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Predictions Will Nintendo be moving towards digital only in the future?

Nope, I’m pretty sure physical is still a major player in Nintendo’s game unit sales alongside the fact many parents end up buying physical copies as gifts for their kids and is typically easier to do than buying a digital download code to a game.
 
If they went out of their way to launch Pikmin 1+2 and Metroid Prime Remastered physically, no way they stop making physical game any time soon
 
Old Sorta Fan said:
People who don’t follow online video game websites don’t buy digitally in general. They usually hear about a good game by word of mouth then head to Target/Tesco/Carrefour/Yodobashi Camera and pick it up when they happen to go in there next.

I doubt that Nintendo wants to walk away from those sales.

I also don’t think Nintendo wants to torch their business relationship with retailers.
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What if it's the retailers who want get rid of their physical games section? I feel that would happen before Nintendo pushing to go all digital themselves.
 
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John Omaha said:
What if it's the retailers who would rather get rid of their physical games section?
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Then such customers, who would previously have bought from a supermarket, are probably still more likely to pick it up from the online retailer app on their phone than from the eshop, in the same way many families get their weekly food shop delivered now too. Can’t see Amazon and co stopping selling physical video games any time soon.
 
It likely will happen eventually. It all depends on how technology advances in the years to come.
I don't think the movement to full digital is anywhere as soon as it could end up being with Sony/MS systems. And will at least be a couple generations away at minimum.
 
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Not for a long-ass time

Their physical sales are still really high, and Nintendo, as a company, tends to be pretty set in their ways. It'll take a lot to get them to go all digital.
 
John Omaha said:
What if it's the retailers who want get rid of their physical games section? I feel that would happen before Nintendo pushing to go all digital themselves.
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Why would retailers do that? Video game software has a 33% gross profit margin on almost no square footage. They put up with the large square footage and low margin on hardware to get to the high margin and low square footage on software and accessories. Retailers like boxed video game software.

If you’re referencing Best Buy ending carrying Xbox software, there are two reasons. First, the CEO is mad that Xbox pushes GamePass rather than boxed software so why should she bother wasting precious square footage on a product that its platform holder isn’t behind? Second, the Xbox Series X is now a failed console. Sales cratered last holiday season.

For context, retailers like Target and Best Buy are mad at the movie industry for putting everything up on streaming and de-emphasizing boxed DVD’s and Blu-Ray. DVD’s/Blu-ray had been easy profit makers for them for years. Customers would be in Target for something else and see a Blu-Ray that caught their eye and then that is a quick sale for 33% gross profit. Best Buy as a specially electronics retailer would see hardcore movie fans go to their stores and buy a bunch of Blu-Rays to play on their $4000 home theater equipment (sound familiar?). Now a majority of those fans just sit home and stream as the movie industry let themselves get taken for a ride by the software industry and emphasized streaming.

The retailers want physical games. Good profit margins for them since the early 1980’s.
 
dr4site said:
I'm still a believer in physical media. It's not something I want to happen, but I'm worried it may be inevitable.
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"In the future" is very vague, it won't happen on their next hardware, probably not even the one that follows. Nintendo could be the last platform maker to go full digital. But imo you should stop worrying about that and accept that it may happen. Remember, we don't live forever and we are not taking our collections with us on our final destination.
 
Rampo360 said:
"In the future" is very vague, it won't happen on their next hardware, probably not even the one that follows. Nintendo could be the last platform maker to go full digital. But imo you should stop worrying about that and accept that it may happen. Remember, we don't live forever and we are not taking our collections with us on our final destination.
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Each one of us can only hope that physical doesn’t die in our lifetime. This is one of the situations where you actually have an advantage if you‘re older.
 
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Near-ish future? Nah.

People like the cartridges. They're cute, easy to use and carry around and have a satisfying tactile feel. The smaller boxes are also nice and unintrusive.

DVDs/Blu-rays are way clunkier in comparison, bigger and more fragile. Especially now that you need to install games from the disc.

There will always be people that prefer having physical versions of things. Look at vinyl's resurgence for reference.
 
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ShadowFox08 said:
I think they will late next gen or the gen after that.

It makes sense to 100% digital someday for max profits
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If you cut your gross revenue in half or more and lose access to retailers selling your hardware, will that be max profits? Remember that Nintendo products are placed for the most mainstream possible. They aren't PC games which are positioned for a narrower but more intense demographic.
 
Old Sorta Fan said:
If you cut your gross revenue in half or more and lose access to retailers selling your hardware, will that be max profits? Remember that Nintendo products are placed for the most mainstream possible. They aren't PC games which are positioned for a narrower but more intense demographic.
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Yes, but they will do it gradually. And retailers like best buy are already on their way with Xbox and Sony games.

if we're talking about revenue, how much is nintendo getting for physical copies? Publishing costs for a cart and case, shipping costs, and money given to retail stores... Not much.

Carts are even more expensive than discs, but despite the high attachment rate for physical right now for nintendo games, again this is where its leading to. Could take a whole generation.
 
fourfourfun said:
Depends on game size and cart cost. At some point it won’t be practical.
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Depends also how much the suppliers will want to play ball. I can see Nintendo using this digital trend as an excuse to strong arm for cheaper cards. (On their end. No I don't think they'll make their games cheaper.)
 
