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Forums - Sales Discussion - The Digital Future

There isn't such a thing as owning a game digitally. If you have a game digitally, you are only ever renting it. You only have it until the platform owner decides you shouldn't have it anymore. That's the problem. That, and you can never go back and discover an old game on a platform that has terminated it's online services. Want to try some of those WiiWare titles? Good luck, you can't :D unless you find a console that has them already installed.

Besides, the price drop for digital games would have happened already, it didn't.



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Ka-pi96 said:
KBG29 said:

Couldn’t be further from the truth.

*long rant*

I posted factual prices. They are LITERALLY the truth. Doesn't matter whether you like it or not, that is the truth.

Didn’t know that was the case in your region. In the US Digital is the same or $10 cheaper in most cases on Digital Deluxe vs Physical Deluxe Editions.

You get a massive value increase with digital, but I can see in the case where someone only plays 1 game at a time, doesn’t live with a Family, and doesn’t stream would not benefit from the advantages. In that case Digital being about a 1/3 more would not be appealing.



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10/03/2010 

KBG29 on PSN&XBL

Not excited at all. And not to forget these savings from making it full digital weren't passed to consumers at all, and the discounts take a much longer time plus I can't buy second hand. I don't see these benefits you see.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

mZuzek said:
Ka-pi96 said:

I didn't pick a specific game. That's the default price of all new releases. Full priced games start at £45 in a shop or £60 on PSN etc. That's been the case for pretty much the whole generation.

Speak for yourself then, because that's not the case everywhere in the world and certainly not on every platform either.

For example, if I wanted to buy Xenoblade Chronicles for the Switch, the digital version costs R$250 here. Physical copy, the cheapest I found is at R$330. These prices are pretty much standard for nearly every Switch game. And yeah, the Switch tends to have higher prices because of it not being an official thing in these parts, but when looking at prices for just about every game at launch, the cheapest physical version you can find is the same price as the digital one, at best.

Also, Steam.

So you use and example of a platform that wasn't officially supported by the manufacturer as example, shame on you. And your other example is a platform that have multiple competitors for digital and doesn't have physical anymore basically. Quite different than closed platform with single store.

Before dolar crash you could buy a Sony exclusive for R$200 on PSN or major stores, if you gone for small stores you could find for 180-190, and if you gone for grey shops it would be 170-180.

Nowadays TLOU2 was 250 on PSN, but I paid 199 with delivery on Americanas pre-order, and GoT was 270 on PSN and I paid 250 day one on the store with cashback of 10% (so effectivelly 225).

Don't know how Nintendo will work, but worldwide it is quite common for stores to sell for 5-10 less than retail price to dispute your purchase, while digital that won't happen. Also digital takes a lot longer to get discounts versus physical for consoles.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Ka-pi96 said:
KBG29 said:

Didn’t know that was the case in your region. In the US Digital is the same or $10 cheaper in most cases on Digital Deluxe vs Physical Deluxe Editions.

You get a massive value increase with digital, but I can see in the case where someone only plays 1 game at a time, doesn’t live with a Family, and doesn’t stream would not benefit from the advantages. In that case Digital being about a 1/3 more would not be appealing.

Yeah if digital was the same (or even cheaper) then it would be a lot better. I don't even mind digital games, I've bought a lot of games digitally. But I still hate the idea of a digital only console exactly because of the higher price.

Older games can be cheap for both physical and digital versions, so they're fine. But for me a day 1 game pretty much has to be physical just because of the price difference. I've even bought PC games day 1 phyiscally before (in the last 10 years I mean, when that's been a weird thing to do) because it was cheaper.

As you said I don't even consider digital viable day one for games when I can get the physical copy £10-15 and a large amount of times the physical copy includes posters, Steelbooks, keyrings or other little touches that add some value not to mention it still hold value if I want to sell it on down the line.

It baffles me how publishers haven't made digital cheaper because if they offer me a £30 digital vs £40 physical I would highly consider it and the publisher would still make the same amount of profit removing retailer/distribution costs and remove used copies something they have been wanting for decades. Steam has also gone to shit this generation for AAA games with it now been the most expensive platform if I wanted to buy a game at launch compared to the start of this generation it was the cheapest which is another consequence of digital been the only choice.



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Long live physical, I will avoid digital for as long as the option remains. After that, might go retro.



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vivster said:
So you are saying the savings will "trickle down" to developers and consumers? Now where have I heard that phrase before.

Epic doing the lords work



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Ka-pi96 said:
We get more money?

Physical game: £45
Digital game: £60

Yeah, jog on. Digital is a rip-off, plain and simple.

It is legitimately so strange how behind the UK PSN is on this.

US Amazon price for Ghost of Tsushima $60, PSN store price $60.

UK Amazon £48-49 (UK high street is about £45 in places), PSN price £55.

No packaging, no retailer fee, just download. More expensive. I would have legit moved to digital only ages ago if the prices were competitive. They just aren't. 



Hmm, pie.

mZuzek said:
DonFerrari said:

So you use and example of a platform that wasn't officially supported by the manufacturer as example, shame on you.

Shame on me for using an example of a platform I own and buy games for? I can't speak for a platform I don't have, but if you really want me to, I have two game purchase experiences on a console called PlayStation 4.

The first one was gifting Persona 5 to a friend who has a PS4. We bought it on the PSN for R$55, about a year ago. Looking it up online, the cheapest physical copy I found is at R$95.

Then there is the one PS4 game I actually own, which is, um... Persona 5 Royal. I bought a physical copy for R$250, the exact same price it was selling for in the PSN. Of course, in most stores I found, the physical version was listed at higher prices than that, usually around R$300.

Yep let's cherrypick to try and make a point.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Give the publishers absolute control over the distribution of their games and you will never see any worthwile price competition ever again. Prices are rising to 70$ already, even with digital giving them bigger and bigger chunks of the profit, why would they suddenly become better once they have absolute control of their distribution?



You know it deserves the GOTY.

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