|
http://www.mcvuk.com/articles/retail/consoles-games-market-is-nearing-50-digital-tipping-point What's your thoughts? Do you welcome with open arms the sudden shift toward a dominant digital market on consoles, or is it a future that keeps you awake at night? Or are you simply indifferent toward a future where physical media on consoles no longer exists? Edited by Ragnor at 14:42:13 06-11-2017 Edited by Ragnor at 16:15:46 06-11-2017 |
Digital console market nearing 50% - where do you stand?
-
-
I'm 50/50 -
Rogueywon 12,387 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoI've been happily digital-only on PC for a decade now, so I've no fundamental reservations about going digital on consoles. However, pricing remains a big issue; compared with prices on Steam (and even Origin), console storefronts remain very expensive. For this reason, I'm still around 75/20 physical/digital for my console purchases.
I'm more likely to take a punt on a long-shot might-not-like it game via physical, because of the trade-in value. -
neilka 24,021 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoMuch better than those analogue consoles we used to have. -
BigOrkWaaagh 10,554 posts
Seen 46 minutes ago
Registered 14 years agoI buy things that I know I'll play for a long time but dip in and out of digital, ie fighting games. Barring digital sales I buy pretty much everything else physical because the prices are generally so much better. And of course I can sell if I want to. -
simpleexplodingmaybe 19,992 posts
Seen 5 days ago
Registered 6 years agoPC I tend to buy digital
Console I only buy digital in sales, and even then rarely, as physical is a lot cheaper than digital. Even during sales physical can be as much as a third cheaper than digital, during non-sale periods physical can be half the price. And that's even before we start looking at second hand discs. -
PC I am obviously digital.
Console I am often physical, not the least because I often get the games two days early.
On the Switch, I buy everything (if available) physical, I kind of like the cartridges, and the resale value of Nintendo games in the past was extremely good. Barely worth it for, say, PS4 games though, in my experience. -
Quint 59 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 11 years agoOn PC I buy most stuff digitally these days, mostly since it's really no point buying it physically (unless the price is better), you'll likely end up just getting a key to register on steam/origin/uplay anyway.
On console on the other hand, I still prefer physical copies, at least as long as I still get a disc with the actual game on it, it just feels like i "own" my copy of the game more that way. I can lend it to friends, trade it (not that I've traded or sold a game in the last 20-ish years) or even, in some distant future when my console might be broken down and/or stuffed away in the attic, I might still be able to pop the disc into a computer and run the game through an emulator.
Edited by Quint at 14:57:42 06-11-2017 -
KD 3,575 posts
Seen 7 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoI like to get a disk every now and then just to make sure I got something to put away with the console in a few years time when its obselete, no point with things like Destiny which are games as service and the Xbox stuff being back compat makes it seem similar to pc where I dont mind 100% digital as I'll have somewhere to play them in a few years. -
TurkeyNeck 162 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 5 years agoPrefer physical as prices are cheaper and they can be traded or given to friends though I usually wait until games have dropped in price before I buy them these days. I find there aren't many games I need on day one.
I find myself looking through the digital deals on PSN and XBox quite often though and if a game shows up and the price hits the sweet spot, I'll buy it. I'd say I'm probably 50/50. -
If the market goes all-digital, I'll be getting out of gaming. It's that simple. I've got other hobbies I can spend my money on.
I don't mind buying the odd throwaway title digitally for a couple of quid, but I won't buy an all-digital console, and there's no fucking way I'm paying 30-40 quid for a digital title. The only reason I still game on PC is PWYW bundles and because I need my PC for other stuff, but even those interests are dwindling.
I'm just looking at my digital purchases over the year: I've spent about €15 on PSN, zero on Xbox (my last Xbox One digital purchase was 2015) and about €50 on PC. As Steam and GOG sales have become increasingly underwhelming, I actually find myself spending LESS on digital.
Edited by FilthyAnimal at 15:13:04 06-11-2017 -
StarchildHypocrethes 33,974 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 17 years agoPhysical meeja can do one. By the time you've installed the disc and downloaded the massive day one update, you might as well have downloaded the whole thing any way. Plus standing up to change discs is for luddites. -
myk 796 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoAlmost 100% digital on Xbox one, but I do tend to wait until a game is on the weekly sale before buying it, and use game-sharing. -
Armoured_Bear 31,233 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 10 years agoI’m digital only on all my platforms, PC, PS4 and Switch.
Doubt I’ll ever buy a packaged game ever again -
hedben2013 2,261 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 9 years agoI'm 100% digital now (Xbone). Being a late adopter of both consoles and games is a major advantage- digital pricing is poor for anything recent, but sales on digital games can be just as good or better.
Example: I'm playing through Shadow of Mordor right now which I got for less than a fiver; Battlefront (the first one) with all DLC was £3.74 recently; I've got 2 Saints Row games and 2 Metro games waiting in the backlog which were £8 for the lot.
