Lately I've been thinking, maybe a little too much, but thinking nonetheless. For the past few years, I warmed up to the idea of going digital in a pretty big way. It helped alleviate the temptation I often had to sell or trade in games before I was ever finished with them, which often led to me rebuying games and ultimately spending more money than I probably should have on one title. Plus there was the ease of access; digital games are nice because you just boot up the system, and start the game, no disc swapping needed.
Slowly but surely, over the past 3 or 4 years, my purchases of retail games over their respected networks started to increase. PSN was always offering pretty good sales in additional to PS plus, and I was often able to find good deals on Microsoft Points which made buying games on demand titles easy and fairly cheap. On xbox 360, and PS3, I probably own more than 100 games digitally on each platform easily by now. Some smaller games, but at least a 1/3 being a full retail game. Even after I bought my Wii U, I started going heavily. Currently all my games on the Wii U are digital.
My choice to go digital initially wasn't instant; I too still find something appealing about the retail packaging of some games, even though they're more bare bones then ever. I still kinda want that line up of games on my shelf for each platform, and see it slowly grow over time. That's beside the point though.
What brings me to the reason why this thread is here. I still think I have nothing wrong with the idea of having a game digitally, but recently I've been thinking, and it's partially to blame because I linger here on GAF so much reading the threads of doom and gloom in the industry sometimes. What started me getting a little worried is...what's gonna happen when the service for these platforms are shut down? Maybe it won't happen today, or next year, or 3 years from now...but let's focus on PS3 and Xbox 360 first....how much longer do you guys think they're going to see the value in supporting platforms like these if the PS4 and Xbox One continue to be successful? Even if they maintain a modest level of support for years to come, I can't help but think there's gonna be that day where the switch is flipped, and you can't even log in anymore. I still am a little concerned that maybe these platforms WONT be supported for that long, because I look at both Sony and Microsoft, and I don't know if I like their track record for keeping services alive. Microsoft shut down the original Xbox I feel like at a real shitty time, because Halo 2 was still fairly popular. Whereas Sony hasn't really done anything like that yet, because they haven't had a whole platform prior to PS3, but I find it a little shocking still that they have shut down servers for games like Gran Turismo 5 which I feel aren't even that old yet! Yet we got GT6 which just came out, but I don't feel like everyone just up and got that on day one. There may have been plenty of low income fans who got GT5 in the past year.
Now some of you might say "that's so far off before anything like that happens, I wouldn't need to play those games at that point anymore", and that's perfectly fine for some of you, but I still like the idea that I own my games, and if I buy something, and I want to play it today, tomorrow, or 10 years from now...I'd like to be able to, and continue having access to it. I still got my original Nintendo, I still got the commodore 64, and even my parent's old Atari 2600 which is older than me...those games are so old, but because we bought them, we can play them, and pass them on as long as we want. This idea of going digitally and the fact that I can just lose access to my games one day, because some corporation decided to flip a switch is really discouraging, especially from continuing to go digital going forward.
Even if we're not talking about some system that is old and outdated, and past it's prime long in the future. My decision to go so heavily digital on Wii U is really feeling like a mistake because of the poor sales performance of the platform. I love the Wii U, and I love the games on it, but...let's assume doom and gloom for a minute: What if Nintendo can't turn the platform around? What then? What if this time next year, we're looking a situation where supporting the Wii U at all is no longer financially feasible for Nintendo, and they may have to shut that platform down.
Granted, a lot of the things I'm pointing out are extreme, and negative only. These companies might find a work around, or find some way of making it work....who knows. I just know right now, the uncertainty about the digital landscape on all platforms has me a little concerned. What do you guys think, and how do you feel about digital purchases of retail games on consoles?
Slowly but surely, over the past 3 or 4 years, my purchases of retail games over their respected networks started to increase. PSN was always offering pretty good sales in additional to PS plus, and I was often able to find good deals on Microsoft Points which made buying games on demand titles easy and fairly cheap. On xbox 360, and PS3, I probably own more than 100 games digitally on each platform easily by now. Some smaller games, but at least a 1/3 being a full retail game. Even after I bought my Wii U, I started going heavily. Currently all my games on the Wii U are digital.
My choice to go digital initially wasn't instant; I too still find something appealing about the retail packaging of some games, even though they're more bare bones then ever. I still kinda want that line up of games on my shelf for each platform, and see it slowly grow over time. That's beside the point though.
What brings me to the reason why this thread is here. I still think I have nothing wrong with the idea of having a game digitally, but recently I've been thinking, and it's partially to blame because I linger here on GAF so much reading the threads of doom and gloom in the industry sometimes. What started me getting a little worried is...what's gonna happen when the service for these platforms are shut down? Maybe it won't happen today, or next year, or 3 years from now...but let's focus on PS3 and Xbox 360 first....how much longer do you guys think they're going to see the value in supporting platforms like these if the PS4 and Xbox One continue to be successful? Even if they maintain a modest level of support for years to come, I can't help but think there's gonna be that day where the switch is flipped, and you can't even log in anymore. I still am a little concerned that maybe these platforms WONT be supported for that long, because I look at both Sony and Microsoft, and I don't know if I like their track record for keeping services alive. Microsoft shut down the original Xbox I feel like at a real shitty time, because Halo 2 was still fairly popular. Whereas Sony hasn't really done anything like that yet, because they haven't had a whole platform prior to PS3, but I find it a little shocking still that they have shut down servers for games like Gran Turismo 5 which I feel aren't even that old yet! Yet we got GT6 which just came out, but I don't feel like everyone just up and got that on day one. There may have been plenty of low income fans who got GT5 in the past year.
Now some of you might say "that's so far off before anything like that happens, I wouldn't need to play those games at that point anymore", and that's perfectly fine for some of you, but I still like the idea that I own my games, and if I buy something, and I want to play it today, tomorrow, or 10 years from now...I'd like to be able to, and continue having access to it. I still got my original Nintendo, I still got the commodore 64, and even my parent's old Atari 2600 which is older than me...those games are so old, but because we bought them, we can play them, and pass them on as long as we want. This idea of going digitally and the fact that I can just lose access to my games one day, because some corporation decided to flip a switch is really discouraging, especially from continuing to go digital going forward.
Even if we're not talking about some system that is old and outdated, and past it's prime long in the future. My decision to go so heavily digital on Wii U is really feeling like a mistake because of the poor sales performance of the platform. I love the Wii U, and I love the games on it, but...let's assume doom and gloom for a minute: What if Nintendo can't turn the platform around? What then? What if this time next year, we're looking a situation where supporting the Wii U at all is no longer financially feasible for Nintendo, and they may have to shut that platform down.
Granted, a lot of the things I'm pointing out are extreme, and negative only. These companies might find a work around, or find some way of making it work....who knows. I just know right now, the uncertainty about the digital landscape on all platforms has me a little concerned. What do you guys think, and how do you feel about digital purchases of retail games on consoles?
