Will the next gen be digital only?

[AJ_Radio]

46 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

I agree, and while the the internet itself is a reason for that... it's also due in part to the fact you really can't go anywhere and say anything without offending someone these days.  I know that weighs heavily on me in day to day interactions.  I'm already a pretty socially awkward guy, I'm certainly not willing to stick my neck out and try to be personable when any little awkward thing I might say (and no doubt I WILL say awkward things) could be misinterpreted as something negative, offensive, insensitive, etc... and potentially cost me my job, my respect/dignity, my friends, etc.

 

My logical mind can no longer understand how I would benefit from not just staying home, keeping to myself and saying the bare minimum at almost all times outside of around people I know for a fact don't judge or wouldn't attack my livelihood over it... so that's what I do.

 

EDIT: Not to steer too far off topic.  

 

Today’s politics and the whole Donald Trump business with Russia and North Korea has a lot of people on edge. Particularly the Republican Party. 

 

I used to respect the differences between the political parties and come to accept the “agree to disagree” angle. I can’t do that anymore. They have gone so far into outer space that I’m automatically turned off whenever they spew crap out of their mouths on what is actually good for the betterment of society. It’s a circus. 

 

That and the fact that most of our generation, the millennials, the children of the baby boomers, grew up in a sheltered home at a television and computer screen playing Nintendo and whatnot has made many of us socially awkward. I’m in my 30s now and it’s sad to see someone in my age group who acts as if he’s still 14 - 16 years old. 

 

Going further into this digital only future only makes us more awkward. I took pride in sitting at a computer and buying up songs on iTunes and having a playlist on Spotify at my own leisure. Going on Steam and taking advantage of game sales. Or going Amazon Price and watching television. Now I don’t know if I really enjoy these things as much. 

 

The upcoming generation of consoles will likely eventually be all digital. We’re already getting two to four DLC packs per AAA game, all with their own trophy lists. There’s no way to get that content unless you buy and download online. But it’s just nice for me to skip downloading the base game because I don’t like having to download 40 - 50 GBs per game. It’s already gotten ridiculous. 

 

Most games back in the PS3/Xbox 360 era were anywhere from 3 to 10 GBs in size. These days that size has ballooned to over 40 - 45 GBs for any particular game, and that is likely bigger if you own a PS4 Pro thanks to the 2K visuals. If the game has DLC you can expect to add another 20 - 40 GBs. 

 

Gran Turismo Sport from what I hear is over 80 GBs. That’s pretty large. I don’t think Gran Turismo 6 was even a quarter of that file size. 

 

I don’t know. I just feel there being a lot of downsides with this all digital future.

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Spaz

[TJ_Solo]

Quote

Then you have things like Flash Sales on Steam, Microsoft and Playstation to have us hoard even more shit, and yeah. This is where we are today.

 

 

That's only true in respect to digital games. Humans have been hoarding physical products for centuries now. Digital is just a relocation of what we have already been doing. It not a rise of a new concern.

[Divecomb]

Of course.

[Dreakon13]

34 minutes ago, Spaz said:

That and the fact that most of our generation, the millennials, the children of the baby boomers, grew up in a sheltered home at a television and computer screen playing Nintendo and whatnot has made many of us socially awkward. I’m in my 30s now and it’s sad to see someone in my age group who acts as if he’s still 14 - 16 years old. 

 

Not to necessarily continue this tangent too much longer... but awkward doesn't necessarily mean immature.  At least in my mind.  I'm 30, I'm shy around people, maybe a little embarrassed for no particular reason other than thinking very little of myself... which is reflected in my polite but lacking interest in getting to know people, because I assume there's no good gosh darn reason to get to know me.  Which (if anything, I don't like to point fingers for my own shortcomings) can be attributed to certain things in my childhood that'd make a therapists radar go nuts, much moreso than any amount of games or television shows growing up.

