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Will the next gen be digital only?


Dreakon13

Digital Only Or No?  

191 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you picture the release landscape post-PS4/Xbox One?

    • The next consoles game releases will be entirely digital and/or cloud based. Consoles won't have disc drives/cartridge slots built in.
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    • The next consoles game releases will be entirely physical... in some odd turn of events.
      3
    • Things will continue as they currently are. With AAA retail games regularly getting both physical and digital, and indies being primarily digital.
      142
    • The vast majority of games will be digital only, including AAA... though physical game releases will still happen, but far less frequently than they do now.
      35


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Same as, despite rumours of scarlet having both a physical and streaming versions, physical will continue to be the main seller. Digital games are far too expensive. The last game I bought on PS4 physical was £10, with a £6 trade in value. That same game on PSN was £42.99, over 10 times the price! Even brand new games are more expensive digitally. I'm sure publishers would love to grab us by the gonads and kill off the used games market, and eventually they will, but not yet. 

 

I do buy digital on VITA much more often due to limited physical availability on the highstreet, but I have a £12 spending limit because I don't want to support the digital transition too much (and I'm a bit cheap). 

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56 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

So wait... paying upfront (in the form of a subscription) for an unnamed selection of games, is better than paying upfront for games you actually want?  How is it better than "the whole preordering bullshit" exactly?

 

EDIT: Which, by the way, I find it difficult to see how something completely optional like preordering a game is "bullshit" anyways.

Depends on the package or publisher, but if Sony were to offer the option of paying 10€ per month and in return I'd get access to their complete back catalogue plus every new first party release day one and a huge selection of third party games, that sounds like a good deal to me. Just look at Xbox Game Pass for example: https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-game-pass-list

 

Preorder DLC is obviously stuff that is not available in the game for no other reason than it being a preorder incentive for people to drop between €60 to €100 before the game is out and reviews are available. I call that bullshit.

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8 minutes ago, soniq said:

Depends on the package or publisher, but if Sony were to offer the option of paying 10€ per month and in return I'd get access to their complete back catalogue plus every new first party release day one and a huge selection of third party games, that sounds like a good deal to me. Just look at Xbox Game Pass for example: https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-game-pass-list

 

Preorder DLC is obviously stuff that is not available in the game for no other reason than it being a preorder incentive for people to drop between €60 to €100 before the game is out and reviews are available. I call that bullshit.

The problem with the large subscription model is that the quality of the games inevitably will drop if there is no quality control; why create a fantastic game if you don't get paid for individual sales? Why not spend that money on advertising the game and putting in the microtransactions economy that will make the game profitable. Its basically a free to play mobile economy model where most money will be made from in game purchases. Sure, great in the short term before the subscription model truly takes hold, but be careful what you wish for! 

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41 minutes ago, MosesRockefeller said:

I think it's weird that several people have said they won't play modern games if digital is the only choice.

 

I wouldn't stop playing modern games... but I would sincerely consider switching back to PC full time.  From deep, deep discounts to bundles to DRM-free at GOG, digital just isn't worth it anywhere else.

 

 

34 minutes ago, soniq said:

Depends on the package or publisher, but if Sony were to offer the option of paying 10€ per month and in return I'd get access to their complete back catalogue plus every new first party release day one and a huge selection of third party games, that sounds like a good deal to me. Just look at Xbox Game Pass for example: https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-game-pass-list

 

Preorder DLC is obviously stuff that is not available in the game for no other reason than it being a preorder incentive for people to drop between €60 to €100 before the game is out and reviews are available. I call that bullshit.

 

If something like Xbox Game Pass truly becomes a viable option for playing almost all games, rest assured that subscription price will go up.  We'll call what they're doing now the "honeymoon period".  Especially if it ends up replacing other means of actually buying/owning games and there's no longer any form of internal competition to keep it reasonable.  Or at the very least it will be divvied up as all other publishers start their own access pass and you may have 4-5 subscriptions running at a time to play the games you want.

 

Not to mention like Netflix, games will likely be contracted and come and go much more frequently as those contracts run out (not talking music licenses causing games to get de-listed, just general contractual terms).  You're truly not in control of anything at that point.  Which might appeal to the average college student who would rather pay less for more games to binge short term... but people who don't have as much time or patience, but money to spare, might not appreciate having their hard difficulty run of a 100 hour game taken away from them halfway through.  Or having their favorite games randomly unavailable to play in their depleting free time.

 

As someone who regularly preorders games, I don't think I've ever encountered preorder DLC that was worth solely preordering for.  Half the time I forget to even activate it.  I think people are more upset at the idea than what it actually is, which is generally a mindset I can't get behind.

