Best Buy is Exiting the Physical Media Business in 2024 (Online and In-Store)

physical has been dying, this is just another step. target, walmart, gamestop have all reduced their gaming sections/offerings. the trend only goes down and down. physical video games will be mostly dead in 5 years, 100% in 8 years.
 
Doom85 said:
Permanent ownership is kind of a nice thing to have, given by now we know streaming services are not guaranteed to keep all their series, games can be permanently delisted, etc. Nobody "needs" physical media (ignoring the fact digital isn't "needed" either, it's not air or water or something like that ), but let's not pretend this is something that should be celebrated.
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This. I wanted to play alpha protocol and mk9 when I got my steam deck. So I went to check steam. Here they had them but they got removed. Guess what the CD key is over $80 to buy from resellers. Wasn't doing it. My copy of never winter nights 2 I have on steam but it's no longer for sale on the store. This type of bullshit is what we will have. That and them being able to jack up thr prices as less competition. Don't worry though game pass will make it so you own nothing but will be happy.... (as all the log swalling ms shills here say)

I've gone out of my way to buy up physical disks on old ps2 and wii games before they are even harder to find. I buy dvds and bluerays (yes dvds I have 1080p TVs and am not picky) of all the classics. Why because they keep fragmenting streaming. I refuse to have more than 2 streamin services. I like having ownership. That also solves the issue of censorhip or taking things out of old films that are "problematic".

Physical is the way to go. Look what happened to psp and 3ds when Nintendo pulled the store. All those digital games gone. Screw that future.
 
That sucks, I have a best buy right where I work and that's usually where I went to purchase my physical games. I guess I'll have to go back to Amazon :(
 
I haven't stepped in a best buy in ages. Last time I did they barely had any physical stuff anyway.

The only surprising thing here is that they might ditch online sales, too. It makes sense to remove physical stuff from the store floor since loads of business is done online now.
 
March Climber said:
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If this scenario materializes and the Series X refresh, its successor, and PS6 are all digital only, I can't imagine this will help them very much. If Nintendo is the only one with physical copies at that point, they'll have much more shelf space in stores. There's no way MS and Sony can benefit from this.

The all digital future will happen of course, but the first to abandon physical media will suffer from it a little bit.
 
clem84 said:
There's no way MS and Sony can benefit from this.

The all digital future will happen of course, but the first to abandon physical media will suffer from it a little bit.
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Nintendo will have a store monopoly not seen since the NES days and Valve will continue to dominate the digital space considering both of their games wind up on Steam eventually these days.
 
clem84 said:
If Nintendo is the only one with physical copies at that point, they'll have much more shelf space in stores.
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AREYOUOKAY? said:
Nintendo will have a store monopoly not seen since the NES days
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Uh guys…they already did.


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They've had a bigger space in every store I've been to since the switch first came out last gen/this gen, than their competitors.

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This includes having way more demo units available than their competition as well and usually a giant Mario and Luigi cardboard or plastic display so kids can see it aisles away, along with having their toys prominently displayed either at the adjacent aisle or the aisle across from the amiibos.

Nintendo has already won the war of the store aisles, and they also cornered the toy market as well to bolster their victory.

Edit: Literally for Nintendo to be considered an all time triple threat, all they would have to do is re-enter the graphics race.
 
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Cyberpunkd said:
I bought Metroid Dread yesterday for 28€, it is 60€ digital. I can buy Mario Party for 25€, it is 60€ digital.
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Is that good for the stores selling these titles? It means they make like no money at all on these transactions, and the games are sold at those prices because no one's buying them.

So why would a physical store want to carry any video games at all?
 
Goalus said:
Is that good for the stores selling these titles? It means they make like no money at all on these transactions, and the games are sold at those prices because no one's buying them.

So why would a physical store want to carry any video games at all?
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With physical sale a store will still get the cut, with digital all is going to the platform holder or developer. Stores should be pushing for more, not less physical. Unless I'm missing anything Best Buy is making themselves obsolete.