 

I'm not a 30 year old acting like some bratty kid everywhere I go.  There's a difference.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Dreakon13

[AJ_Radio]

4 hours ago, Dreakon13 said:

Not to necessarily continue this tangent too much longer... but awkward doesn't necessarily mean immature.  At least in my mind.  I'm 30, I'm shy around people, maybe a little embarrassed for no particular reason other than thinking very little of myself... which is reflected in my polite but lacking interest in getting to know people, because I assume there's no good gosh darn reason to get to know me.  Which (if anything, I don't like to point fingers for my own shortcomings) can be attributed to certain things in my childhood that'd make a therapists radar go nuts, much moreso than any amount of games or television shows growing up.

 

I'm not a 30 year old acting like some bratty kid everywhere I go.  There's a difference.

 

I wasn't making that specifically to you.

 

I feel much of that has to do with the way you were brought up. I grew up going to a school where a lot of kids were prejudiced against those they saw as different. Of course this is practically any school but mine also had a good number of kids with very strong religious backgrounds. I was afraid of offending them and therefore I mostly kept to myself. This continued a while into high school, and being taller than a lot of kids at age 14 - 15 also made me rather awkward, because I just wanted to fit in.

 

I think it's good to get to know people, which is something a lot of us in my opinion aren't really doing all too well.

 

----

 

Depending on where gaming is going I may or may not get a Playstation 5. There's not that much anymore to explore in terms of gameplay, most mediums have already been done to death. I'm just wondering how much farther they are going to go with graphics, because that's basically the main draw these days.

 

[Lava_Yuki]

14 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

You posted this twice by the way.

 

Disk drives are understandable. They can no longer contain the required data that is needed for the modern consumer.

 

Ultimately I think we are heading towards a dark period in history. Technology when I was growing up was a wonderful thing, but these days it is simply too much.

 

Another problem is people who live in small towns and in the countryside are being left out in favor of those who live in big cities like New York City, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London. You can perfectly live your life simply off the internet and when you live in a city like New York you are perfectly capable of buying your groceries online. But when you lived a farm life you don't have those options. You still have to drive to the grocery store and you probably aren't going to have the resources available to take full advantage of today's custom desktops and Macintosh computers.

 

Plus the fact that people can make a living not having to leave their houses and whom have a job that is completely online is making us more of a sheltered, closed wall society. Interpersonal communication is dying, people simply don't go out and converse like they used to.

 

Then you have things like Flash Sales on Steam, Microsoft and Playstation to have us hoard even more shit, and yeah. This is where we are today.

My internet connection went off a bit and I clicked the button twice by accident so I think it ended up posting twice.

 

Yeah I saw an article about the issues with digital only in a few of the Uk gaming magazines, where they were talking about how it would exclude those who live in the countryside where it’s either cable or just really slow 10Mb speeds. I think it would only work if close to 100% of the country gets high speed broadband but I can’t see that happening any time soon. I live in a city in the UK and have fast fibre broadband, but my parents who live in the Irish countryside chuck along at only a 15mb speed.

 

Digital only seems like a money making business. It prevents used sales, trading in, lending games to friends and selling off old games. Also DL versions are always more expensive than their physical counterparts, and then there’s console storage space and pacing to expand it. Also, impulse buying... we see that 90% off PSN sale and there goes the wallet... I am guilty of this on a number of occasions, hence my backlog had at least tripled in size compared to the days of physical only games...

 

But with DL we pay for the convenience of not having to worry about sold out games and waiting to get the game on release day, but due to the fact that it brings in the cash and has the potential to drive players to impulse buy, I can see why companies would prefer Digital sales.

 

I thinl we need both in the end so everyone can enjoy it, not just those in the big cities. Even in countries like Japan, the country side as really bad patchy internet and I have a friend who asked me if it’s possible to still enjoy a ps4 offline as she’s just got cable.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Lava_Yuki

[AJ_Radio]

9 hours ago, Lava_Yuki said:

My internet connection went off a bit and I clicked the button twice by accident so I think it ended up posting twice.

 

Yeah I saw an article about the issues with digital only in a few of the Uk gaming magazines, where they were talking about how it would exclude those who live in the countryside where it’s either cable or just really slow 10Mb speeds. I think it would only work if close to 100% of the country gets high speed broadband but I can’t see that happening any time soon. I live in a city in the UK and have fast fibre broadband, but my parents who live in the Irish countryside chuck along at only a 15mb speed.

