When I bought my Wii U I bought a couple Sports Club vouchers for bowling and tennis... codes printed on a receipts. Can't these stores sell digital copies of games? I mean, I would prefer professional advice if I was shopping for a game.

Well unless I missed it, only one person in the thread has said all brick and mortar game stores will go the way of Blockbuster, unless of course they adapt. I think eventually they’ll become such a niche compared to digital, that these gaming centric stores will shut down. Blockbusters problem wasn’t just digital, because digital DVDs and Blu-rays still exist. Blockbusters problem was they had shitty prices and didn’t do enough to diversify what they offered. So once competition like Netflix and Redbox blew up, there was nowhere else to turn. That’s why GameStop has expanded greatly in other areas like phones, tablets, clothing, and collectibles. Eventually you’ll only to be able to buy them online or in big retailers who don’t focus solely on games, like Walmart or Best Buy. And even there, gaming sections are shrinking.

I think once prices are more reasonable and Internet speeds are more consistent, people will go digital purely for convenience reasons.

I think Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with this Game Pass stuff. These retailers are their business partners. It is stupid to do things that harm your business partners.

Indeed, remember when people said that an overwhelming majority of people on PC would only buy digital, tss silly people =p.

You do know that not every human is perfect and everything physical has a wear and tear timer right? Every time you put a game in your system you are wearing out the game out and the system. It might take years however eventually it will stop working due to it. That is not a human error. That's where Digital is superior, it never wears, its always there, and don't tell me that if the Servers shut down you will lose your games. If Steam folded, I can safely bet that another company will take the Steam Service and continue with it.

What kind of poor examples are the ones you mentioned above? Really you are going to use Kodak and Gameloft as examples? I don't think we need to go into why they no longer exist or are supported and its also funny because with one of them it was due to the up rising of Digital Media.

You also know that if Steam, Live, PSN and Eshop closed there doors, you wont be able to play any of your physical games anyway so the point of physical is nothing more than something for collectors. Don't panic I am also a game collector however I know where the future is heading and have accepted it the moment I signed up on Steam 12 years ago..

Come back and tell me when something replaces Digital Media, ill be waiting here for your return.

In Brazil Blockbuster was bought and survived a little longer as blockbuster trying some diversification, but later they all became the same store of the one who bought.

Yes I do know... and sure normal wear and tear exist, still the BD should survive like 100 years... all mine have no scratch, and even the one I bought used and had a lot of scretchs (seemed like someone really tried to damage it) worked fine.

Any company that exist can close, it is as simple as that, just because you can't image it happening it doesn't mean it won't. Most companies on the toop ranking didn't even exist some years ago and a lot of century old companies died... So not sure you are so sure it couldn't ever happen.

Not sure how could my physical games not work on my physical HW just because these stores closed doors... it won't get new patches, but it will still be able to boot and run.

I don't need anything to replace digital media, I like my physical media and will use as long as it exist.

Gamestop's reaction is unsurprising, of course, I also don't expect this program Microsoft is doing to really go anywhere as the value of Microsoft's games has fallen off a cliff (otherwise, XBox One would be doing better).

I disagree with a lot of people in this thread that "it's brick-and-mortar going away." Physical is still important in games and consumers will still choose it over digital. Even if consumers being able to buy most classic games digitally, the market for NES/Genesis/SNES carts is still strong and has created somewhat of a cottage industry. Distribution may change, but physical will be in demand for a long time to come.

xbox < ps4 anyway

Xbox > PS4 though

People who subscribe to gamepass and like it will however most likely stick to owning Xbox consoles and that is worth a lot, brand loyalty. Also their games sell pretty bad but with gamepass more people will try out their games and maybe find something they like and in response they will share this online and with friends, you have to start somewhere with a comeback because what they where doing wasn't working either.