Edited by Dreakon13
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Going digital would backfire in so many ways its not even funny. The way it is now: A mix of physical/digital is perfect IMHO. There's some advantages of owning a physical game and a digital game:

 

Physical: You CAN sell it off once your finished with it (and to me that's the biggest advantage physical games have!), you can wait for a tremendous price drop (ex: finding a copy of NBA 2K14 for $1 while it's still $59.99 digitally), you can take advantage of trade-in deals at participating retail stores (GameStop is notorious for this) that'll enable you to pre-order something that's coming out soon (I did this for Spider-Man and was paid off in full with just store credit!). Collector's Editions are something most never want to sell off, while there's a rare few that'll fetch more than what they paid for initially. Can also lend it to a friend whenever. And can also find a copy of it for cheap online after its release (I've take advantage of this for years. Can't even imagine how many good deals I've found online). Physical games are NEVER DELISTED!!

 

Digital: You'll own that said game forever no matter what the price. Goes on sale a little faster than it's physical counterpart. Can also get games for MUCH cheaper during sales like the Golden Sales, Mid-Year sales, Flash Sales, etc. Better chances of catching DLC's for sale as well. Bundled deals go on sale for tremendous prices (Titanfall 2/Battlefield 1 Ultimate Edition bundle is a perfect example!! $20 for both games will ALL DLCs is a STEAL!!) Pre-orders download the moment they're released (Shenmue 1&2 HD Remasters for me when it comes out next month), plus if a game is delisted and you've downloaded it well before hand, you'll own it forever!! Same goes for DLC (Looking at you Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC PS3).

 

Plus, there are those who prefer physical over digital, and vice versa. So in short: No, they shouldn't do away with physical and go digital only. It'll hurt the consumers.

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I don’t think the companies will need to force people off the physical games and onto digital only, that is happening naturally anyway.

 

in 2009 the split of sales was approximately 80% physical sales and 20% digital (in the US), but by 2017 that figure is more than reversed, with 19% physical and 81% digital, and the change has been a very smooth change, not a big spike at any particular time.

Source: Statistica. 

 

If the trends continue, the companies won’t need to wait too long befor they can happily do away with physical altogether, without any major outcry, so I suspect the next gen will have a physical option, but by the middle of that generation, it will be very rarely used.

 

There will always be folks who cry out whenever change happens and they feel like it’s leaving them behind, but the stats show that people are already moving away from physical in a big way.

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14 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I don’t think the companies will need to force people off the physical games and onto digital only, that is happening naturally anyway.

 

in 2009 the split of sales was approximately 80% physical sales and 20% digital (in the US), but by 2017 that figure is more than reversed, with 19% physical and 81% digital, and the change has been a very smooth change, not a big spike at any particular time.

Source: Statistica. 

 

If the trends continue, the companies won’t need to wait too long befor they can happily do away with physical altogether, without any major outcry, so I suspect the next gen will have a physical option, but by the middle of that generation, it will be very rarely used.

 

There will always be folks who cry out whenever change happens and they feel like it’s leaving them behind, but the stats show that people are already moving away from physical in a big way.

 

I can't really disagree, though I think that 19% physical are sticking with physical for reasons that will be hard for digital to ever really compensate for as long as physical is still available in some capacity.  I don't see that number dipping a lot more naturally.  If forced physical fans might switch, or they might not, or they might go elsewhere (ie. me switching to PC since I think they do digital better over there).  Do companies want to risk losing nearly a fifth of their market?

 

I have to kind of wonder why digital movies aren't a bigger business.  Netflix is one thing, they have a huge market share but were never really in direct competition with people who want to own their stuff.  You can buy digital movies on iTunes, Google, Amazon, the Ultraviolet thing, etc... but physical media with movies and television shows never really slowed down (not enough to put a dent in anything anyways, almost all movies end up on physical media, even the more indie stuff).  Is it because physical movies/shows tend to include digital copies as well as discs?  Maybe that's a direction games go?

Edited by Dreakon13
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8 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

I can't really disagree, though I think that 19% physical are sticking with physical for reasons that will be hard for digital to ever really compensate for as long as physical is still available in some capacity.  I don't see that number dipping a lot more.  If forced physical fans might switch, or they might not.  Do companies want to risk losing nearly a fifth of their market?

 

See, I would have agreed until I looked at the numbers - I only looked them up after seeing this topic, and was kind of surprised TBH, but if you look at the year-on-year numbers, they show a very consistent, steady decline in physical games.

 

Of course, there are a lot of reasons for that - more digital sales, more digital only games, less availability of physical games on the highstreet due to closures of brick and mortar stores, better internet availability etc., but what it says to me is that the switch to digital shows no sign of relenting.

