By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - Sony more open-minded about Physical Media than Nintendo and Microsoft?

Frogger on 08 October 2015
PAOerfulone said:

You, yourself, felt the need to bring it up, and why did you?
Because, it was clearly a factor that played into the OG Xbox One's downfall, that's why.
Used games policy that force new games and digital down people's throats.

And the vast majority of gamers CLEARLY prefer physical.
Spem, you are THE ONLY person I have seen both in public and on the entire internet, who is ok with this idea of an all-digital system.
Everyone else is dead set against the idea. And let me tell you why, for one reason.
So, get off your love affair and high horse with your digital preference and think for one minute
An all-digital system is alienating that entire vast majority of gamers who prefer physical, and will get physical if they have the chance.
That is their preference, that is their choice as consumers and as gamers, do you honestly think that it is a good idea to take that preference, and that choice, away from them? When there are 2 other console makers that DO give them that choice, you know what they're gonna do, they're gonna say "Fuck you, Nintendo, I'm going with Sony or Microsoft!" ANd I'm right there with them.
Nintendo, has a whole lot more to lose than they do to gain if they go all-digital with the NX, for that simple reason. And they are in a position right now where they cannot afford to have another failed system, with the handheld market being pushed out the door by smartphones, and is evidenced by the declining sales of the 3DS/Vita as compared to previous generations.
And aside from the NES, SNES, and Wii, Nintendo hasn't had much success in the console business. Their entire hardware devision is hanging in the balance, they are RIDING on NX being a success.
And will alienating the entirety of console gamers, whom a large percentage of prefer physical, honestly help make that happen?


125m+ active Steam users, plus 25% of console owners, prefer digital, so your statistic on the vast majority of anyone prefering physical is completely false. Even then, I guarantee more than 2/3s of that remaining 75% are completely indifferent and won't care if its digital only, as long as they can play the games.

The used games issue was only an issue because the XBO had disks. It had nothing to do with being digital. It had everything to do with buying physical and not being able to do anything with that disk because XBO wanted to compromise and delete the game from your disk. That was stupid, and would have never been an issue if the XBO was digital only. It had everything to do with microsoft bricking your $500 console if you didn't connect to the internet for 24 hours. None of the successful digital platforms do anything that stupid, and neither will the NX when its all digital.

It won't alienate any singificant amount of people. That is without question. Digital didn't alienate any significant ammount of people when it dominated TV and movies, music, books, and PC gaming. It's not going to magically cause a riot when it happens on console.

It absolutely 100% is not just okay, but nessecary to take that choice away. That's the only way the NX's goals and ambitions will happen. People are living in a wonderland if they believe that anything Nintendo has been saying is possible while being anchored to physical media. Most won't say "fuck you, Nintendo." Most will see the NX Zelda, or Metroid, or Mario, or Pokemon, or Smash/Kart/Splatoon/3rd party exclusive/etc, and say "I'll get over it." Then they'll get over it. And then they'll love it like what happened in the PC gaming ecosystem. The idea that any majority of consumers in 2016 will look at an all digital console and think "this has all the games I want, is plenty powerful, and has everything I want in a console otherwise, but I'm not going to get it solely because I can't put the games on my shelf" is absurd.

So they don't have anything to lose with a digital NX platform, and everything to gain in the immense amount of ground breaking tools and features only possible with a unified gaming platform completely divorced of physical media anchoring it down. The 3DS and Vita are not signs of a declining market. The 3DS, which is selling like a juggernaut, is the sign of an uncharacteristically successful predicessor outselling it, and the Vita is the sign of a completely undesirable mass market product failing as everyone should have expected, like literally every other peice of hardware Sony has released in the last 5 years that isn't the PS4.



Around the Network
archer9234 on 08 October 2015
spemanig said:
green_sky said:

He could spam thread after thread faster than Spurgie admitting that he was wrong. Yet it won't make up for months and months of reading his monotone digital love affair posts. Big problem is that he doesn't even understand why people like physical media or that offering both is the way to go. 

OT: Sure man, Sony da best. I make your day. 


I won't be wrong, so there's nothing to make up for. I do understand why people like physical media, but those people will either get over it, or get something else. But more of them then now will just get over it and, better yet, prefer digital media for their objective benefits over physical. Offering both is not "the way to go" as it severely limits what can be done on a unified platform not tied to hardware when your software is physically tied to hardware. It's not happening. The smartphone revolution would have never happened with physical media, and the NX redefinition of a gaming platform won't happen with physical media. Literally everything they've been saying and doing since January of 2014 was leading up to a digital only platform. Half of what they've been saying makes absolutely no sense with a physical media-based console.