I realise my relatively cheaper habit is being propped up by people paying higher prices for newer games, and as the market share of digital increases, maybe that's not sustainable. Also I may be missing out on some games that you presumably need to be in on from day 1 (hello Destiny), but I'm pretty happy with the price of older digital games right now. -
Rhaegyr 5,499 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 10 years agoSadly there's no incentive to buy physical now.
Cheaper? No.
Cool box art? Rarely, if ever.
Instruction manual? No.
Quicker? Not with mandatory Day 1 patches. -
JamboWayOh 25,236 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 8 years agoRhaegyr wrote:
Eh? Physical on console has been and is cheaper than digital.
Sadly there's no incentive to buy physical now.
Cheaper? No.
Cool box art? Rarely, if ever.
Instruction manual? No.
Quicker? Not with mandatory Day 1 patches. -
Rhaegyr 5,499 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 10 years agoYou're right, not sure what I was thinking/typing there - it's pretty much the only reason I still buy physical copies over digital.
At face value it's bloody daft that a physical copy is cheaper than a digital copy.
Edited by Rhaegyr at 15:37:27 06-11-2017 -
cowell 2,254 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 12 years agoPC and mobile - obviously 100% digital
Console - Probably 80%+ of my games bought digitally these days. If its a short single player once and done type game, then maybe I'll buy it physical and trade it in, but I don't resent not being able to trade the majority of my purchases on the basis that if i get a tonne of hours and value out of it, then getting £15 back for it down the round is here nor there compared to the covenience of digital.
Bring it on I say!
Edited by cowell at 15:38:59 06-11-2017
Edited by cowell at 15:39:25 06-11-2017 -
JamboWayOh 25,236 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 8 years agoIt's ridiculous when you try think what extra cost am I paying for by going digital on something like the xbox store. It's not as if Microsoft are paying for rental space of a shop, or advertising. Steam can be guilty of this but they actually have quality sales compared to the xbox store which has the same tired discounts on repeat. -
mrpon 37,366 posts
Seen 37 minutes ago
Registered 15 years agoJust noticed PS1 Nightmare Creatures II going for £150 on eBay. -
UKRaver1980 61 posts
Seen 6 minutes ago
Registered 5 years agoDigital for indies (that rarely get a physical release and tend to be quite cheap) and physical for everything else. I'll buy the odd AAA digital if it's in a decent sale on. That's for console anyway, PC I am fully digital.
I rarely buy games on day one, they are mostly incomplete and buggy so I wait which means I get a better, more complete game and the price also drops. The only exception being Nintendo games as they still seem to put the effort in to quality plus waiting on Nintendo games doesn't usually end in a discount as they hold value too well. -
myiagros 1,501 posts
Seen 7 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoPhysical only (with the exception of games without physical editions).
I like the sense of ownership.
I wait for discounts a lot more these days than I used to, since I have a massive backlog, prices drop off so quickly, and there seem to be less games I feel are worth day one prices. -
FilthyAnimal wrote:
I don't get that. I get the preference for one or the other, but in the end, it's just an irrelevant delivery method. The experience is the same. Unless you really don't care about gaming - in which case you might as well stop now - I find this hard to comprehend.
If the market goes all-digital, I'll be getting out of gaming. It's that simple. -
Pierre2k 1,466 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 9 years agoI've had a Steam account since the launch of Half-life 2 and have been digital on PC for years. A key reason I don't mind digital on PC is that your games always come with you. Buy a new PC and your games remain accessible.
I grudge having a digital library on console because it seems far more at risk to me. For example, you buy a PS3, buy loads of digital games, and a few years from now the console breaks. You buy a replacement PS3, but find PSN no longer connects to it and your digital collection is essentially lost forever. Sony have moved on, get over it.
The model being displayed with Xbox could change this. Digital backwards compatibility would definitely encourage more digital purchases and investment in that ecosystem. Still not in a perfect place at the moment though.
The last factor is collecting. You buy a SNES cart today and the game just works. It has value. However, as we move to a world of day 1 patches, DLC, online services etc, your old games lose value. Imagine for example buying an unpatchrd disc version of AC:Unity 10 years from now on XB1. Without the ability to patch it, the game is a buggy, worthless mess. In this scenario, you might as well go digital. On Switch sometimes half the game isn't even on the Cart, so in future it had no real collectable value. -
Fake_Blood 11,093 posts
Seen 17 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoApparently, not getting up from the sofa is worth a lot to me. -
Malek86 12,331 posts
Seen 12 hours ago
Registered 14 years agoNew games, I almost always buy physical (except on PC of course), because prices are lower. But then, I don't buy a lot of new games.
For catalog titles, on the other hand, I often go digital because you are very likely to find a good sale eventually.
In the end though, it almost always depends on the price. There's the occasional time when I really want the box for collecting purposes, but those are getting rarer and rarer. On the other hand, sometimes I'll go digital even if the price is slightly higher, if I think it's a game I'll play often enough. -
100% digital. Xbox and PC.
Edited by Technoishmatt at 16:18:37 06-11-2017
Sometimes posts may contain links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. For more information, go here.