 

I could be wrong of course, but if I were making a bet, I’d put money on the next generation not being - as some have suggested - the last console generation, but on it being the last generation to have a physical disc drive.

 

Just my two cents, of course!

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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17 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

If something like Xbox Game Pass truly becomes a viable option for playing almost all games, rest assured that subscription price will go up.  Especially if it ends up replacing other means of actually buying/owning games and there's no longer any form of internal competition to keep it reasonable.  Or at the very least it will be divvied up as all other publishers start their own access pass and you have 4-5 subscriptions running at a time to play the games you want.

 

Not to mention like Netflix, games will likely be contracted and come and go much more frequently as those contracts run out (not talking music licenses causing games to get de-listed, just general contractual terms).  You're truly not in control of anything at that point.  Which might appeal to the average college student who would rather pay less for more games to binge short term... but people who don't have as much time or patience, but money to spare, might not appreciate having that difficult 150 hour game taken away from them halfway through.

 

As someone who regularly preorders games, I don't think I've ever encountered preorder DLC that was worth solely preordering for.  I think people are more upset at the idea than what it actually is, which is generally a mindset I can't get behind.

Sure prices willl go up, and there will be different tiers. EA is going to introduce some kind of premium tier to their EA Access later this year that will add games earlier or something. But I still think it's cool to have full access to a library of games that lets me try anything I want instead of having to pay 10-30€ for each game individually when they are on sale, only to add it to my backlog.

I will still be able to pick and choose, for example sub to Ubisoft for a month, play the new Assassin's Creed, check out some other games and then cancel again until I want more.

I'm also not talking about the people who post on message boards like this. We are a small minority. The most people who these subs are aimed at are not going to spend 150 hours on some difficult game. They are also going to sub and then let it run for a while, whether they actually use it or not. And that's where also the money comes from in the long term: People are to lazy to cancel. They rather continue to pay MMO and gym memberships because it's only small amounts of money instead of taking the time and canceling.

 

I'm not saying that subs will be the only option available, but it will become more important with future hardware generations. Physical will never disappear completely. People love them too much. Just look at Limited Run Games. They pretty much only exist because people want a box on their shelf. And music, that isn't available on CDs, gets released on vinyl and cassette tapes again. It's amazing!

 

The shows that disappear from Netflix are not produced by Netflix. That's why they started producing their own original content.

 

Yes, the preorder DLC is usually not worth the money, but to me it still feels like it's being held hostage for no other reason than to sell more copies on launch day.

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For me it depends on the price. Rarely if ever purchase a AAA digital because they’re too expensive when they can be bought and sold afterwards second hand.

 

If a game is cheaper (or an indie) then I’ll probably pick it up digitally with the exception of a collection of steel backs which I own for my favourite games, some of which are indies like Firewatch and Broken Sword.

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Quote

in 2009 the split of sales was approximately 80% physical sales and 20% digital (in the US), but by 2017 that figure is more than reversed, with 19% physical and 81% digital, and the change has been a very smooth change, not a big spike at any particular time.

 

 

Shame how your source includes mobile into those stats. That isn't an honest way to discuss the console market. 

 

 

Quote

 

Supplementary notes
* Digital format sales include subscriptions, digital full games, digital add-on content, mobile apps and social network gaming. 

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/

  Edited by TJ_Solo
Adding an actual link to a source instead of haphazardly referring to it
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11 minutes ago, soniq said:

The shows that disappear from Netflix are not produced by Netflix. That's why they started producing their own original content.

 

People aren't only on Netflix for their original content though.  Third party games can make or break a system, and having third party games constantly coming and going from the catalog will be a detractor from potential future "game pass" situations.

 

 

11 minutes ago, soniq said:

The most people who these subs are aimed at are not going to spend 150 hours on some difficult game. They are also going to sub and then let it run for a while, whether they actually use it or not.

 

Hell, I have a difficulty drumming up time for a 30-40 hour game I might find myself getting stuck in these days.  Doesn't mean I'm giving Sony the green light to take the game away from me because its contract ran up.  We should be against that sort of thing, not for it.

Edited by Dreakon13
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11 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

Shame how your source includes mobile into those stats. That isn't an honest way to discuss the console market. 

...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/

 

 

2 minutes ago, gabor434 said:

A lot of people here overrate digital game sales on PS4, without looking at any actual sales data. It just takes a quick googleing...

Anyway here it is Link.

According to Sony, in the latest full fiscal year, 32% of the sales were digital, which mean 68% of the PS4 games were sold physically...

Yes digital sales are slowly rising, but physical games still dominate the PS4 market, so people who said that releasing next gen with digital games only would be suicide are quite right!

Personally, i wouldn't buy a PS5 if it didnt come with physical games.