Now you can make a case this has simply too little profit margin for them, that's fine, then it's understandable they want to make space for other products.
 
digoutyoursoul said:
What happened to options? Not keen on this push for digital.
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People opted out of buying physical. There were options and people chose one. If Best Buy were selling loads of games, films and CDs they would be happy to continue doing so. There's not much in it for them when people buy films from Amazon Prime, get music from Spotify and Games direct from a console's store, if the business were viable, they would be continuing. If it works like supermarkets work then they'll be continually assessing how much profit they can get from different aisles and shelves and I can only assume physical media isn't making the grade, so they'll substitute it for something else.
 
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cash_longfellow said:
Yep, God forbid people have to work somewhere to support their families…regardless of where it is.
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I think we ought to be thinking about things like this from time to time. "Buy local" is becoming "buy in giant warehouse size stores with national distribution networks." As smaller businesses disappear and what's considered a small business gets bigger and bigger.

I've had really good experiences with Amazon, but I try to buy elsewhere if I can. If a product is the same price in two places, then I think it's a good idea to spend your money in the place where an individual is more likely to benefit from your money, or employs locally, or is less likely to create a monopoly. You likely won't change the world, but you might keep someone fed or employed by taking a moment.
 
Mr Reasonable said:
I think we ought to be thinking about things like this from time to time. "Buy local" is becoming "buy in giant warehouse size stores with national distribution networks." As smaller businesses disappear and what's considered a small business gets bigger and bigger.

I've had really good experiences with Amazon, but I try to buy elsewhere if I can. If a product is the same price in two places, then I think it's a good idea to spend your money in the place where an individual is more likely to benefit from your money, or employs locally, or is less likely to create a monopoly. You likely won't change the world, but you might keep someone fed or employed by taking a moment.
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This is a very good post and I absolutely agree with you. I usually have about 10% price threshold for local. So even if Amazon or whatever is 10% or more cheaper, I try to buy in a local store.

It's important to have at least some sort of a local outlet for retail sales.
 
Dthomp said:
They have an ecosystem where they can get keys cheap and buy from multiple PC storefronts (Steam, Epic, whatever)
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There's also the fact that GOG exists and Steam itself also has a selection of games with no DRM, not even Steam DRM. And the fact that if Steam ever got bad enough you can crack the files.

Console players have no such option especially Xbox players since Xbox's OS is the most secure and difficult to jailbreak. Like PC works better with digital only because of its nature, its not perfect but we have control. Advocating for such a future on consoles can only lead to disaster. Hell I myself would rather have PC get physical back more than anything.
 
Guess Gamestop is fucked then too lol. If they're the only ones left, I don't see them being the sole place for physical game media. No more used game sales either.
Episode 2 Whatever GIF
 
Physical games suck anyway. You get some flimsy plastic case with no instruction manual or anything. You still have to install the game and download patches.

It used to feel really special to have a physical game that was completely contained on the cartridge and came with a manual/artwork and a nice case. Those days are long gone. Now it feels like some cheap annoyance.

Literally the only advantage to physical games is that you can sell and trade them.
 
You've got to wonder what they will stock in the place of the movies.

I'm sure it all comes down to the numbers, maybe these things represented a net loss because of the bargain binning that happens if something gets overstocked. 🤷‍♂️
 
Kokoloko85 said:
Are they making much money off selling digital for these platforms?

Imagine the platforms choose to be the only place online to purchase games, these stores are crippling themselves in the longterm.
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it is very likely ps6 will be digital only and ps5 pro may be just 1 console thats digital but with the option of adding a physical discdrive seperately
 
I can't shake the feeling that removing physical media will accelerate the demise of brick and mortar stores. On the other hand, I can't shake the feeling that they wouldn't do this unless it was becoming financially futile for them to continue selling physical media. I think I'm basically feeling nostalgic over something I don't really do any more (buy physical media) but still enjoy browsing when I go into a retailer.
 
LordBlodgett said:
We do not need physical media anymore in the west, there just aren't enough benefits.
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About 15-20% of the US still doesn't have access to high speed internet. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/millions-lack-broadband-access/#:~:text=Currently, some 42 million Americans,of at least 3 Mbps.

There are many in especially rural areas that just don't have the bandwidth to want to be downloading 200+ gb games. Much of the country still has 20-30 mbps service. We're talking almost an entire day to download a single game if they don't want to do anything else with their bandwidth like watch a movie, or work, or play games while waiting for their game.

