Discussion Anyone else making the move to digital on the next generation?

[Joy-Boy]

Plus I'm fully willing to dump my own games once a system goes end of life, so the whole "but what if all the servers are down because society has collapsed and you didn't have Hades installed to play in the post-apocalyptic wasteland" (actual example I've had someone present to me) scenario doesn't really sway me that much. Like, if it's 2037 and the Switch eshop is down and that was the only way to play some game, I'm more than willing to find alternative methods if I need to.

The whole "What if society collapses" reasoning was always funny to me.

Like if society collapses, I think we mayyy have a few more things to worry about then being able to play video games. And even if you wanted too, you'd only have about 3 hours of battery before that dies and there's no electricity. Even if there is some electricity from generators or whatever, then it's going to be spent on stuff like heating/ac and fridges for preserving food.

 

[Catsylvania]

I was under the impression “society has collapsed and the servers are down” was not intended as a good faith argument. Or at best, it was greatly exaggerated to illustrate the real possibility of losing access to a digital file that was already paid for. Also, a physical game can be lost or damaged.

 

[GenOneCam]

I am answering the question posed in the thread title only and my answer is yes. Two generations of consoles ago.

 

[Joy-Boy]

I was under the impression “society has collapsed and the servers are down” was not intended as a good faith argument. Or at best, it was greatly exaggerated to illustrate the real possibility of losing access to a digital file that was already paid for. Also, a physical game can be lost or damaged.

I really do wonder what the ratio is between people who have lost their entire digital libraries vs people who have lost their entire physical ones (From theft, fires, etc).
Both happen in freak instances, but it only feels more prevelant with digital because it gets coverage when it happens.

 

[Tye]

The main thing holding me back from going digital over physical is the inability to share games. My partner and I are both huge Nintendo fans so naturally we play a lot of the same games, and because of that physical copies work better for us so we can both play those games without having to pay for a second copy. Of course, we do buy a second copy when necessary (and in those cases my partner goes digital for their own games), but for most games a single physical copy is all we really need.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

I'm not sure. I might make the move to digital only. The only reason I still buy Switch carts is their resale value. A lot of my Switch physical carts are more expensive now than when I bought them. Switch 2 I can trade/sell a handful of box games with no sentimental value for a Switch 2. Looking at my Super Mario 3D All Stars and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 special edition.

 

[shoptroll]

Physical most likely still.

But, I do plan on cutting back on physical for certain classes of releases like boutique indie physical (ie LRG), retro compilations, and maybe remasters as I think a sizable chunk of my library is LRG releases (Inti Creates, Zeboyd, Konami collections, and Kunio titles) and the flood of Square-Enix remasters we’ve seen this generation.

 

[Mekanos]

I'm mostly digital on Switch, I get certain games physically if they are cheap. At least with Switch it makes sense to be partially split between physical/digital due to storage, other consoles having CDs just being install keys is lame.

 

[Herb Alpert]

Nope.
If I can get a box, I get a box.
I prefer digital for the games I tend to play on a looooong period and that include multiplayer, like smash bros, Mario kart or monster hunter.
Otherwise I go with physical copies.

I'm an old man.

 

[Estew]

Depends on backwards compatibility. Assuming the Switch successor is entirely backwards compatible, then no. If the Switch successor is not at all backwards compatible, then no. But if the Switch successor is backwards compatible exclusively for digital games... Then yeah, I'll probably begrudgingly make the switch to digital games. I just enjoy how much cheaper physical copies tend to be.

 

[Jahranimo]

Unless they change how they have their games on the cartridges or something I'm sticking with Nintendo physical as long as possible. Their platform is the one that makes the most sense.

 

[Shadow]

You can pry my physical copies from my cold dead hands before I give Nintendo (or any publisher, be it videogames or any other medium) not a single benefit of the doubt. I'n not trusting any company to actually honour my digital copy down the line.