 

Digital only seems like a money making business. It prevents used sales, trading in, lending games to friends and selling off old games. Also DL versions are always more expensive than their physical counterparts, and then there’s console storage space and pacing to expand it. Also, impulse buying... we see that 90% off PSN sale and there goes the wallet... I am guilty of this on a number of occasions, hence my backlog had at least tripled in size compared to the days of physical only games...

 

But with DL we pay for the convenience of not having to worry about sold out games and waiting to get the game on release day, but due to the fact that it brings in the cash and has the potential to drive players to impulse buy, I can see why companies would prefer Digital sales.

 

I thinl we need both in the end so everyone can enjoy it, not just those in the big cities. Even in countries like Japan, the country side as really bad patchy internet and I have a friend who asked me if it’s possible to still enjoy a ps4 offline as she’s just got cable.

 

Well that doesn't qualify for broadband. Broadband by definition is speeds of at least 25 MBs or more. High end cable and fiber gets you over 100 - 200 MBs, which I would do anything to get.

 

It's not that I'm strictly and exclusively physical. I have bought lots of DLC and digital only games online. The problem I have is digital is still volatile, your account can get banned or the whole system can get breached. Like what happened to Playstation Network back in May 2011. So you may end up losing all that you spent money on. Sony also has the right to take away your digital games, so you technically don't really OWN the games as much as you are having a glorified rental service.

 

I find a lot of AAA games cheaper if you just buy physical online in places like Amazon. If you look around enough you can probably find some pretty good deals on physical games for all three Playstation platforms (PS3/Vita/PS4), much cheaper than buying off of the Store. Sony likes to charge an arm and a leg for AAA games that released several months ago, and I just find it better to look elsewhere.

 

I stopped impulse buying a good while back, because they quickly add to your backlog. There are games I bought back in late 2015 - early 2016 and I still haven't gotten around to them yet. So that was a good indication to stop.

 

People in the UK and Japan in general have better internet, especially out in the countryside. Here in the United States you are stuck with one provider and their equipment is far outdated. There's simply no way you can take full advantage of your PS4 with such shitty internet. Believe me I've tried. Unfortunately where I live Comcast is the only high speed provider. They are the most unreliable company I have ever come across.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Spaz

[MosesRockefeller]

55 minutes ago, Spaz said:

Well that doesn't qualify for broadband. Broadband by definition is speeds of at least 25 MBs or more. High end cable and fiber gets you over 100 - 200 MBs, which I would do anything to get.

Yeah, thanks to Tom Wheeler we at least have semi-sensible standards. If Ajit Pai had his way, Verizon would still be able to sell you DSL "High Speed Internet" and call it broadband. I used to order internet/phone services for branch offices at my old job, and most of them did not qualify for real broadband. 25 is probably even too low to really call broadband. 

[ExHaseo]

On 7/23/2018 at 9:44 PM, Valyrious said:

I think it's actually hilarious how some people hold their physical media on such a high esteem. I'm aware that licenses can be revoked, or removed from respective e-stores. I can name at least 3 games that you can't even find on the PS store today. But there's risks for everything. Someone could break in and rob your precious physical collection and sell them for pennies on the dollar at a pawnshop. Of course it's not likely to happen, but if we're going to talk about bullshit hypotheticals, you might as well acknowledge that there's downsides to physical as well.

 

There's a lot of hilariousness in this post, but I'm just going to address this because I don't care to spend much time on it.

 

If someone breaks in and steals a physical object, you can replace it with another physical object. If it's something like a game, you can replace it with an identical copy. If a game gets delisted and you can't redownload it, you can't replace it if your console dies. If an entire service goes down and you lose access to your entire library, you can't replace anything if your console dies. At one point, the PS3/360 PSN/XBL services WILL shut down. It's not a hypothetical, it's going to happen. As soon as they're not profitable, these companies won't waste their resources to keep them up. If we're lucky, companies will at least backup older games so that we can redownload them, but it's highly unlikely. That would cost them a lot of money. And given that companies have discovered how profitable remasters are, it's likely they won't give people the option, to push the remasters instead.

