setsunatenshi said:
We'll agree to disagree I guess. We have radically opposite views on this subject.
The only point I wanted to make 100% clear, I'm not advocating an extinction of physical media at all costs. I think it should exist for as long as there's enough demand for it.
Well, I have seen a lot of digital-only evangelists out there who are at least implicitly hoping for the demise of physical media. To hear some of them talk, the disc manufacturing plants and the printing presses would have all been shut down by now and that we'd all be better off for it "for reasons." If you're fine with the continued existence of physical, then good. If someone wants to go all-digital, I don't have a problem with that. If they have their reasons, then whatever.
My beef is with people who insist that digital is always better and that we'll be better off without physical. I've seen enough BS over the years to where I've avoided paid digital downloads as much as possible (I'll take something for free if they're offering, though). Since 2010 I've maybe spent a total of $50 on digital games (Perfect Dark HD, Mega Man 10, several VC releases, and most recently Blaster Master Zero) vs. probably $1800 on physical (assuming an average of $50 spent per game; I often wait several months for the price to drop and only buy new on day one for games I'm really, really interested in).
All I really want is an option next time around to buy a console without any disk drive. Saving me in the short term by not having to include hardware I won't use, but also not forcing anyone else to go full digital as I do.
My pc hasn't had an optical drive for... i wanna say 12/13 years now... and I do a big hardware revision every 2/3 years. So if it works for PCs, why wouldn't it work for consoles?
A console's optical drive costs no more than $30 according to various teardowns I've seen, and while you might save a bit a cash if that slightly reduced cost is passed down to the consumer, that's not guaranteed as it could cost the console makers more to continually have a drive-less version of every primary SKU. People usually buy gaming PCs piece by piece to make their own builds to their own preferred specifications (though some companies offer entire rigs, usually with a high mark-up), whereas a console is a single unit manfactured en masse, each standard current-production model identical except for the hard drive size. It really ought to go without saying that PCs and console are rarely translatable to each other on a 1:1 basis. They are very different markets.
Also, the PSP Go, the first and to date only console or handheld SKU to lack physical media, costing just as much as a regular PSP doesn't bode well to the prospect of a digital-only console costing the consumer less.
Would it be nice for someone who doesn't want a disc drive to have a drive-less SKU as an option? Yeah. Would it be cheaper for the consumer who wants to go all-digital or practical for the manufacturer? Maybe, but not likely.
|