 

[Yoshifan31]

Why does it has to be a “move to”. This topic is always dramatic every time for no reason, we already have the doomsday scenarios

Just buy the game in the way that is most convenient for you. Physical for big games when you don’t have much space. Digital for multiplayer or games that you always come back to so you don’t change carts all the time. That being said it’s pretty obvious how advantageous digital really is nowadays. Extra storage space is cheap now so you can just, you know, install everything you own. Games have constant patches nowadays so even physical doesn’t mean much. Digital sales are a million times cheaper, it’s not even close. Much better than buying the physical version of some sub 1GB game for like twice the price. Meanwhile when buying used physical games, you gotta hope it’s not damaged. Last disc game I bought, I needed to use toothpaste for it to stop having disc reading errors. Never had that problem for cartridges thankfully but it still gives me anxiety when it doesn’t seem to read the game. The only good physical deal I ever had for a Switch game was because the cover was messed up. Otherwise digital is way cheaper and it saves plastic

I don’t wanna hear anything about “selling a licence to use the game”, digital sales are so much cheaper that it basically undoes the fact that you can’t resell your game (which only matters if you only buy fully priced new releases at all times). Like, I guess that when you go to the movie theater, you pay for the theater but even then you’re still paying to see a movie for one time. When you buy digitally a game that you would have sold afterwards, well who cares that you don’t technically own it, you basically pay for the fraction of a movie ticket and you get to complete the game. You also have the extra covenience of not having to change carts, to worry about physical defects. Meanwhile when you go outside to have fun, you pay for 3-10+ times the price of a digital game on sale for like one evening and that’s not including food. That’s why it’s a non-issue that you can’t resell or not technically own that one overhyped by forums flavor of the month game, you still got it for the cheapest you would have ever got

 

[Obsonet]

I know I’m old but I just like physical because that’s how I used to get games as a kid.
Even though we don’t get a manual anymore I still like getting a new game and displaying it on my shelf.

 

[paranoodle]

Why does it has to be a “move to”. This topic is always dramatic every time for no reason, we already have the doomsday scenarios

Just buy the game in the way that is most convenient for you. Physical for big games when you don’t have much space. Digital for multiplayer or games that you always come back to so you don’t change carts all the time. That being said it’s pretty obvious how advantageous digital really is nowadays. Extra storage space is cheap now so you can just, you know, install everything you own. Games have constant patches nowadays so even physical doesn’t mean much. Digital sales are a million times cheaper, it’s not even close. Much better than buying the physical version of some sub 1GB game for like twice the price. Meanwhile when buying used physical games, you gotta hope it’s not damaged. Last disc game I bought, I needed to use toothpaste for it to stop having disc reading errors. Never had that problem for cartridges thankfully but it still gives me anxiety when it doesn’t seem to read the game. The only good physical deal I ever had for a Switch game was because the cover was messed up. Otherwise digital is way cheaper and it saves plastic

I don’t wanna hear anything about “selling a licence to use the game”, digital sales are so much cheaper that it basically undoes the fact that you can’t resell your game (which only matters if you only buy fully priced new releases at all times). Like, I guess that when you go to the movie theater, you pay for the theater but even then you’re still paying to see a movie for one time. When you buy digitally a game that you would have sold afterwards, well who cares that you don’t technically own it, you basically pay for the fraction of a movie ticket and you get to complete the game. You also have the extra covenience of not having to change carts, to worry about physical defects. Meanwhile when you go outside to have fun, you pay for 3-10+ times the price of a digital game on sale for like one evening and that’s not including food. That’s why it’s a non-issue that you can’t resell or not technically own that one overhyped by forums flavor of the month game, you still got it for the cheapest you would have ever got

I hope you don't mind I'm using your post as a springboard for something I've seen a couple times on here, but is it a US thing (unless you're not in the US, in which case, apologies for the assumption) to have way cheaper digital games? I know I saw some people talk about vouchers (which I don't think are a thing here in Europe/Switzerland), but are your digital prices just lower even without that?

I'm curious because here digital pricing follows MSRP (which is set really high - our "base" Switch game price is set to around 70 USD and games like BOTW/TOTK basic edition, no DLC, are around 100 USD), but physical pricing is up to the seller, so most games end up being a 10-30 USD cheaper base price just by buying physical even before you factor in discounts/etc. Obviously if there's a steep discount in the eshop that can make a bigger difference, but that's mostly limited to third party games and isn't that frequent.