 

A physical copy is guaranteed to exist in 20 years, given it was taken care of. I play games on my Dreamcast all the time which will be 20 years old in November. And I can currently track down any game and play it. You know what games I can't track down and play? Digital ones. There's already a number of games you can't get anymore. Like Scott Pilgrim, which was only available for 4 years, and now you simply can't get it. Digital games aren't guaranteed to last any amount of time. Every digital game will eventually be unavailable through official channels. That's not a bullshit hypothetical, that's a fact.

 

Also, a lot of physical games aren't worth anything. A robber is far more likely to snatch up your TV or console than games. If a robber just steals some games, then you got off easy, because they're pretty cheap to replace compared to things like TVs, consoles, and furniture.

 

Really though, if you consider possible theft to be a downside to physical, then you should also know that it's a downside to digital. Your account can be stolen much easier than someone breaking in and stealing something physical, and at that point you're losing every single game on that account, as well as your trophies. Not to mention that your console can get stolen in a robbery, taking away all of your digital games with it If they're smart. They can take the account on it by calling in and claiming they're you. Sometimes, you can verify who you are by using the console serial number. 

 

That being said, I have plenty of both digital and physical games. Anything I really want, I get physical though. Because I want to be able to play it whenever I want. Even if that means 20+ years from now.

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, MosesRockefeller said:

Yeah, thanks to Tom Wheeler we at least have semi-sensible standards. If Ajit Pai had his way, Verizon would still be able to sell you DSL "High Speed Internet" and call it broadband. I used to order internet/phone services for branch offices at my old job, and most of them did not qualify for real broadband. 25 is probably even too low to really call broadband. 

 

Century Link still does this crap. As does Frontier and Windstream. 

[MosesRockefeller]

2 hours ago, Spaz said:

Century Link still does this crap. As does Frontier and Windstream. 

I'm not surprised. It costs them a lot of money to run fiber lines, compared to the relatively low cost of maintaining their crappy copper DSL lines. 

[AJ_Radio]

3 hours ago, MosesRockefeller said:

I'm not surprised. It costs them a lot of money to run fiber lines, compared to the relatively low cost of maintaining their crappy copper DSL lines. 

 

Obviously yeah, but this has been going on for around a decade now.

 

Having a wireless hotspot would be better than the shit copper lines they got going. Wireless is nothing great, but I've tested it before and it's more reliable.

 

Problem is wireless usually comes with a data cap.

[Super-Fly Spider-Guy]

If the rumours of the next Xbox having a cheaper, streaming only version turn out to be true, I'd be down. Just hope my internet will be good enough. 

 

Like let's say the full console is seven or eight hundred (XB1X RRP is 650) and the streamer is three or four, I'd take that jump. Would suck missing out on shoving in my old discs since I'm assuming they don't intend to get rid of BC any time soon, but if something like Game Pass came to it in streaming form I would honestly be down to buy the streambox, pay for a year or so of Game Pass, and just roll with that, would be sufficient enough tbh, and the savings could be proper good, but it all comes down to the pricing, if the price is right, I'm down, if the price is wrong, I'll stick with my downloads (because locally stored games trumps streaming IMO) for a while longer.

 

PS5 can choke tbh. Unless they have an exclusive Spider-Man 2 or something in the works, I'm happy with the Switch and Xbox combo. Microsoft is dumb though for revealing it, I know they want this generation to be done and to start fresh but ultimately, to me as an individual, they've just made sure I won't buy an X ever. Sony you never know, they could pull a surprise and just stick with the PS4 til 20 fucking 25 for all we know.

[Valyrious]

8 hours ago, ExHaseo said:

 

There's a lot of hilariousness in this post, but I'm just going to address this because I don't care to spend much time on it.

