Wiped said: Control. You can't let digital games win out. You simply can't. The reason? Price control. See, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all want you to buy their games on their shops. Why? Because 100% of that £50/$60 goes straight to them. Surely, then, considering a. They get 100% of the money b. the games have no resale ability c.You get no case and disc .... then digital games should be much cheaper. But if anything, they're much more expensive! Games which are still £49.99 on PSN, for example, can be found for £20 on Amazon, often even £30-40 at High Street retailers after just a few months. Think about release day. I got Mario Kart 8 for £39.99 on GAME.co.uk on release day. On the same day, it was £49.99 on Wii U eShop. We musn't let digital games win out, or we all (literally) pay the price. |
Now that's just very false.
A part of that money goes to Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo, yes. But the publisher and developer also get the lion's share of the money on each sale. The only one missing out is retailers like Gamespot when the middleman gets cut out.
Digital games, if new, are going to be the same price. That's given, since the economics of the entire industry depends on it. Even then, some new games are digitally discounted (WWHD was discounted when released digitally, and Dark Souls 2 is $50 on Steam as opposed to $60 on consoles). Games also go on sale much faster and much more often, as I mentioned in the OP.
Digital games are the future. They will win out, as consumers slowly embrace the format. A generation or two from now, I doubt physical media exists. At that point, perhaps a backwards compatible PS5 or 6 will be able to play my digital PS3 games, but physical games will be incompatible due to format change and/or lack of disc drive.