Amazon Brasil only have 2 third party marketplace stores selling Elden Ring on PS5 for quite a lot more than the original full price.

Same with Diablo 4, in stock, but also over the official price from the marketplace, must be an import, maybe it's not printed here.

Elden Ring I know for sure pops up here and there at more normal prices, but mostly it just doesn't anymore nowdays.

That used to happen with niche titles like Disgaea but popular AAA games it's news to me, could always find them on sales on multiple stores and a bunch of used copies.

Here in Canada it's more and more marketplace sellers as well, import from the US with import fees and extra shipping costs. Some ship from Canada but also with higher shipping costs. Local shops hardly stock any blu-rays anymore, one or two racks left in the major stores.

With inflation and currency exchange rates, digital AAA games have gone from CAD 50/60 to CAD 90/93.50 here since the launch of PS4. Still cheaper than in Brazil though :/ I see an offer for Elden Ring on Amazon Brazil for 449 Real, CAD 124.77

Spiderman 2 seems on par, 313,90 currently, CAD 87.23, CAD 89 here.

Gaming got a lot more expensive! But my gaming store is still open and has tons of older games. I might just go VR and retro. Love VR too much to miss out, but find myself less and less interested in current AAA gaming. I mostly buy AAA games for my kids nowadays.

You know, I've been thinking, I love phisical media and I understand a Digital only future, but what about fake AI bots that play similar to a real person, and soon they will be able to have full deep interactions with us.

That's only the beginning, I then go further thinking and we will be able to do our own full games with just some basic information, like a really advanced "Game Builder Garage" or "RPG Maker" where you only need to say some commands and your "perfect" game is made, with brand new music, characters, story, etc. Or you can even do your own Smash Bros. with any genre, being your brain the only limitation.

Sorry, I maybe went too deep, or maybe not deep enough.

Last weekend I saw the digital games cards for xbox for the first time and what surprised me was that some of them were on sale.

Games could still be cheaper in physical stores but also only digital..

Yeah both Elden Ring and Diablo 4 are listed as 450 on Amazon, which is 100 more than their 350 official launch price, but that's already really expensive and most people, me included, never pick up games for that price, it is (at least was) common to see those popular games on big discounts to 200 or 250 as pre-orders or soon after launch (150 to 200 when the official price was 300 last gen, that's the most I paid on games during or near launch).

Spider Man 2 I can find in other places in the 250 to 280 price range, Sony first party games are usually really easy to find used copies from, and as most PS games are heavily discounted if you don't want to play them asap.

Thinking about it, it took me years to find Sekiro in a decent price, maybe From Software prints are quite limited around here too nowdays, but with the Dark Souls series it was just like the rest, easy to find, usually big discounts and loads of used copies.

Gladly I already have a ton of games to play and I'm also hardly very hyped with current releases, but it seems like waiting for it to eventually get a good deal is also not working as well as it used to... sad times.

I don't mind being all digital on my PC (I've been all digital since 2010), but I do however dislike all digital on consoles and the idea that gaming needs to emulate Netflix with it's sub style of "renting" games.

Sure it was fine during the 80/90/20's to rent physical games, but renting digitally feels even lesser than what we did way back then, because today you pay and just get content revoked from you, but not on your terms and time, but on a company's time and terms, and that doesn't make for a fair trade, not with the prices per sub adding up with the amount we see today in multiple industries (movies, tv shows, gaming, music, artworks, all those subs add up over time.

My two major complaints I have with digital content is that the pricing hasn't really changed all that much, and we keep getting the same tired old excuses (X/Y is too expensive to make, thus we'll make excuses and foot you, the customer, our bill, instead of working out how to trim that fat), and topping it off with layers of DRM, which is the company telling you that not only do they want more money from you, but that they also do not trust you, but you have to trust them 100% of the way (which again is a totally unfair balance to have in any industry).

Like I said, I've been fine with digital, but I do wish those two issues would be done away with over time, because I feel like we'd benefit more on the consumer side if we weren't taken for wild rides where we pay more, and are trusted less, but also having content we paid for taken away.

While this might deserve a separate thread one day, when do you all think certain digital storefronts will close?
We already know the ones that have.
DSi: 2017
Wii: 2019
PSP: 2021
3DS & Wii U: 2023
Xbox 360: Scheduled for July 29, 2024

Vita and PS3 will likely be first on the chopping block, since they were going to close around the time of the PSP closing. There's virtually no chance they survive into the 2030s. But the other question is will they close in the same year or be staggered? Vita's store is better than PS3's in terms of use, but the Vita is a much more niche product. On the other hand, many moderate to major Vita releases were digital-only globally or in certain regions. I'll lump them together and predict that they'll close in 2025, even if the two storefronts have different closing dates.
Xbox One will probably be fine for a while because I think the Xbox Series X/S store is built from it. It would be pretty scummy to shutter the storefront 5 or more years before the Series since they're so similar.
PS4 and PS5 have some clear differences in the storefronts, so I think PS4's storefront will close before PS5. PS4's storefront will probably close around 2030 (partway into the life of PS6). Despite the massive install base of PS4, over 99.9% of the games can purchased on PS5. And they're not going to keep the store open largely for people to buy things like avatars and themes.

I can download ps4 games on my ps5.  It is the same storefront.  I see the Playstation store being like steam.  Plus you can backup and restore your system.  

I've been all digital for a long time now.  No issues on vidoegames, books, music and movies.  I have never lost a single item.

Plus by the time a storefront is closed, emulation is available.  Games are less likely to disappear in a digital world.  

Physical will still be an option , just wont be the most successful form.


As for me, I'm already pretty much all digital.

I only bought one or two games this year that was actual physical - the rest whether it was on Switch, Xbox, Playstation or PC - was all digital.

I prefer digital because of the less boxes to clutter. I dont re-sell/trade my games so I'm fine with that.

If they shut down the digital stores I will just pirate the games. I do it with a couple of Game Cube titles

It's their choice to lose my money. Can't buy what is not for sale

It's generally only Nintendo that does it. Third parties almost always port their games to PC

Not exactly something to lose my sleep about tbh