I know it's different for a lot of people but I don't really have a clear idea to what extent.

 

[FeiFongWong]

Im also amazed reading the "digital is cheaper" comments. Indies a year or so after the releases date during sales can be dirty cheap, but generally everything costs more on the eshop.

 

[Yoshifan31]

I hope you don't mind I'm using your post as a springboard for something I've seen a couple times on here, but is it a US thing (unless you're not in the US, in which case, apologies for the assumption) to have way cheaper digital games? I know I saw some people talk about vouchers (which I don't think are a thing here in Europe/Switzerland), but are your digital prices just lower even without that?

I'm curious because here digital pricing follows MSRP (which is set really high - our "base" Switch game price is set to around 70 USD and games like BOTW/TOTK basic edition, no DLC, are around 100 USD), but physical pricing is up to the seller, so most games end up being a 10-30 USD cheaper base price just by buying physical even before you factor in discounts/etc. Obviously if there's a steep discount in the eshop that can make a bigger difference, but that's mostly limited to third party games and isn't that frequent.

I know it's different for a lot of people but I don't really have a clear idea to what extent.

Not in the US (Canada here) but you can change regions on Deku Deals and see how much all time low prices out there are for digital games. Digital games do follow MSRP but the amount of times they go on sale just makes them much cheaper. It seems like it doesn’t track physical prices for Switzerland however

I’m pretty sure even then Switzerland follows the standard European eshop sales. I dunno about how much you follow them, or how cheap physical games can be but… you just don’t see physical games on sale for 75% off or more. Those sales are absolutely frequent, every other month you have a major publisher putting their games on sale. I can’t imagine being physical only especially when you consider indies, the physical versions of those are simply more expensive

As for first party games, that 33% off Nintendo sale are pretty much the cheapest you’ll get them aside from very rare exceptions. For example, right now there’s a multiplayer game sale on the NA eshop that includes first party titles, those prices aren’t matched physically by retailers, only digital (usually when they are matched physically it’s because it’s Black Friday or Boxing Day)

 

[meatbag]

but is it a US thing to have way cheaper digital games

Im also amazed reading the "digital is cheaper" comments

Not from the US. Digital is definitely cheaper than physical in my experience. Retailers here maintain high prices because they know there aren’t a lot of console gamers and it’s more profitable to squeeze more money out of those few.

First party Nintendo games never get discounts here, not even the meager 33% off. I’m definitely envious of those Black Friday deals!

(Playstation-side does get discounts though)

 

[Adulfzen]

nah I can still preorder Nintendo games day one for cheaper through online retailers like amazon or fnac rather than buying them through the eshop.

and I don't expect that reality to change with the next gen Nintendo hardware.

Also hopefully since it'll most likely still be cart based, I hope it means you can just play directly from the physical media without any issues which frees up the storage space for the games I do want to buy digital (cheap indie games or multiplayer/online focused games).

 

[Cubs017]

It depends on the game for me. If there is a high probability that I will want to play the game 5-10 years down the line I get a physical copy. This would be for things like Mario, Zelda, or even Kirby games that I might want my kids to play in a few years.

If it's something that I am more likely to dip in and out of regularly and don't want to switch cartridges, I'll get the digital version for things like Mario Kart or Smash. Odds are that I'm not going to be going back to those that often in 5-10 years because there will be a new version out anyway.

I've also been doing a lot of physical purchases for games that I want to play but will probably only go through once - think a massive RPG like Xenoblade. Realistically I'm probably not going to put 75 hours into that game again, so I buy it for $60 or whatever, play through it, and then sell it for around $50 on eBay. It's like a long, inexpensive rental.

Indies and smaller games I don't give a shit, I'll buy the digital version because it's cheaper.

 

[Shakaan]

I already made the move to digital only on consoles a few years ago and i don't intend to look back, so yes.

Physical games were just a waste of space that became a hindrance.

 

[FeiFongWong]

Dunno, I'm following sites with gaming promos and physical is cheaper for me. For example, I ordered Octopath traveler 2 from uk amazon and with shipping it cost me ~151pln (after conversion from gbp). Dekudeals shows that the lowest price for digital was 194,25pln. Those 75% deals are for older games from certain publishers and indies.

