Retail Vs. PSN Download

shadylane

shadylane

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Hello CAGers,

I've been thinking about going digital for the longest time, and I think this upcoming generation of consoles is the right time to do it. It's going to save a ton of space and most of the games that I play are for collection purposes only. I RARELY sell my games unless I end up with a duplicate (yea I have that big of a library).

My question to you is:

1. Have you thought about it before?

2. What has held you back from doing so?

3. If you decide to (or not)...what is your reason?

P.S. The one thing that really did it for me was Sony's press conference today. The UI was beautiful and extremely responsive. I just hope they have a reliable catalogue search functionality

 
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I already am pretty firmly entrenched into the digital download world. I would say that 75% of my purchases come digitally. I just wish all my hardware came with bigger storage capacity.

 
Mostly retail for me. I don't replay games and I'm not a collector so I lke being able to sell my games to recoup some cost.
 
1.if you have problems with your system and you lose everything u will need need to re-download everything again

2.bigger hard drive I fulled up a 1TB HDD with 40-50 GB Leftover

3.digital prices are higher then retail prices alot of the time but you do get deals
 
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I would love to go fully digital if these factors were realistic:

1. Rock bottom "clearance" style infrastructure on sales. Especially old games.

2. Larger storage is more readily accessible. At this point in time 1TB is the largest drive available for 2.5".

If they can possibly meet these conditions, then I will have no doubt that I would convert, however, remember that PS3 games are ALREADY hitting 30 GB of memory to download and install. No telling how big these games will get.
 
StryderOmega said:
I would love to go fully digital if these factors were realistic:

1. Rock bottom "clearance" style infrastructure on sales. Especially old games.

2. Larger storage is more readily accessible. At this point in time 1TB is the largest drive available for 2.5".

If they can possibly meet these conditions, then I will have no doubt that I would convert, however, remember that PS3 games are ALREADY hitting 30 GB of memory to download and install. No telling how big these games will get.
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Those massive sized games a few and far between, though. Only a handful of them each year. The majority are under 10gb.

 
I completely understand where you guys are coming from, but a few things to keep in mind. 

1. The size of a game won't be an issue. The PS4 will allow you play games after a certain amount of data has been downloaded. 

2. Sony announced that they have different partnerships with internet companies that will provide gamers with 200 megabit connections. I can only imagine how fast our internet will be in the next year or so with these companies and google upping there speeds.

 
shadylane said:
I completely understand where you guys are coming from, but a few things to keep in mind.

1. The size of a game won't be an issue. The PS4 will allow you play games after a certain amount of data has been downloaded.

2. Sony announced that they have different partnerships with internet companies that will provide gamers with 200 megabit connections. I can only imagine how fast our internet will be in the next year or so with these companies and google upping there speeds.
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From my understanding, the game will still be DL/Installing in the background after a certain point. Where this is nice that you can actually start playing after a certain point, you need to remember that it is STILL downloading the full thing in the background. I also expect certain things to be 'locked' while this is in progress. (Most likely Multiplayer - if there is any)

 
Whatever is cheaper.  I am guessing the bigger name AAA games will still be able to be had cheaper on disc for the 1st year or 2 after release, but then again with the extra PS+ discount some newer games have seen pretty good prices not to long after release.

With mandatory PS+ for online gaming, I wonder if PS+ will still offer the great deals they have had for the last couple of years though.

And good point about the limited space on a 2.5" HDD - my 1 TB drive would be full if I downloaded all the PS+ games that have been free that I already played/beat/have on disc.

 
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I'm going digital, I live in Australia and purchasing from the USA PSN store at full price is far cheaper than purchasing a game retail here and its still slightly cheaper than the cost of importing a game from the UK but then I have to wait 2 weeks for it to get here.

 
superhornet75 said:
I'm going digital, I live in Australia and purchasing from the USA PSN store at full price is far cheaper than purchasing a game retail here and its still slightly cheaper than the cost of importing a game from the UK but then I have to wait 2 weeks for it to get here.
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Also no bans for you! Lol
 
StryderOmega said:
Yes that's what I meant, lol.
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It's funny you mentioned that, I was tempted to buy Saints Row IV off us psn just to feel like I'm giving them the *****

Question - do the games go down in price from full rrp on psn at all? I've noticed some have but how long has it taken them to get there? Cause if its like 6-months for a drop thats acceptable to me.

 
It all depends on the deal Sony has with the publisher. I am sure it will go on sale, but no one will know when. I am gonna go on a limb and say there will probably some sort of sale within 6 months.
 
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I only buy games digitally if it's at a HEAVILY discounted price. 99% of the time you can find the retail version of a game much cheaper, especially if it's an older game. But paying the exact same price for a digital game as I would for the retail version? No thanks.

 
I assume this poll only applies to games which have a digital and retail counterpart. Split, A multiplayer focused or party game which I might only play for short spurts between games (such as puzzle games or fighting games), it would be handy to have it digital so that I could boot it up without swapping discs. There were some monster sized downloads this gen and I can only imagine that is going to become more common in next gen so full digital is probably not a practical option.

 
Always retail.  Until the day comes (it probably never will) when they put systems in place to let you sell digital copies I will never make the switch to digital.  The only time I've ever bought retail games digitally is when they were on sale for way less than the current retail prices.

 
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My Best Buy, and other stores, still sells CDs. Don't listen to all those doomsayers "Digital only is coming", it's not. Higher focused? Yes, of course they want to push it.

