But dont you mind paying the overinflated prices for games?
Both Sony, EA and MS are charging at least an average of £15 extra for a title.
GTA V is £55 pounds on PSN and XBL, the cheapest i have seen for a hardcopy is £37.99.
It's a massive con from all, the worst culprits are ea, who want us to pay £55 for a PC game!
Over the course of a year i buy around 10 full price games, buying digital over hardcopy, i would have spent an extra £150, that's three hardcopy games that i could have bought.
I'm in the US, and buy my games digitally. I usually stock up on MS currency when they are on 20% sale so the games I buy digitally is usually the same price factoring gift card offers with game purchase.
I also pay no sales taxes on digital items, so it turns out to be cheaper for me than retail games.
And the instant switching on the Xbox One, by saying "Xbox Go To Sunset Overdrive" is even more awesome by ditching the disc.
The only thing I nostalgically miss is the game case, but I don't have space for that either and that dream was killed when cry babies misunderstood MS flexible DRM.
I don't disagree with anything you say, but I still buy all digital.
Microsoft's recent first party games have been £44.99, which isn't far off the mark. DriveClub was £35, though bit of a special case.
But of course the best place for digital is PC. Even with EA's clear efforts to raise prices, you can usually pre-order their games for £22.50 from g2a. Titanfall is about 8quid at the moment, as is Watchdogs. Shadow of mordor is £13. Those are games from 2014.
So digital clearly can work, even on full price retail games. But Sony and Microsoft have a way to go, and I don't honestly know if they intend get there.
I get all my pc games via digital downloads on steam or origin.
I save loads of money by very rarely buying from both platforms directly. Instead I buy from numerous websites that can sometimes sell brand new AAA games at half the normal price. And all of these are legit.
I keep an eye on hotdeals and it always flags up the best places to buy from.
I can't go digital because I can't get rid of it, and because I'm a part of GCU. If you buy a $60 game you don't like digital, then you're stuck with it, whereas if you buy it at retail you can at least sell it and get most of your money back. GCU is also the best deal for gamers. All my brand new games are $48 at Best Buy, the biggest games of the year get $10 gift cards with them, and I build up rewards points so every 5 games I get a $5 reward coupon as well.
New games: $48 + $10 Gift card = can't be beat. It's basically buy 6 games for $240, which is 6 new games $40 each (saving $120). All of which I can get DAY 1.
I also have another store by me that sales games at a discounted price to begin with ($50 brand new, $40 a few months, $30 around 1 year, $20 over a year). On top of that I'm a platinum member (just buy a $5 tote bag), so I get 25% during promotions, once again dropping games down to $40, $32, $24, and $16.
When you can get games for those prices I just don't understand the point of going digital, especially if you're in the US. You can even shop online at site and get games for steals, just got Last of Us PS4 for $25 at www.boxeddeal.com (once again thank you @etownone).
Now for UK residents I understand since everything is higher there at retail. But in the US the only time to buy digital is for pre-load if it's that big for you, because games are always cheaper at retail.
I actually buy what I like and don't mind keeping these games. I'm also getting old and midnight launches are just to much for me. Don't mind the prices to much I do the Xbox rewards program also. That's not so bad got the wolf among us for free once my points converted over this month
I think this is a preference thing vs. a financial decision. I only buy digital as well.
But I look at games differently. I see the releases and decide how much I want to pay for the game (If it is a great game I will pay the day one digital price). Then, I wait for that price. If it never gets to that price it is the publishers losing money not me.
Yeah I'm with you on that ( gusgusjr ). My other reason is that I purchase most of my games from My US account (2nd user). Not only are the games nearly 50% cheaper than here in Australia but going halves with a PSN friend makes it a quarter of the price.
Cheaper and more convienient.
I'm expecting this digital download trend to grow. Maybe not to the point of digital only but maybe to a 50% of purchases in the future.
