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MCV : UK Consoles games market is nearing 50% digital tipping point
- Thread starter Cornbread78
- Start date
I'm all about that digital life these days. It's super convenient, and I don't have a ton of plastic boxes filling my house.
I think the real mental shift for me was the start of this generation, where day 1 patches and online hooks became so much more predominant. I used to be of the mindset that it was nice to keep a physical copy, so that I could still revisit a game in years to come should servers, etc ever be turned off. But these days your physical copy is so reliant on downloading stuff that it's still pretty fucked should the servers ever come down anyway, so hey, you might as well embrace it.
I think the real mental shift for me was the start of this generation, where day 1 patches and online hooks became so much more predominant. I used to be of the mindset that it was nice to keep a physical copy, so that I could still revisit a game in years to come should servers, etc ever be turned off. But these days your physical copy is so reliant on downloading stuff that it's still pretty fucked should the servers ever come down anyway, so hey, you might as well embrace it.
Totally agree,and I was told that "your old consoles still work,why would you ever want backwards compatibility"
Some people are so fucking short sighted.
I've basically abandoned buying stuff for and playing on my ps4 because I don't trust Sony in regards to my digital content.
Most of my games now are PC and occasionally on xbone if I can get a deal or it's a play anywhere title
- PSN is cheaper than retail in Ireland.
- I don't need to change Discs
- I can Gameshare
- I can play my games At Home and in My flat (I've 2 ps4s)
- Discs install anyway so I don't save space
- Physical Packaging is shit these days with no manual, because there is no more Pride in this product in this industry
- PSN Sales are better than second hand prices
- I don't sell my games that often anyway
i didn't expect it to turn out this way.
Gamestop undercut the other Retailers years ago with the aggressive second hand prices.
HMV went bankrupt (twice)
Game went bankrupt and pulled out if Ireland permanently.
Xtravision (i.e.blockbuster) went bankrupt.
Supermarkets (only Tesco really) have shit stock and prices (except random launch bargains occasionally.
Argos & Smyths toys are the only other retailer I can think of still selling games.
I went to Gamestop to buy Mario "we only have it for pre orders" - WTF
I bought SD card in Argos and downloaded it. Fuck that noise.
Here's the thing though. Where the fuck will I buy my PS5 if there are no more retailers left in 2020?
Physical is incredibly expensive still in Brazil (many cases of it being more expensive than digital) so besides reselling (which i never do to be honest) i have no incentive to but phys. An all digital future kinda scares me though regarding preservation
Yeah games stores are increasingly irrelevant and the stores themselves realise this as more and more space and window space is dedicated to selling second hand phones like a crappy second hand shop like CEX. They know games are not their future. Honestly cannot see it being long before they more or less vanish from display. Who doesn't want to or can't buy a game online from Amazon, should they want physical anyway? Plus it's not like game shops offer any benefits. Demo units barely get used or have the same game for months, they're not actively promoting anything or giving people the chance to try out a game before they buy. You can find better resources on YouTube!
Ig
If UK is 50% where games are more expensive digital then WW must be a bloodbath tight now in favor of digital market, physical is dying.
If UK is 50% where games are more expensive digital then WW must be a bloodbath tight now in favor of digital market, physical is dying.
The prices are horrendous digitally most of the time, but in rare instances where the price is only a few pounds more expensive I almost always go digital, it's just more convenient. Sales on the digital front are also more enticing than what you get on brick and mortar stores most of the time as well which I feel just contribute quite a bit. However, if a game approaches over 45-60GB+ it firmly goes into the will get this physical territory for easy installation and removal.
Commodity, no waste of gasoline, play at midnight without the need to go somewhere get the game etc. Digital is much more convenient and those 10 extra bucks are nothing.
So all digital is good for the industry right? More money back in the hands of publishers means more likely to invest and take risks on games? Obviously there are people like EA who will always screw over consumers and developers alike, but generally speaking this seems good?
I can see this being the next headphone jack isn't required debate.
Unlike the PC which has DRM free options and is much easier to archive and preserve, console digital only is an untested nightmare for game licenses 10-15 years down the line.
Due to that and pricing I will continue being physical every time it makes sense for me.
Unlike the PC which has DRM free options and is much easier to archive and preserve, console digital only is an untested nightmare for game licenses 10-15 years down the line.
