| RolStoppable said: In the situation you describe, you will still be able to sell your physical game collection which will likely still hold a lot of value, especially for games that had low printruns. Whereas your digital game collection is completely worthless in all possible ways. Ownership can be as simply defined as being able to sell what you've bought. On topic: Anyone who looks at all the graphs can tell that the biggest cause for fewer physical game releases is the decreasing output of major game publishers. Comparing 2018 vs. 2021 shows a drop of 33% in the number of released digital titles. The big third party publishers have increasingly focused on fewer games, that's what the numbers show. But there's a limit to how low they can go, hence why the overall number of new physical releases has dropped by only 7 (3%) from 2020 to 2021 in the USA. Nintendo Switch even showed a slight increase from 2020 to 2021. That makes the headline of the whole analysis flawed. There's no acceleration to witness anymore, we are basically already at the point where things have bottomed out. And of course the analysis is about the mere number of annual physical releases and doesn't spend much time talking about how much physical games are still being sold. You won't find a major publisher who foregoes to release physical versions, except when they are a third party who has an axe to grind with Nintendo console owners, hence no physical on the console where physical is the most popular option. On the other hand, non-major publishers have released more physical games in 2021 than they did in 2020. |
That's exactly what I wanted to say! Also, why do the great majority of PS5 and Xbox Series owners opted for the more expensive variation with a disc-drive? Yeah, the Series X is more powerful but with the PS5 you have no advantage with the disc-version but still people prefer it.
We also have to consider some other factors:
1. For many gamers (incl. myself), gaming means more than just a hobby, it's something they identify with, something that has a true meaning to them (really, like any other connoisseur of art), for some it's a pop-culture that's dear to their heart. Such people surely want something to show-off and if it's only to themselves in their own chamber. Of course, there are more than enough merchandise products but such people certainly want the main producst (consoles + games) in their shelves.
2. All the console manufacturers want to grow in the extended Eastern-Europe, Latin America and in the 3rd World. However, in such countries, outside of the big cities, internet is very poor and the only real option there is to go physical. Also, in countries like Germany and in certain States/regions in the US, the internet is very poor. Therefore, for people living there, it's the better option to go physical. Yes, it's true that for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S you still have to download a lot of data, even if you buy physical but still you have less data.
3. Storage space for Nintendo Switch is very limited with 32 or 64gb, same for PS5 and Xbox Series, for the huge data triple A game eats, the space is too limited. Therefore, a grand majority of people for the Switch prefer buying physical when possible and some make the same decision for PS5 and Xbox Series X (even though, for PS5 and Xbox Series X as described above you still have to download lots of data even if you buy physical). For many people it's too annyoing to hassle with archiving or deleting content and then re-downloading it again.