Im part of the 25% as well. Here's the reason why i have gone digital download. My house is full of gamers both adults and a lot of kids (lil bro/sis, nephews, nieces, and cousins). You have no idea how many copies of games i have re-bought (used of course) just because someone loses, breaks, or it is scratched beyond readable. All those copies Add UP and have dug a nice size hole in my wallet. With digital downloads it's a onetime purchase, its all ways there with no damages. I don't have to worry about buying a game that reviews feel like it's not worth it, because in my home their is all ways someone who will play it n enjoy it..... But most of all Me and my Wallet stay happy :)
Number one reason scratched disks from family member's. Preloading is also very cool and I have a great job and can not stand GameStop or stupid retailers that want to sell everything I don't want gift cards credit, reserve a game ect.
Went all digital this gen with the exception of Destiny(thankfully).
25% is a huge number and publishers would be wise capitalize on the market by giving greater incentives such as cheaper digital prices and early access incentives.
Digital Movies have taken to this strategy and it appears to be working, at least with early-access anyway.
Im still surprised people have been buying digital as much as they have especially at full price, I have a friend who is same way. I just dont want to give up the full ownership, resale value or collect-ability especially with a large game collection.
The one constant thing I have been seeing as being an annoyance on digital, besides paying full price are the issues alot of games seem to have for some people on release like not being able to redeem a game code or play the game at all for some unforseen reason that takes a while to resolve.
Also, the sales dont seem to be as substantial as steam, I mainly see 10% discount on sales for games, they really need to copy steam asap if they want to reverse the ratio of digital buyers.
You have to be more diligent about buying games and fall for hype anymore. The gaming media and companies that review games can not be trusted. So you have to do homework and wait for most games to be released and see what happens.
Any title that I know I won't sell I'll buy digitally. If they hold back the reviews until after the game comes out but I still want it at launch I'll go physical.
I just can't get behind digital, literally everything about it outside of not having to swap a disc is more limiting with digital. Can't sell it, can't trade it, can't loan it, it's more expensive on console, the game become unavailable on console if the store/servers are shut down and after that if you get a corrupted HDD your stuff is gone, there's so little we know about how digital will be handled on the last gen consoles once those store are done, it's just a mess to me. I feel like the more digital gets pushed on consoles the more the customer loses on their end, just far to many unknowns for my liking.
Oh i was going to go Digital, but last gen i bought the walking dead season one on xbox live, and a few other games. I have the old model of the 360 so no wifi and guess what.... Can't access the games so digital right now is a gimmick.
Once it's taken seriously and has all the faults ironed out then maybe it will be a truly viable option, but until then i am gonna game physically and buy digital only games digital.
I bought a copy of Grandia on PSN only to have it disappear from my list of purchased games. I also had the HDD on my PS3 corrupt because of a save bug in Mass Effect 2, and if that were to happen with no PS3 PSN I would be screwed out of anything I had on there. There's just too many variables and unknowns for how digital content is, or if it even will, carry on over time. I like having access to older games and digital, on console at least, doesn't give me any piece of mind that I'll have access to it in the future.
You should have been able to access your game offline. If you can't it might be because of which console the license is tied to. You always have your "home" console which can access any digital game content offline with any gamertag. On other consoles only your gamertag can access your games, but only while online.
You can transfer the content to a new "home" console by following instructions here:
Seriously, how long do you see the Live Store on 360 and PSN on PS3 being supported? What makes you think either of those marketplaces is going to stay up forever, let alone the rest of this current generation?
You say which store has gone anywhere but digital has only just become a thing, no consoles before last gen had them and we're only 1 year into the current gen, they haven't had anywhere to go yet but there's no question that those services will be shut down on last gen consoles.
Also, losing a game and downloading it again is fine when the game shows up on your downloads, but when it doesn't (which I've had happen) you're at the mercy of whether customer service believes you or not. Not only that but some games simply get taken out of digital stores, never to return. Anyone who didn't buy a copy of MvC 3 wouldn't have a way of buying it ever again if not for retail.
As for discs getting scratched, all you have to do is take care of it, especially with blu ray which is very resistant to scratching. You have to be trying to scratch them to do real damage, and it's a better alternative than not knowing whether I'll have access to any of my digital content 20 years from now. There simply isn't enough precedent for digital markets and policy for me to trust my goods to any corporation or service, especially when they reserve the right to do pretty much anything they please with it.