 

 

Well... that's interesting. :)  Putting popular digital platforms that never had a physical option but little bearing on the console market like mobile apps probably would skew the numbers a bit.

Edited by Dreakon13
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8 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

 

Shame how your source includes mobile into those stats. That isn't an honest way to discuss the console market. 

 

 

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/

 

 

 

I know that - but it’s included in both the 2009 and the 2017 stats (and all the ones in between), so the trend (which is what I was using the statistics to demonstrate) is still appropriate.

 

Whether you agree that they should or shouldn’t be included is irrelevant - the point is that the dramatic shift in the balance over only 8 years is demonstrable from this data.

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17 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I know that - but it’s included in both the 2009 and the 2017 stats (and all the ones in between), so the trend (which is what I was using the statistics to demonstrate) is still appropriate.

 

Whether you agree that they should or shouldn’t be included is irrelevant - the point is that the dramatic shift in the balance over only 8 years is demonstrable from this data.

 

Smartphones/tablets becoming immensely popular over that timeframe and skewing digital numbers has little bearing on the console market, unless we're still concerned that mobile gaming is "the future"... in which case both digital AND physical on console are in trouble. ;)

 

EDIT: I think we can all agree that digital has found its place in the console market and is quickly growing.  Hence the thread.  Where it's currently at and how quickly its growing probably doesn't need to be embellished though.

Edited by Dreakon13
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3 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

People aren't only on Netflix for their original content though.  Third party games can make or break a system, and having third party games constantly coming and going from the catalog will be a detractor from potential future "game pass" situations.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that it won't work or that it won't happen. The same third party games are both available through Xbox Gamepass and PS Now. I don't see a problem there.

Besides, it will take a while before this is going to happen and they won't stop selling games the second this becomes available.

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15 minutes ago, soniq said:

Sure, but that doesn't mean that it won't work or that it won't happen. The same third party games are both available through Xbox Gamepass and PS Now. I don't see a problem there.

 

I'm not saying it won't happen or anything, but it's still in the early stages.  I bailed on both Netflix and Hulu when they dropped a lot of movies/shows I liked, and added a lot I didn't... I'd imagine the same would probably happen with a similar service for games.  And I'd be glad in that case to have a shelf of all the games I like to fall back on.  Subscription based services and physical media I don't think are really in competition with eachother, now or in the future.  That's all I'm saying.

Edited by Dreakon13
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45 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

Smartphones becoming immensely popular over that timeframe and skewing digital numbers has little bearing on the console market, unless we're still concerned that mobile gaming is "the future"... in which case both digital and physical on console is in trouble. ;)

 

That’s true, fair point - I guess the fact that I personally didn’t really buy anything digitally until about 2010/2011, and have slowly drifted to the point where I now get pretty annoyed if I get a physical game gave some anecdotal reinforcement to the stats I saw.

 

I must admit though, while the Statistica stats surprised me with how high the digital sales were, the Sony ones surprise me with how low they are - I don’t know anyone who still prefers physical in real life, and most AAA physical games have at least some digital components (dlcs, season passes etc.) 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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I don't have specific statistics to back this up, but I also surmise that a non negligible amount of BD/DVD or physical games sales are also meant to be gifts. I, at least, would rather offer or receive a disc than a voucher for downloading something from the online store.

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I just can't picture myself going digital with all of the different consoles I have (and will continue to have as long as the gaming interest and money allows).

 

It was bad enough on PC where I had 3-4+ different client portals to go through (Steam, Origin, uPlay, GOG, Battle.Net app, Epic Games Launcher, etc) but at least it was all sitting there on the same HDD funneling to the same general installation paths.  But having it spanning 3-4 different sets of hardware?  I just wouldn't know what the heck I even own anymore. xD  And I already have issues deciding on what games to play at any given time... obscuring the list of options further probably wouldn't help.

Edited by Dreakon13
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2 hours ago, Dreakon13 said:

I wouldn't stop playing modern games... but I would sincerely consider switching back to PC full time.  From deep, deep discounts to bundles to DRM-free at GOG, digital just isn't worth it anywhere else.

It's true that Steam and GOG have better sales than PSN, eShop, and Xbox Live usually do. But it all comes down to what each person considers "worth it". You consider it worth your extra money to pay at least $10 more for a physical copy of a PSN/eShop game. And the digital price of that game is usually already more expensive than it is on PC. For someone like myself, who puts little to no value on a physical copy of a game, I have no problem buying a digital game on console at a higher price than on PC. It's a similar logical process of "cost to convenience" analysis.

 

You may already realize it, but I just wanted to point out that us weirdos who like digital have some logic behind our preferences. But it's hard for me to disagree with the "too lazy to change discs" argument. :P

 

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