It's true that after 2+ years its cheaper to get a digital indie, but personally I preferred to pay x2.5 more for disco elysium just to have a cart.

 

[paranoodle]

Not in the US (Canada here) but you can change regions on Deku Deals and see how much all time low prices out there are for digital games. Digital games do follow MSRP but the amount of times they go on sale just makes them much cheaper. It seems like it doesn’t track physical prices for Switzerland however

I’m pretty sure even then Switzerland follows the standard European eshop sales. I dunno about how much you follow them, or how cheap physical games can be but… you just don’t see physical games on sale for 75% off or more. Those sales are absolutely frequent, every other month you have a major publisher putting their games on sale. I can’t imagine being physical only especially when you consider indies, the physical versions of those are simply more expensive

As for first party games, that 33% off Nintendo sale are pretty much the cheapest you’ll get them aside from very rare exceptions. For example, right now there’s a multiplayer game sale on the NA eshop that includes first party titles, those prices aren’t matched physically by retailers, only physical (usually when they are matched physically it’s because it’s Black Friday or Boxing Day)

That makes sense! There's definitely some bias on my end because since I'm used to physical being cheaper (and I do prefer it to digital in the first place, so that factors in), I tend to keep closer track of physical discounts than digital ones. I'm sure there's some bigger sales I've missed, though I take advantage of them on occasion. Also, I'm not at all a "always day 1" kind of player (basically, only the occasional game I'm really excited for), but physical here makes a way bigger difference for those early purchases since I get to shave off 15-30% of the cost right off the bat.

For indies I frequently go digital just due to availability. If they're available in retail (as opposed to something like LRG) they're still usually cheaper, but most are digital-only outside of limited releases, so I'm happy picking them up like that.

Not from the US. Digital is definitely cheaper than physical in my experience. Retailers here maintain high prices because they know there aren’t a lot of console gamers and it’s more profitable to squeeze more money out of those few.

First party Nintendo games never get discounts here, not even the meager 33% off. I’m definitely envious of those Black Friday deals!

(Playstation-side does get discounts though)

I see! Interesting how much it changes across regions. Here it's the opposite, it's the base digital price that's over-inflated because they know people can't buy from non-official digital stores (for both the eshop and PS store) and the currency difference means we can't access the cheaper EU stores. Whereas retailers are happy to lower their profit margins a little if it means getting more sales (and "stealing" clients from one of the other retailers), and a lot have store-wide discounts that you can also apply to games.

 

[FeiFongWong]

Oh, I forgot about great examples from a week ago. Almost all of the shops in Poland were selling Bayonneta 3/Origins for 85pln ( both digital 249,80) and fire emblem engage 140pln (digital 249,80pln)

 

[Derachi]

I've been all-digital (when I can be, thanks Ring Fit and Labo) for about a decade, and I don't ever see that changing. I totally get why some people prefer physical, but for me, I've already got enough physical stuff in my life (amiibos, action figures, books, DVDs/Blu-Rays, etc) and with games being my Number 1 favourite hobby, going all-physical would be much too space-consuming. Plus, there's something extremely convenient about having my entire games library on one 1TB microSD card at all times. If I wanna play something, I can just boot it up and play it.

Also, Nintendo's Voucher program being back in North America means it's just more economical for me, as I'm gonna buy Nintendo's first party games day 1 anyway, so I might as well get a discount.

 

[meatbag]

Whereas retailers are happy to lower their profit margins a little if it means getting more sales

Yeah at the end of the day, the math just works differently due to regional quirks. Another issue with physical in my country is you don’t get a lot of money from reselling; retailers will shamelessly buy your old games fro 10$ to $20 and sell them back at $40 upwards.

On the bright side, as a couple of my friends would corroborate, if you are a physical kinda guy and you don’t care about the cost, we almost never have problems with store supplies, even with limited editions and such.

 

[paranoodle]

Yeah at the end of the day, the math just works differently due to regional quirks. Another issue with physical in my country is you don’t get a lot of money from reselling; retailers will shamelessly buy your old games fro 10$ to $20 and sell them back at $40 upwards.

