Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Console Gaming - Digital or Physical
- Thread starter Ameer_1
- Start date
-
- Tags
- gaming
- Sort by reaction score
I have gone all digital for the convenience. I don't buy new releases on day 1, and they go on sale soon enough.
I prefer physical, but realistically digital is the only viable option. I buy discs now for my movies, after Sony deleted some movies from people's playstation and Disney has edited star wars in their streaming service.
The only downside of digital, is that you could lose your game. I believe sony has done that, not sure if you had the physical disc what would have happened.
It is tricky, trouble these days is you buy a disk and all it has on it is a key to download the game anyway. Granted not all games are like that. I use both but digital more these days. However if I can wait and it is a cheaper price then disk, but if you game on Xbox or PC you can usually hunt for keys and buy the games cheaper then disk anyway.
Yes there is that, absolutely. Second hand market, bar Switch 2, cannot be underestimated and it is how MANY play games, I have bought loads of second hand games from the store over the years across all platforms.
What I don't understand is that physical copies are often cheaper, at least here in Belgium. A recent example: I pre-ordered Ghost of Yotei digitally and it was €79.99. Couple of days later I saw a pre-order on a local webshop for the physical version at €64.99 so I cancelled at the PS Store and ordered a physical copy. How TF can the physical version be so much cheaper? And it's not only on release. I've bought physical copies of games for €20 that were discounted on the PS+ Store for €35 for example on many occasions.
Digital are more expensive because humans are willing to pay a premium for convenience.
Picture this, it’s pay day friday, you have had a
two beers and feel good. You fancy a new game, order online and it might not arrive until Sunday or money. Buy and play it now at a premium and enjoy the weekend or miss out.
If you have a physical disc then you can play it forever as long as you still have the console. You can play the games offline with no internet connection so they can't change that.
I prefer physical for that reason, also a little old school but being able to trade or lend games is a plus. I purposely bought a PS5 with disc because of all the older PS4 games I have. It is nice that I can still play those as well.
This isn't totally true anymore. Lots of newer games don't have the entire game on the disc(s) anymore, even the pre-patched day one version. For Xbox it's pretty bad as usually the disc contains the Xbox One version and trying to use it on a XSX requires downloading the Series version if it's a Xbox One/XSX title.
https://www.doesitplay.org/ can potentially give more info.
As much digitally as possible. For the Switch, the kids can't throw the cartridges away, it is easier since you don't have to move cartridges around, and I often like to play games multiple times over the years, so won't be selling anyway, and the resale prices aren't really worth it for most titles anyway.
For Mac, I think my last physical title was Warcraft 3.
For Mac, I think my last physical title was Warcraft 3.
Some games though (yes, I'm looking at you, Hitman) require an internet connection for all of the game's features and options to be available.