Due to that and pricing I will continue being physical every time it makes sense for me.
Why not just donate them some more money yourself anyway if you're that desperate to get fleeced.
Digital for home, physical for portables unless 128GB+ storage becomes a standard. Bar part install physicals.
Perhaps.
But not good for people who like the alternative. I'm a collector and I love collecting games. No interest in buying digital games at all (unless I have no choice)
Kind of a bizarre attitude. Constantly blackmailing pubs into price fixing? That must be why digital games at launch in the UK are £10-15 more expensive than retail. Oh no wait thats publisher greed and something you will see a great deal more of in your all digital future.
Digital distribution is a wonderful thing and has led to an explosion of indies and other success stories for smaller devs which is great but the all digital future is not an answer to some of the biggest issues in gaming at the min its actually the cause of therm (lootboxes/patching culture etc)
I see the market shifting towards collectors editions for physical collectors, so I don't think we'll see that option disappear.
Yeah I figured it would be a lot less than 50% considering how much more expensive new digital console games are. I still buy digital games on PS4 often but only when they're discounted. Think that's why the EU PSN has so many sales.
No it's not.Thisis a fantastic thread concerning the future of digital. To quote myself in that thread: "I struggle to see any sort of positivity emerging from what is effectively the publisher holding a monopoly on price, and people are kidding themselves if they believe all-digital will lead to lower pricing. 'Don't like it? Tough luck. Wait for our sale where you can get that measly discount that you've been waiting months for!' Throw in the fact that you can't trade-in games and it seems like it's negative news on all fronts."
All-digital removes choice from the consumer and gives the publisher a complete monopoly on how the product is sold. I struggle to see the benefits I'm getting from that.
I'll also add that publishers are not your, or anybody's else friend. The money isn't going to the developers or the guys who crunch out the hours to make these games. It's going to the pockets of the upper management and offshore tax havens (Superbunnyhop has a fantastic video on the latter).
For a lot of the general public (who don't buy online) the perception is that games prices set by GAME et al are the norm, which then manages to make overpriced digital games seem like good value. It's amazing how often I encounter people saying they'll wait for a game to come down in price as they're not paying £55 for something, and I have to tell them to look online.
I find it incredibly hard to believe. For certain select games like FIFA and Destiny 2 (and only those two)? Sure, for everything else? Nope, I don't believe it's anywhere near 50%. It's not like the US where we have the same digital and retail price on launch games. Digital here is usually £15-£20 more expensive. If the US isn't hitting 45-50% digital for most AAA games then the UK certainly isn't.
Read the article. It's flaky as fuck. They say it's just 'some' games, they don't give any specific figures at all and the title says 30-45%, not 45% (so it's pretty weird that everyone's just jumping on the 45%). It comes across as very vague sensationalism.
Do you control retail prices or something? You still have to wait for their sales as well. Retailers aren't your friends either. Not sure why that matters anyway. You pay money in exchange for a video game. Or you don't. No reason to complicate things beyond that.
Selling the games later on? Good luck getting any money out of that. I had to just give away all my ps3 games when I sold the console because individually they were worth nothing. And these were popular games too. Physical games will become even more worthless as all inclusive products, as everything is starting to have DLC now.
Why not? Retailers are in competition with each other and will price things accordingly. People like Amazon and Tesco will even go as far as to price match when other retailers put games in a sale. In a digital store monopoly this won't happen. Hell, they'll barely even need to do sales in the first place. Consumers will be limited to precisely one choice, rather than the dozens they have now.
I go physical probably 90% of the time, simply because I can usually save around £10 on a new release. All the digital games I have are all titles I picked up in flash sales on psn or xbox at good prices. Also I can share my physical games with my daughter's who have their own consoles.
Whenever I see a game on sale, it's the same price everywhere. Which tells me the retailer is not actually controlling the price and there is no competition in the way you're talking of. The retailer is just a middle man taking a cut. These guys would much rather you trade in an old game for pennies so they can sell it for near new prices.
Retailers are certainly not my friend, but there's an incentive there for undercutting that would not exist in a digital monopoly. You're right - we do pay money for video games and gaming is a luxury hobby, not a matter of life of death situation. That said, for many people it is their main hobby, and just because it's not a necessity like bread and water, doesn't mean we can't protest anti-consumer practices.