The membership program doesn't work with physical rewards for a platform that plays one game across multiple devices. Unless you think they're going to print you coupons based on your purchasing habits on the game you can return after you get the coupon and never play again. Unless you think they're going to overhere your conversation that you recommended a game to a friend, and their for qualify for a printable NX coupon to use in stores. Playing one game on both the portable and handheld makes is ungraceful, unreasonable, and expensive on a unified platform tied to accounts instead of hardware that uses physical media. Physical media completely undermines the idea that the membership program, which is already confirmed to be a digital program, will form the core of the NX platform. It can't be the core of anything if the audience is segregated to those who reap its benefits and those who don't. Miyamoto says here:

"So, particularly with digital downloads now and the idea that you're downloading the right to play a game, that opens up the ability to have multiple platform digital downloads where you can download on one and download on another. Certainly from a development standpoint there is some challenge to it, because if you have two devices that have different specs and you're being told to design in a way that the game runs on both devices, then that can be challenging for the developer—but if you have a more unified development environment and you're able to make one game that runs on both systems instead of having to make a game for each system, that's an area of opportunity for us."

That the genesis of the NX "play one game on multiple devices" comes only because the emergence of digital downloads and that the whole idea of a unified plaform at all is a digital one. That directly contradicts the NX supporting physical media. The entire unified platform is a digitally based one, from not being tied to hardware, to running the same OS across multiple form factors, to account based relationships, to flexible pricing on digital purchases, to a focus on the eshop, the Nintendo Network, and the market place, to the entire membership program, none of that is possible to the extent Nintendo has been describing on a device that supports physical media.

Compromise stifles progress. You don't compromise progress. You just progress. Nintendo won't compromise. Not on digital media.

And you do know that this opens the door to a lot of hate again, towards Nintendo. Which is the point people are trying to say. its very foolish in this choice, as of their current position. All I saw from that qoute was they're allowing both devices to download from the libraries. Which something Nintendo failed to do this generation. But at the same time. Don't want to be caught in this problem:

Person buy's console version of game. Gets free option to download handheld. People buy the handheld. No one buys games for it. Or Vis Versa. Is that viable? Or will one side of the unification fail. Will one fail because no one wants the handheld. I sure won't buy the handheld if the games are on the console. I already use my handhelds at home. Since I don't have pockets for it.

There will be one compromise. File size limit. A game will be restrictive to the handhelds limited onboard memory. Buying one 128GB SD card. 2 games will fit. And if the internal memory has 128GB of flash. a total of 4. Assuming Nintendo could afford that. Or only one game could be installed on it. You can't say the handheld version will be smaller. Now will people carry multiple SD cards? Goes right back to what people do now. Or be fine downloading 20-50GB games on the handheld a lot of times. Since the unified setup has to acomidate the console too.



Frogger on 08 October 2015
archer9234 said:

And you do know that opens the doors to a lot a hate and again, going to the fuck Nintendo route. Which is the points people are saying is very stupid in this choice as of now.


It's not going to open any significant amount of hate. Not enough for Nintendo to care. Like I said, almost no one is going to see the NX, see a bunch of exclusive games they want, see powerful hardware, see good third party support, and overall see a system they love in every other way, only to actively boycott it only because it doesn't have physical media. You and everyone else here are massively overestimating the amount of consumers that are so passionate about playing games physically that they would give up on games they want to play on that reason alone. Most people will be indifferent enough on the issue to see an all digital platorm with a few games they like and say "I'll get over it" wrather than never playing Pokemon ever again merely because they can't touch the cartridge anymore.



Frogger on 08 October 2015
SpokenTruth said:

Wrong on many aspects. 

1. Their next home console will have physical media.  Optical discs or solid state but they will be a part of the system's primary game content delivery means.

2. They've developed dozens upon dozens of patents for system design, hardware functionality, software, etc... that never get used.  I suggest you do a patent search and get ready to spend the next several hours pouring over several hundred documents.    The USPTO alone has 4,471 patents related to Nintendo.

In fact, they just filed one 2 days ago called "Game apparatus, game program and game system". It shows a disc system.

Or the one published on Sept 1, that states in the first line of the abstract, "An exemplary portable storage medium stores therein a program of an application."  A clear reference to some form of game on disc or cart medium.


No, it won't. When everything they've been saying only works with a digital platform, they directly mention the importance of digital downloads in the realization of that platform, and then publish a patent explicitely removing the disk from the the platform with the explicit purpose of supporting a platform that matches their description, it becomes clear which patents hold water and which will go unused. The patent is only the direct confirmation. Everything Nintendo has been saying for the past two years has been leading to a digital only platform, with Miyamoto explicitely mentioning the nessecity for digital downloads in the realization of literally the most important feature of the NX platforms: playing one game across multiple pieces of hardware. The reveal of the membership program will be the next soft confirmation of many that the NX will be a digital only platform, when the program that forms the "core" of the NX platform reaps only digital rewards meant to reward only digital purchases tied to a digital, cloud-utilizing, membership.

And people will still be convinced that "this means nothing." A massive membership program that is spread across all platforms including PS and mobile and only effects and deals with digital purchases that literally forms the core of what the NX will be, as specifically said by Iwata, can't possibly be an indicator that the NX won't have physical media. When Iwata says "core to the NX," he really must mean "not at all core to the NX," since it can't be core to the NX if it doesn't universally effect every user in a significant way, which is exactly what making physical media the "primary game content delivery means" would do.