I appreciate the flexibility of having the option to choose between digital and physical myself and typically buy whichever is cheapest, but for many people it's just not a valid option.
 
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I'm more disappointed about this from a TV/movies standpoint. Streaming keeps going up in price. Content gets pulled and is becoming increasingly fragmented. I can buy what I want physically and watch it whenever and dump the physical media and create a home media server if I want to stream it.

I'll probably be stocking up in blu rays and DVD this holiday season.
 
I have friends that met working at Best Buy together and got married.

can I still get some amiibos there?
 
Kokoloko85 said:
Are they making much money off selling digital for these platforms?

Imagine the platforms choose to be the only place online to purchase games, these stores are crippling themselves in the longterm.
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So you're saying stores should keep managing inventory and dedicating shelf space to a product that's has poor profit margin and is declining in demand…. just as a check against Sony/MS/Nintendo hypothetically discontinuing sale of digital download codes in the future?

Sorry but this seems like a pretty big stretch. Not sure what the profit margin is on digital download cards but it can't be very high. The nice thing about those cards is they're extremely cheap to produce and they have 0 value until someone pays for it, so nobody loses anything if they get lost/stolen/overproduced/overstocked.

Basically they exist because they're a low-cost, low-risk proposition for all involved. Platform holders have little to gain by ending it and even in the unlikely event they tried to end it, retailers aren't going to take any big risks/losses as some long-term gambit to prevent that.
 
clem84 said:
If this scenario materializes and the Series X refresh, its successor, and PS6 are all digital only, I can't imagine this will help them very much. If Nintendo is the only one with physical copies at that point, they'll have much more shelf space in stores. There's no way MS and Sony can benefit from this.

The all digital future will happen of course, but the first to abandon physical media will suffer from it a little bit.
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Why do people want to believe Sony will follow MS to a digital-only future, when only one of them is doing that now?
 
64bitmodels said:
there are rural parts of the west where internet is terrible and you need physical media to get by without breaking your data cap
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Sethbacca said:
About 15-20% of the US still doesn't have access to high speed internet. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/millions-lack-broadband-access/#:~:text=Currently, some 42 million Americans,of at least 3 Mbps.

There are many in especially rural areas that just don't have the bandwidth to want to be downloading 200+ gb games. Much of the country still has 20-30 mbps service. We're talking almost an entire day to download a single game if they don't want to do anything else with their bandwidth like watch a movie, or work, or play games while waiting for their game.

I appreciate the flexibility of having the option to choose between digital and physical myself and typically buy whichever is cheapest, but for many people it's just not a valid option.
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I definitely agree. I grew up in Eastern Oregon and my grandmother and Uncle were rocking DSL as recently as last year. But they also don't have a Best Buy within 150 miles, or a Target, or a Gamestop ( there might be a Gamestop in Pendleton or Baker, so maybe 60 miles away) so all the cutting back by these companies which focus on denser population areas where the internet is awesome is absolutely to be expected. the Walmart in my hometown, on the other hand, still has a HUGE selection of physical media (including CDs!). But better internet is inevitable. My grandmother lives on the outskirts (she has a 3 mile long driveway up a dirt and rock road) of a small town named Cove, OR, population 598 last time their sign was updated. She just got fiber internet through the town co-op. She can now stream easily. My Uncle got off DSL last fall when Charter cable finally became available in his neighborhood and he is rocking 60Mbps download now. Even the rural areas are changing, and this slow march away from physical is happening whether you like it or not.
 
Honestly, it's way more concerning for movies than for gaming. Gaming and music both have viable digital alternatives that, while there are some pros and cons, gets you a product that's the same quality or better than what you could get physically.

Movies? No. Streaming still kind of sucks in terms of video and audio quality, and you can't buy and download anything. A proper ecosystem for this stuff never formed for movies. So when Best Buy and a few other heavy hitters kick physical movies to the curb? That becomes a huge domino. I don't like it.
 
I need to sell my old physical xbox 360 games that are not backwards compatible.
I need the space for more One Piece volumes. This series is never going to end is it.
 
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