 

If someone breaks in and steals a physical object, you can replace it with another physical object. If it's something like a game, you can replace it with an identical copy. If a game gets delisted and you can't redownload it, you can't replace it if your console dies. If an entire service goes down and you lose access to your entire library, you can't replace anything if your console dies. At one point, the PS3/360 PSN/XBL services WILL shut down. It's not a hypothetical, it's going to happen. As soon as they're not profitable, these companies won't waste their resources to keep them up. If we're lucky, companies will at least backup older games so that we can redownload them, but it's highly unlikely. That would cost them a lot of money. And given that companies have discovered how profitable remasters are, it's likely they won't give people the option, to push the remasters instead.

 

A physical copy is guaranteed to exist in 20 years, given it was taken care of. I play games on my Dreamcast all the time which will be 20 years old in November. And I can currently track down any game and play it. You know what games I can't track down and play? Digital ones. There's already a number of games you can't get anymore. Like Scott Pilgrim, which was only available for 4 years, and now you simply can't get it. Digital games aren't guaranteed to last any amount of time. Every digital game will eventually be unavailable through official channels. That's not a bullshit hypothetical, that's a fact.

 

Also, a lot of physical games aren't worth anything. A robber is far more likely to snatch up your TV or console than games. If a robber just steals some games, then you got off easy, because they're pretty cheap to replace compared to things like TVs, consoles, and furniture.

 

Really though, if you consider possible theft to be a downside to physical, then you should also know that it's a downside to digital. Your account can be stolen much easier than someone breaking in and stealing something physical, and at that point you're losing every single game on that account, as well as your trophies. Not to mention that your console can get stolen in a robbery, taking away all of your digital games with it If they're smart. They can take the account on it by calling in and claiming they're you. Sometimes, you can verify who you are by using the console serial number. 

 

That being said, I have plenty of both digital and physical games. Anything I really want, I get physical though. Because I want to be able to play it whenever I want. Even if that means 20+ years from now.

I think someone took my analogy of a robber stealing a physical library of games a bit too literally. And then has the gull to say that what I posted had a lot of hilarity.

Do you really think online only physical games are going to function in 20 years? How about previous saves to games (like God of War as an example) that are on a current update (1.20 or whatever it's currently on) but you deleted the data off of your PS4 to conserve space? Do you really think you'll be able to download that update in 20 years? Oh but here's the best thing, while some games will still function fine without being on the same update as the version that the save is based on, my exact example, God of War, does NOT work if you use your previous save and don't update to the newest version. So you're going to have to restart! Lord knows there are probably other examples out there, but God of War is one that very recently came to mind because I personally went through it. Not a big deal, because an update right now takes 2 minutes. But in 20 years when the servers don't work anymore? I think you can say bye bye to that physical copy lasting 20 years like you're convinced it will.

Not really sure what you're trying to get out of this post. I've excluded myself from this discussion because I frankly couldn't care about it. And yet kids keep getting butthurt that someone doesn't think physical games are my religion. 

Stay in your lane, play the way you want. Unlike you, I really don't give a shit about your preferred way to collect.

[Lava_Yuki]

19 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

Well that doesn't qualify for broadband. Broadband by definition is speeds of at least 25 MBs or more. High end cable and fiber gets you over 100 - 200 MBs, which I would do anything to get.

 

It's not that I'm strictly and exclusively physical. I have bought lots of DLC and digital only games online. The problem I have is digital is still volatile, your account can get banned or the whole system can get breached. Like what happened to Playstation Network back in May 2011. So you may end up losing all that you spent money on. Sony also has the right to take away your digital games, so you technically don't really OWN the games as much as you are having a glorified rental service.

 

I find a lot of AAA games cheaper if you just buy physical online in places like Amazon. If you look around enough you can probably find some pretty good deals on physical games for all three Playstation platforms (PS3/Vita/PS4), much cheaper than buying off of the Store. Sony likes to charge an arm and a leg for AAA games that released several months ago, and I just find it better to look elsewhere.

 

I stopped impulse buying a good while back, because they quickly add to your backlog. There are games I bought back in late 2015 - early 2016 and I still haven't gotten around to them yet. So that was a good indication to stop.

 

People in the UK and Japan in general have better internet, especially out in the countryside. Here in the United States you are stuck with one provider and their equipment is far outdated. There's simply no way you can take full advantage of your PS4 with such shitty internet. Believe me I've tried. Unfortunately where I live Comcast is the only high speed provider. They are the most unreliable company I have ever come across.