As for you not getting money on your trade-ins.. that's on you leaving it too late. I trade in my games almost immediately after I'm finished with them and I can usually get a third off my next purchase.
I usually don't buy digital but I bought Mario Odyssey digitally cause I want to have both Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey with me on the go without having to switch cartridges. I am wondering about the future though, what if Nintendo decides to turn off their servers for the Switch, then I will have no way of playing Odyssey if I somehow uninstall the game or the save gets corrupted. Sure I can probably buy the cartridge used from someone then but that means I have to pay twice and given how prices are for Mario games it will still cost 30 Bucks or more by that time.
With the Switch it's still truly plug and play with the first party games at least. Having a PS4 disc often means nothing as some games have to download content through the PSN. Well for Sony at least there is a high chance that they won't ever turn off their servers, as future consoles will likely still use the same infrastructure.
With the Switch it's still truly plug and play with the first party games at least. Having a PS4 disc often means nothing as some games have to download content through the PSN. Well for Sony at least there is a high chance that they won't ever turn off their servers, as future consoles will likely still use the same infrastructure.
I've been, by quite a bit, mostly digital this gen, but that's still crazy to me, thought we'd be on the lower side given it's almost always the more expensive way. Does mean there's a lot of crow to be eaten though. I'll take mine now please.
Maybe digital would even be in the majority of sales IF THE PRICES WERE FUCKING REASONABLE AND NOT SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EXPENSIVE THAN PHYSICAL AHHHHGHGG
Really? Because I can often get games on pre-order for as low as £35, and only at some shops. Tesco and Amazon have a 2 for £70 voucher code that they use fairly frequently and it works on pre-orders. Whereas the likes of Game, HMV and the Sony store are all £50 plus. Sites like Simplygames, Base, The Gamecollection are generally around £42ish for a new "triple AAA" game.
You can't be looking very hard.
It's easier and requires way less effort. You sit back home,click couple of times and you just wait for the download to finish.
PC is basically 95% but we still get physical releases (most of the time). There will always be a market for physical games. In terms of for me - I will only ever buy a game digital if it is on sale and is considerably cheaper than the physical version. I would much rather have a physical copy.
In any event, the shift is very real and the likes of Game need to be seriously assessing their businesses to adapt to a market with a reduced capacity for physical games. Sink or swim for them now.
Even though not in the UK, I've slowly adopted digital as the prices are right. It at least helps me justify waiting on a price drop all while supporting the devs without feeling guilty in buying a used game. I haven't actually bought a used game in a while because of how effective sales for digital games has gotten but I hope that it continues
If only people would see the lack of trading/reselling that digital only future would give us..... where is everyone that defended those rights following the XB1 reveal until the announcement at Sony's E3 2013
This is why we need physical games to protect those rights
This is why we need physical games to protect those rights
In the US when DD on consoles first started gaining traction, publishers wanted to drop the price of digital by 5-15 dollars because of not having any physical publishing or distribution costs and to make it more appealing for the consumer. Gamestop threw a fit and vowed to not stock any publishers game unless they charged the exact amount for digital as they did for retail.
This eventually lead us to where we are today. Everyone is used to digital being at price parity with retail (which then allows retail to charge less but still force publishers to charge MSRP for digital under threat of retail removal of their games).
Once retail is out of the picture publishers can decide their own price points. This may lead to no reduction at all, but at least there is a potential for cheaper digital without the strong arm tactics of retail forcing them to charge MSRP.
If that was at all true why are prices MORE expensive digitally then? You really think pubs wanted to charge $10-15 less or you maybe think thats what they said to make themselves look like the good guys when in fact they want to gauge you even more digitally hence the reason why AAA games are more expensive at launch than retail.........
I'm in the USA, but my most recent purchases have been digital. My previous three purchases:
Gran Turismo Sport: Digital
Street Fighter V: Digital
Sonic Mania: Digital
Destiny: Physical
Diablo 3: Physical
I've embraced the transition. I just hope we have backwards compatibility in the PS5.
Gran Turismo Sport: Digital
Street Fighter V: Digital
Sonic Mania: Digital
Destiny: Physical
Diablo 3: Physical
I've embraced the transition. I just hope we have backwards compatibility in the PS5.