream and will allow hardware emulation.

 

[MarkMe2525]

People lost physical games due to flooding and fires I thought digital was mainstream since stream was introduced, download times are significantly better today.

During Hurricane Katrina, 4 feet of water rushed through our house. It was a total loss. My NES, SNES, Genesis, "Game.com", PS1, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, and all of accompanying accessories and games were instantly gone. My comic book collection was luckily in the top of the closet and was spared. It is nice knowing that I can always sign in and redownload most of my modern games.

On the flip side, I have a shit ton of IOS games that are lost forever due to them not being compatible with new IOS versions, or delisted.

 

[jshackles]

I don't like the idea of digital only from a consumer choice and game preservation point of view, but from an ecological point of view:
* don't need to use plastics etc to make disks & cases
* don't need to use fuel to ship from manufacturing site to all the shops etc
* don't need to negotiate with retail vendors for shelf space

It's just win, win, win from both a business and ecological sense - inevitably the future will be 100% digital - shipping bits > shipping plastic

If it's a win, win, win for companies, why don't they make digital games cheaper to offset the cost of not having to manufacture and ship stuff all over the world? Retail / physical is always going to be better for the consumer because:
* you have resale rights
* more retail competition and limited shelf space drives down price faster / farther
* you have the option of buying used
* you can trade or give away games when you're done with them

Any version of OPs "unavoidable digital only future" is going to have to address at least some of these concerns, or it will be dystopian

 

[Housh]

Are PC exclusives stupid too?

I rarely come by them these days unless it's some indie dev RTS game. Of course a publisher would want their investment on a platform with a huge player base that is willing to pay full ticket and the least risk of day 1 piracy. I wish there weren't exclusives but I'm going to play the game on the best hardware I have or at least the game's target platform for the best experience which isn't always PC.

 

[foamdino]

If it's a win, win, win for companies, why don't they make digital games cheaper to offset the cost of not having to manufacture and ship stuff all over the world? Retail / physical is always going to be better for the consumer because:
* you have resale rights
* more retail competition and limited shelf space drives down price faster / farther
* you have the option of buying used
* you can trade or give away games when you're done with them

Any version of OPs "unavoidable digital only future" is going to have to address at least some of these concerns, or it will be dystopian

I agree, companies *should* make digital games cheaper as they don't have any shipping or manufacturing costs - but we already live in a capitalist dystopia, so digital price == physical price :-(

 

[Hudo]

Do you think our physical discs will become no more than cup coasters?

You can still decapitate people with discs. So that doesn't go away. (Bit more effort required with Gamecube discs)

 

[Drew1440]

If they want to keep physical media, they will have to switch to another medium, Bluray caps out at 128GB for a quad layer disc and multiple discs are not cost effective.
Could read-only SD cards replace bluray?

 

[brian0057]

The return of cartridges would be a boon for physical media. With how little and how massive modern flash storage is, we could store games in cartridges like the Switch.

I'll take actually owning what I buy over the conveniences of digital any day of the week.