My parents internet is really patchy, it works in some areas of their house but not others but they live in the middle of nowhere?

 

My internet at the moment is 100MB on a company called BT, but there is a company here in the UK that boasts up to 250MB, it's really expensive (and unfortunately not available where I live), but my brother who lives in Dublin in Ireland is with them and has a 200mb contract.We do have a lot of companies to choose from though, and it's quite easy to change. Also, all the mobile phone companies and even one of our supermarkets started doing broadband..

 

I'm trying to curb my impulse buying habit, I'm not as bad as I was before I graduated and lost access to Daddy Bank and having to work and use my own money. But I too prefer physicals, especially with the lower prices for used games, those lucky ebay auctions (I got my copy of Nier automata really cheap that way), reselling, not worrying about storage space particularly on the Vita and security of not worrying about loosing the game if your account gets hacked/ banned etc. Also, for some reason I get pleasure seeing a shelf of physical games, just like a bookshelf as opposed to e-readers. But this generation Y would probably call me old fashioned ?

[Z1MZUM]

There's no HDD big enough for my games library though I avoid digital as much as I can anyway. I can see many years of ps3/ps4/360/xb1/3ds/wii era with both hard copy and digital. Besides, have you guys ever been game shopping in Japan? There is no way on this planet that jp will ever go digital only.

[Arin1979]

Only digital next generation?

 

 

[LightningCharm]

Third poll option.  If the future is digital only...wow, I don't even wanna think about that.  That's a little too bleak and depressing.

[Dr_Shaneman]

23 hours ago, LightningCharm said:

Third poll option.  If the future is digital only...wow, I don't even wanna think about that.  That's a little too bleak and depressing.

This exactly.

I can't ever see things going backwards and digital downloads fading out, but please don't go digital only.

The gaming communities would simply blow up.

[StewartBros]

The day that Sony announce their next PlayStation (PS5, PS6, whatever it may be) will have a digital-only library, will be the day that I decide I'm not buying said console and will content myself with my current PlayStations. I have no interest in a digital-only future for games, movies or music.

[RadiantFlamberge]

Let's say PS5 is "completely" BC, but all digital.  If you've got a game on disc that's a licensed title & it's delisted from PSN because the license has expired, you're out of luck there.

Not having physical copies might mean that prices on PSN releases of games take longer to go to a lower regular price.  That PSN does have competition from used games is a good thing.

[Honor_Hand]

I'd rather not, really. I understand digital does bring a number of advantages for some individuals but it would honestly make my life harder as a gamer. Not only due to the fact that it'd completely eliminate the collectible factor from the hobby,  but also because I would remove the tangibility from our games. Not to mention that living in a 4th world country and going full digital would mean that I would need to depend fully on my ridiculously slow internet service to download or even play some games. I can see it now... 2 weeks to download a 100 GB game on the PS5? No thanks.

 

If anything, the best thing they can do is provide both options for next-gen and let everyone pick the option they favor the most.

[starcrunch061]

Late to this thread, but I see the status quo being maintained. One thing about the generations: the Japanese still play a big role in console gaming, and they are remarkably unchanging in their tactics.

On 8/12/2018 at 0:02 AM, gameoverDude189 said:

Let's say PS5 is "completely" BC, but all digital.  If you've got a game on disc that's a licensed title & it's delisted from PSN because the license has expired, you're out of luck there.

Not having physical copies might mean that prices on PSN releases of games take longer to go to a lower regular price.  That PSN does have competition from used games is a good thing.

 

It's not just used games, either. Plenty of games go on sale in stores to clear shelves, and of course Amazon lowers its prices to reflect this as well. PSN would lose competitive edge even with new games only (i.e. if all used games were outlawed somehow).

[MarioMan200]

I change my mind 

[Mefta7_Alfaraj]

I lose 80 Riyals every time I re-download FFXV which is 80 GB (not including DLC's) .. approximately $22 US dollars.

 

Game size increases each time they add a new DLC.

 

So imagine if it's digital only, I'd pay another $22 each time I wanna play it again.