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ShadowFox08 said:
Yes, but they will do it gradually. And retailers like best buy are already on their way with Xbox and Sony games.

if we're talking about revenue, how much is nintendo getting for physical copies? Publishing costs for a cart and case, shipping costs, and money given to retail stores... Not much.

Carts are even more expensive than discs, but despite the high attachment rate for physical right now for nintendo games, again this is where its leading to. Could take a whole generation.
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If we are talking revenue then physical is helping Nintendo reach historic heights. I’m finding this argument very strange since it makes up ~50% of their total software distribution. Digital would have to do a lot heavy lifting to make up for the loss of physical.

And, unless something drastically changes in multiple markets for Nintendo, including emerging markets, then it will probably take more then one generation, if ever depending on how they wanna play it.
 
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At some point yes, maybe even after Switch 2. Piracy will likely be the main reason to push them into it. If it were about convenience/money (lack of manufacturing costs, shipping, splits with retailers) then I feel the Switch 2 would have started it.
 
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I'm expecting the Switch 2 to be still receiving physical copies into the mid 2030's but I don't think the console after launching in 2032/33 will have physical support.
 
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This is already happening. Not perfect data, but if I look here, it appears that only about 19% of games get a physical release.

There's some math attached to that. What does a cartridge cost to manufacture and what percentage of manufactured cartridges need to be sold to break even? How many copies won't they sell if they only have a digital release?

Also, the manufacturing is an up front cost.

I suspect only the games expected to sell really well will get a physical release. I think Nintendo continues to support a cartridge slot until they have a reason to break backwards compatibility anyway. I could speculate at reasons they would, but that's beyond the scope of this answer.

EDIT:

To add to what I said above, a blu-ray drive is expensive and problematic compared to a cartridge slot. A cartridge slot has all it's costs in developing the electrical interface and sealing the slot against dust intrusion. The silicon cost is probably negligible. If I'm just looking at pcpartpicker (not by any means authoritative, just a ballpark) a bottom end blu-ray reader is about $70. Best Buy shows about the same for a bottom end player. The cost is flipped for media. A blu-ray disk and packaging is probably under $2. A cartridge is linked to the capacity of the cartridge, but it's probably going to be above $10 in any case. Someone else can fill in if they have better numbers.

Sony and MS have an incentive to drop their blu-ray drives in the cost to manufacture. Publishers have incentive to stop selling on physical media in the cost of media. Nintendo doesn't have an incentive to drop the slot, but may start picking and choosing which games they publish get physical releases.
 
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I just think shutting down a revenue stream and replacing it with nothing is an incredibly stupid idea

it’s not exactly the same but in the movie/music industry it’s pretty clear how death of physical media sales has actually significantly hurt everybody. There’s no money in streaming and there’s no second chances movie gets saved with DVD/Blu-ray sales like the Matrix or countless others did.

Like the fact that customers are still willing and very much want to buy physical copies of games unlike other mediums is something they should encourage for as long as the market is willing to rather than self destruct it because reasons
 
Soul Skater said:
I just think shutting down a revenue stream and replacing it with nothing is an incredibly stupid idea

it’s not exactly the same but in the movie industry it’s pretty clear how death of physical media sales has actually significantly hurt everybody. There’s no money in streaming and there’s no second chances movie gets saved with DVD/Blu-ray sales like the Matrix or countless others did.

Like the fact that customers are still willing and very much want to buy physical copies of games unlike other mediums is something they should encourage for as long as the market is willing to rather than self destruct it because reasons
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I don't want to buy physical copies of games. I think we had a poll about this. I don't know that we're a good sample. Does Microsoft have trouble selling games for the Series S?

I'll concede that media is probably still important in some markets, but I don't think it's true for all markets.

EDIT: No poll. This seems like an oversight. I'll create one.

EDIT 2: Here's a poll https://famiboards.com/threads/do-you-prefer-to-buy-you-games-physically-or-digitally.9228/
 
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bmfrosty said:
I don't want to buy physical copies of games. I think we had a poll about this. I don't know that we're a good sample. Does Microsoft have trouble selling games for the Series S?

I'll concede that media is probably still important in some markets, but I don't think it's true for all markets.

EDIT: No poll. This seems like an oversight. I'll create one.
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i mean that’s fine, but physical games still sell. Them existing doesn’t inhibit your ability to just download everything digitally whatso ever. So my point being why intentionally accelerate a digital only future when there’s still a massive chunk of the market that does want physical. Why shut down a revenue stream that makes money and replace with nothing hoping it just translates all your profits to the place you want it. Like I said also, in other mediums that hope didn’t exactly pan out like they thought it would.
 
Soul Skater said:
i mean that’s fine, but physical games still sell. Them existing doesn’t inhibit your ability to just download everything digitally whatso ever. So my point being why intentionally accelerate a digital only future when there’s still a massive chunk of the market that does want physical. Why shut down a revenue stream that makes money and replace with nothing hoping it just translates all your profits to the place you want it. Like I said also, in other mediums that hope didn’t exactly pan out like they thought it would.
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Money is the reason. If Nintendo is the retailer, that's 30% that they make that the retailer doesn't. The math just has to make sense. I posted a bit more in my post here.

This isn't streaming. Only Microsoft is trying the equivalent for streaming with their gamepass. Otherwise it's full price games, but the revenue split is different.
 
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