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plip.plop on 22 September 2014
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archer9234 said:
plip.plop said:
archer9234 said:
plip.plop said:
archer9234 said:
plip.plop said:

I think MS would have personally preferred to go all digital this gen but this causes two big problems.

1 - It would have made alot of retailers mad cutting them out of alot of sales. Retailers are in the same boat with Console makers i.e. they make more money from game sales than from hardware sales.

2. By making an all in one media center, and not have the ability to watch movies on blu ray or dvd would not have sat well for the millions of consumers that still buy, and rent them. As most people don't want to re purchase content over.

MS could have avoided the whole DRM thing by going all digital for games. By allowing you to purchase online, or pick up a card at a retailer (xbox live gold cards) which would let the kinect scan the barcode, and download the game it could have made games cheaper for the xbox one by getting rid of a disc, and box. Of course there will be people that would hate not having a physical copy for resale or just the ability to have physical ownership of the game. But people I believe are more inclined if they see a benefit. No one complains that apps and games for tablets, and phones are pure digital. If MS did this resulting in lowering the cost of games by 25-30%. I think the adoption rate, and attach rate would be much higher.

I am personally finding myself holding off on buying games because I am hoping for sales. If games are already priced lower than my competitor day one I am more likely to make a impulse buy.

Also if they did add a blu-ray player that just allowed viewing of disc based movies. people would have been happy. As it would also fall in line with a all in one media player.

I don't care about games and apps on my phone because their unimportant bs $1 things that I don't care to own. But full games, movies, tv shows, and music I do. So they aren't bought on the iTunes store.

Fair enough, but the iTunes store , and google play store does make money. Steam makes money selling games digital. Most people if not all on this website here Im sure watch their media off of hard drives, or some type of streaming service. But the general consumer that does not care about this stuff, rent and buy physical media.

Digital is the future.

Yeah it's the future. A future where BOTH could stay existing. At some point sales can level off. And no matter how hard each side tries. They both stay alive. No one's denying digital. But don't tell people who want physical to take the road. That's was what MS did. And people said go fuck yourself.

Do you also feel this way about PS now? besides their (not set in stone) horrible pricing, How do you feel about that service?

I don't care about the service. Because I don't care for streaming in general. Ignoring my internet being crap. I just don't like relying on outside things for everything. I buy the game, I have it forever. Without any major potentional issues. Besides aging hardware issues. Which I repair when needed. And of course people will say: "digital is so much better for this, this, and this". Sure is. That's why my CD,DVD,BD are all ripped to my itunes. But I have full control over how, and where those things go. And I use digital when I'm outside. At home, I use a disc. Space is space. It's just reduced. HDD's will be plugged into all your USB ports in the future. And you're back to dealing with the annoyances.

"But burglars!!!" You password can be stolen, if the company gets hacked, or you use something stupid. Both outcomes are equally rare. "But I don't have to disc swap!" Sure, for now. When games get bigger and bigger. You'll be deleting or changing out HDD. Same issues. Just different situation. Even when SDD becomes a norm, and you don't really have to worry about HDD failing from the mechnical parts. A SSD can still get corrupted and has to be reformated. Have fun downloading that 2TB of media. Sure, you can backup your HDD. I do it too. But again, more HDD's. More space again. I upgraded my PS4 HDD to 1TB. I only have 4 games. That's around 100GB of installing, I'd have to redo. With my discs 20 minutes. The DVD /BD shelfs I have in my room would be equal to 10TB of data. That's 3 HDD of now. That will just increase.

Also, streaming and digital ownership has unnaswered questions in the future of the devices. Will I be able to access these things in10 years? Will the game be avaible all the time? I do keep my consoles. And play them. I do not like rebuying the products over again, on different devices. Because their severvice has ended. And my PS3 HDD has failed. These are my personal factors why I don't buy things exclusvily digital. Plus, why use UV or digital copy. When those files are usually at crap bitrates. When i can rip my stuff, and decide if I want this episode not deinteraced. So I don't see horrible Jaggies. But I'm in no way saying people that don't care to own, never keep their systems, and just rent have no right to love those services and features. I just don't like it when people belittle my side.

You make all valid points. I still own my dvd collection, but I no longer play them anymore. all my media is on harddrives now.  There are pros, and cons to every side. I was not dismissing your view, but it's pretty obvious that even Sony wants to go to an all digital future.

This gen has been so odd for me. I personally do not understand why if I own the disc version of a game I need to download it to the hard drive, and after I do that I still need to put the disc in the the system for it to play all that I downloaded. this seems very redundant. Whereas if I download the game once I download a game I have access to it  whenever. why is this?!? I personally believe both systems use a DRM type system on the disc.  Before you label me a nut job.

Keep in mind Sony was creating this exact type of DRM prior to the PS4. They knew that not all systems would be online, and to get to that group of people they would have to create a DRM in the system for people that tried to bypass the internet check.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-patents-tech-to-block-used-games/1100-6401992/

Sony understood full well that the 2nd hand game business was hurting sales. The crazy thing is I really believed that Sony not MS would have pushed this more considering they have so many first party studios, and I'm sure that missed revenue on 2nd hand sales caused Sony to close down some of their 1st party studios. I also think this is why Sony has been welcoming more indie games, where they do not have to create as much content, and hope that  half will break even or make a profit.

just my personal take on all this.