Sure some PC games are just codes in a box for Steam, but that's only certain games.

 
If the digital price is lower than the retail price, I always go with that.  Digital has huge benefits over retail in terms of convenience, allowing friends to play your games online with you (on PS3 anyway), etc.  All of that usually beats the benefit of having more cases on the shelf to look at.

But I vote for "both," depending on the circumstances.

 
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It's a tough decision for me. I really don't collect or keep many games anymore but like most have said the ability to re-sell is a strong factor. I have converted a lot of my current backlog to digital because either I got it for free on PLUS (allowing me to sell the disc) or I got it at a budget price (allowing me to sell the disc.) I almost bought The Last Of Us digitally but then at the last minute I chickened out because I thought I'd re-sell it once I beat it. It ended up being a game that I've finished but so far I want to keep to replay. I could make the swap to digital but I'd lose out on the deal, so I'll probably wait for a better digital price.

I have a Vita and I started out doing a combination of both physical and digital but as time has gone on I'm almost exclusively digital on the platform now. Currently I have 3 physical games...but once I finish them off they'll go.

As for next gen I'm thinking if I go digital only it will help me keep down on the backlog and be more choosey with what to play....but again if I can get get a game at $60 and make $30-$40 back then why not?

I definitely like the convenience of digital like most people. I plan on doing 1 game at a time next gen so with only 1 game box sitting around I might have to take the physical route if the option is there. If the game is cheap digitally though I won't pass it up either.

 
Retail if at all possible.  With a few exceptions, games on physical media can be played as long as you keep the media functioning and give you ownership rights over your physical copy.  Digital games are incredibly convenient but you're basically paying for a long-term rental.  I like collecting games and gaming-related items just as much as I like playing them; that aspect of the hobby dies with DD.

 
I dunno, I really like the idea of how having a full digital collection and being able to swap games at a press of a button, but like I said previously, the problem lies in the actual hardware compactly atm. 1 TB of space will get filled with the size of these games rather quickly.

Maybe when the PS5 comes out, they will have a master and slave drive set up.
 
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MetalSlugger said:
Retail if at all possible. With a few exceptions, games on physical media can be played as long as you keep the media functioning and give you ownership rights over your physical copy. Digital games are incredibly convenient but you're basically paying for a long-term rental. I like collecting games and gaming-related items just as much as I like playing them; that aspect of the hobby dies with DD.
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I agree with this. I think that some games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, & a few others will be bought in both a retail and digital format. I just think that most of these collector editions are getting out of hand.

 
I greatly prefer retail, as i like having the physical item. I also like the physical item so that i have something to trade or sell when i'm finished with it.

 
I don't hold onto games forever, so having a physical copy to sell or trade when I am done with it is huge. In my experience, the price on PSN is usually more than the price of a physical copy, so it's an easy decision most of the time. I did buy Arkham Asylum a couple months ago for $5 on PSN and they did have other great prices during that sale. If sales like that were more common, I would definitely buy more digital copies of older games. I wouldn't expect them to heavily discount digital copies of newer games, but I think it makes a lot of sense to heavily discount older titles that aren't selling many new copies.

 
As long as there is a retail copy available, I will avoid Digital. The only time I buy digital is if it is dirt cheap (see Steam sales)

 
I would happily go digital if the prices were more competitive and if they could create some sort of 2nd hand digital market for trading and reselling digital games.  Til both those things are true, I'll stick to retail as much as I can.

 
sgand said:
Please don't be so naive. Sure, it's not right around the corner, but digital only is the future.
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Now who is being naive. Digital only is only possible is if disc is going away. Not going to happen. Games are becoming larger all the time, in many parts of the country still high speed internet is an issue and that is in the US. Digital only in all parts of the world forget about it. Publishers would be alienating a large part of their customers. In an era of multiplate form games and less profitbility of console exclusives, that a killer. Another example are soldiers. Alot of soldiers play video games, think they can download everything in the middle east or can a friend/family just mail them the latest and greatest.

Many of these digital games are cheap b/c of the profit margin in distrubution but also b/c the product has been test in other markets ie consoles and know they can sell well at a resonable price or else they will never be put on sale.

Another thing that many have mentioned is the 2nd hand market, that is user defined. Unless pirating and user distrobuting digital games become user defined (which publishers will never allow), Discs will stay.

 
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Discs will stay around.

But they'll probably eventually be like the PC steam install discs, or what MS wanted to do with X1 where they're just install discs that come with a one-time use key to activate.  i.e. just be a way to basically go fully digital without losing the market of people who don't have fast enough internet (or large enough data caps) to be constantly downloading huge game files.

 
As much as I enjoy having a collection to show off; times have changed for me. Now that the 7 year old swaps games when friends are over leaving discs on the table and who knows where else, digital is a lot safer in that regard.  Also, the wife says we had too many video games that we don't play, so I have been "upgrading" to digital copies during sales and such. She never turns the PS3 on in the man cave anyways.  With kids and a nagging wife, digital works for me as my retail collection is dwindling.

 
Nintendo, for me, is the best test for going digital. I buy very little games on the nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems so it's perfect to organize, and see how I interact with a digital library.

They need to do what Sony is doing, which is linking purchases to a username and not the console. Anyway, these guys don't really tend to come out with limited edition version of games and it's easy to keep track off all their games since they do have a small list of 1st party titles.  The 3rd party titles I tend to buy on the PS3

 
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