Ruler on 08 October 2015
spemanig said:

Ruler said:

its discless patent and not digital only

 

 


The patent specifically references that digital software would help raise profits and make the console cheaper. It is digital only.


Then nintendo is finished. The majority of Hardcore nintendo-fans are folks like Happy-Console gamer. 



Why i left PC gaming

 

(2015) Question for PS4 owners: if the situation would be reverse? would you still play on PS4?

(2015) The "I don't care PS4 is the most powerful console" thread

Around the Network
Robert_Downey_Jr. on 08 October 2015

I like their collector's editions. Most of mine are Sony first party or third party exclusives as they normally give you the steel book and some goodies for just $20 more. Plus they release usually all digital games on physical media such as my physical copy of retro city which is one of just 2000



I am Iron Man

ZombieVito on 08 October 2015
SpokenTruth said:
spemanig said:


No, it won't. When everything they've been saying only works with a digital platform, they directly mention the importance of digital downloads in the realization of that platform, and then publish a patent explicitely removing the disk from the the platform with the explicit purpose of supporting a platform that matches their description, it becomes clear which patents hold water and which will go unused. The patent is only the direct confirmation. Everything Nintendo has been saying for the past two years has been leading to a digital only platform, with Miyamoto explicitely mentioning the nessecity for digital downloads in the realization of literally the most important feature of the NX platforms: playing one game across multiple pieces of hardware. The reveal of the membership program will be the next soft confirmation of many that the NX will be a digital only platform, when the program that forms the "core" of the NX platform reaps only digital rewards meant to reward only digital purchases tied to a digital, cloud-utilizing, membership.

And people will still be convinced that "this means nothing." A massive membership program that is spread across all platforms including PS and mobile and only effects and deals with digital purchases that literally forms the core of what the NX will be, as specifically said by Iwata, can't possibly be an indicator that the NX won't have physical media. When Iwata says "core to the NX," he really must mean "not at all core to the NX," since it can't be core to the NX if it doesn't universally effect every user in a significant way, which is exactly what making physical media the "primary game content delivery means" would do.

You are looking at the trees and ignoring the forest.

Digital only would reduce their consumer base.  A consumer base that works best under a physical content delivery format.  Think gifts.  Nintendo says they obtain over 50% of their annual revenue during the holiday period.  That means gifts.  Gifting is incredibly cumbersome digitally and would drastically reduce their holiday revenue.  Not goign to happen.

Also, I read the patent.  Have you?  It's not simply about a diskless console, it's about managing the data speeds between the disk drive to the console RAM. Read the whole thing.  ALL of it. Then get back to me.


Spemanig just got owned haha.

I can't wait for Nintendo to announce the NX with a disk drive so you can shut up about this.



Frogger on 08 October 2015
SpokenTruth said:

You are looking at the trees and ignoring the forest.

Digital only would reduce their consumer base.  A consumer base that works best under a physical content delivery format.  Think gifts.  Nintendo says they obtain over 50% of their annual revenue during the holiday period.  That means gifts.  Gifting is incredibly cumbersome digitally and would drastically reduce their holiday revenue.  Not goign to happen.

Also, I read the patent.  Have you?  It's not simply about a diskless console, it's about managing the data speeds between the disk drive to the console RAM. Read the whole thing.  ALL of it. Then get back to me.


I'm not ignoring anything. You are. Digital only would grow their consumer base, not reduce it. The consumer base is used to a digital content delivery format, as the modern world is filled with them. Gifting would absolutely not be cumbersome digitally. Not only can someone just sent gift vouchers digitally, but there exists download code cards for digital games already. And with the NX, I'm 100% sure they will make that process even simpler by selling Amiibo that unlock games on your system specifically to tackle the situation you describe. A mom goes to the store, buys the Marvel vs Capcom NFC card/coin/figure, and then she'll just bring it home, wrap it up, and give it to little Ludwig on Christmas day. He opens the game box, takes out the amiibo, touches it to his NX, and it starts downloading the game. Problem solved. Digital only.

I have read it, and it is completely in explicit support of a digital only platform. It's about managing the data speeds between a HARD disk drive, not an optical disk drive, to ram. HDD, for the digital only platform. I don't know what imaginary point you're trying to make there.



Frogger on 08 October 2015
ZombieVito said:

Spemanig just got owned haha.

I can't wait for Nintendo to announce the NX with a disk drive so you can shut up about this.


No, I didn't. He didn't prove anything.



AlfredoTurkey on 08 October 2015
spemanig said:

Literally everything they've been saying and doing since January of 2014 was leading up to a digital only platform. Half of what they've been saying makes absolutely no sense with a physical media-based console.


Here is what Reggie said June 22, 2015.

"I do think that consumers find a sense of security in having the physical thing, and given that, I think the option of the physical thing always needs to be there."

http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/22/8824789/fils-aime-nintendo-is-always-thinking-games-it-doesnt-sell-tvs-or