I'm not sure if going fully digital is a good thing at the moment. 1/4 of my next gen games are digital but that's only due to the convenience of pre-loading for the midnight launches. I much prefer hard copies for the sentimental value or for that rare case where I'd need to resell the game cos it's a humongous pile of shyte.
But yeh, like most things it has its pros and cons...down to personal preference tbh. Buying digital would be more of a thing if the games weren't the same price as hard copies without a doubt.
I will go digital when I install a 2TB HDD, this 500GB HD that came with my PS4 just isn't cutting it. Another problem with digital is that PSN SUCKS. Compared to Steam which is rock solid and Amazon like in it's up time, PSN goes down for idiotic nonsense like a firmware update. Sony need to prove to me that it's capable partner in this digital future, but instead all I'm seeing the exact same PSN that I experienced with the PS3. The only difference now is that they're charging me to play online!
The recent Buy 2 get One free retail offers from Target store reminds me that retail still matter. I don't know, I am slowly adopting to digital purchases but I would hate to see traditional gaming stores go out of business like music and movie stores.
Code is not tangible. The disc and box cost pennies, but what you pay for is a license to run the code. And only that, because even with the tangible shiny disc in your hand or mouth you do not own the code.
Resale value is legit but some people prefer not to, either because they don't need to, don't want to, or just prefer not to support that sector.
Maybe they use the family sharing schemes to essentially get the game for 2 people for the price of one anyway, that claws back a lot of the lost resale value.
Physical retail sales still outsell digital sales on consoles. Thank goodness that the trend isn't changing much. I don't understand why people would pay for something that has absolutely ZERO value. Even if you were trying to sell a console with all of the games installed, the person you're selling it to will need access to YOUR account to use them. Sure it's convenient, it's takes up less space, and there's nothing to manage or care for. There are several drawbacks to going digital on a console. As one mentioned in another article consider this scenario; Your HDD is filled to capacity, you're already using the maximum storage capacity allowed for your console so any digital games you have in your library are probably stored on servers for that particular console. Let's say you have 30 digital games stored on the console HDD and another 25 games stored by cloud servers, then one day Xbox/PlayStation decides to close their doors and the servers are taken offline before you can download the rest of your games. At $60 per game that's $1500 that you've essentially given away. There's always the threat of DRM and if consoles go all digital it is almost certain that you will have to for not only your game, but an annual or monthly fee in order to play it, pay to play in a manner of speaking. Other drawbacks, digital copies are worthless to anyone else but the account holder, digital games can't be traded with friends and digital games take forever to download.
Actually digital purchases on both consoles include 1 account license and 1 device license. The device license will go with the console unless you choose to transfer it.
And for many people getting a digital copy is faster and more convenient than getting a physical copy, so not sure what you're getting at there.
Subscriptions to play the way you want to? I'd say you are paranoid, but actually we already have that today don't we?
I'm part of that 25%, it's just so convenient especially with preload
Went all digital this gen with the exception of Destiny(thankfully).
25% is a huge number and publishers would be wise capitalize on the market by giving greater incentives such as cheaper digital prices and early access incentives.
Digital Movies have taken to this strategy and it appears to be working, at least with early-access anyway.
Any title that I know I won't sell I'll buy digitally. If they hold back the reviews until after the game comes out but I still want it at launch I'll go physical.
I just can't get behind digital, literally everything about it outside of not having to swap a disc is more limiting with digital. Can't sell it, can't trade it, can't loan it, it's more expensive on console, the game become unavailable on console if the store/servers are shut down and after that if you get a corrupted HDD your stuff is gone, there's so little we know about how digital will be handled on the last gen consoles once those store are done, it's just a mess to me.
I feel like the more digital gets pushed on consoles the more the customer loses on their end, just far to many unknowns for my liking.
I'm not sure if going fully digital is a good thing at the moment. 1/4 of my next gen games are digital but that's only due to the convenience of pre-loading for the midnight launches. I much prefer hard copies for the sentimental value or for that rare case where I'd need to resell the game cos it's a humongous pile of shyte.
But yeh, like most things it has its pros and cons...down to personal preference tbh. Buying digital would be more of a thing if the games weren't the same price as hard copies without a doubt.