On the bright side, as a couple of my friends would corroborate, if you are a physical kinda guy and you don’t care about the cost, we almost never have problems with store supplies, even with limited editions and such.

Ouch yeah, that kind of stings. I don't resell very often, but I do loan games to friends a lot (and borrow games in exchange), so I get a lot out of that at least.

 

[GPKs3]

I’ll always go physical until the industry decides to cut it and go all digital.

 

[edamame]

Well technically speaking, you're not "all digital" if you're storing your games on a physical micro SD card...checkmate digitalists!

But seriously, I'm neither all physical nor all digital and that's how I like it. Why must the two be at war? A game might have some sentimental value or importance to me and so I want that physical version, or there's a game I know I always want on my Switch so I get it digital. Sometimes a physical copy is cheaper than a digital one or vice versa. Preferring one format over the other is fine, but I want to be able to have that choice between the two. I'll continue buying games both ways while it lasts.

 

[Armoured_Bear]

I hope you don't mind I'm using your post as a springboard for something I've seen a couple times on here, but is it a US thing (unless you're not in the US, in which case, apologies for the assumption) to have way cheaper digital games? I know I saw some people talk about vouchers (which I don't think are a thing here in Europe/Switzerland), but are your digital prices just lower even without that?

I'm curious because here digital pricing follows MSRP (which is set really high - our "base" Switch game price is set to around 70 USD and games like BOTW/TOTK basic edition, no DLC, are around 100 USD), but physical pricing is up to the seller, so most games end up being a 10-30 USD cheaper base price just by buying physical even before you factor in discounts/etc. Obviously if there's a steep discount in the eshop that can make a bigger difference, but that's mostly limited to third party games and isn't that frequent.

I know it's different for a lot of people but I don't really have a clear idea to what extent.

I'm a long-term Swiss resident but have my consoles set to UK and buy my games in pounds, works out to be noticeably cheaper with the strong Swiss Franc.

 

[Armoured_Bear]

Well technically speaking, you're not "all digital" if you're storing your games on a physical micro SD card...checkmate digitalists!

But seriously, I'm neither all physical nor all digital and that's how I like it. Why must the two be at war? A game might have some sentimental value or importance to me and so I want that physical version, or there's a game I know I always want on my Switch so I get it digital. Sometimes a physical copy is cheaper than a digital one or vice versa. Preferring one format over the other is fine, but I want to be able to have that choice between the two. I'll continue buying games both ways while it lasts.

Too reasonable.
STFU.

 

[Wockio]

WELP, they just blocked all non-argentinian card transactions from the Argentina eShop. I guess I'm still gonna be a physical chad for the foreseeable future.

 

[Goht]

No, and I'd play a lot fewer current-gen games if they dropped physical support.

I mostly play single-player games and I rarely replay them, so I love finding good deals on physical games and selling them when I'm done. It's almost like a game in itself. I've bought and sold 94 Switch titles for a net cost of just under $150! Although I've also bought 87 digital games for about $450.

I would much rather check out 20-30 small/indie games than one big 100-hour RPG. But no hate for liking other things. Play what you enjoy.

 

[9-Volt]

WELP, they just blocked all non-argentinian card transactions from the Argentina eShop. I guess I'm still gonna be a physical chad for the foreseeable future.

Apparently they blocked ALL outside eShop transactions. Nintendo of my home country, Turkey, appealed this to NoE (they tell customers to use Australia as the region), the distributor will likely pull from the country if they don't change this. The distributor doesn't import any physical games, and if they block Turkish credit cards to any eShop region, they're done for.

 

[Deleted member 1005]

I've been digital only since like... 2012? I just like having all of my games in one spot. Where my game collection once stood, now houses my Lego collection.

Of course i've purchased some physical games in the time since 2012, but I've almost always resold them and purchased them digitally. The only physical games I own now are super old 360 games that don't have digital versions, or have been delisted before I could get my hands on it.

 

[Vito]

I like to own my games so no.

 

[Leo]

For Playstation, yeah. Blu rays just aren't as durable.

For Nintendo, I'll stick with carts because I think it's easier to preserve my library like that.