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[GoldenEye98]

I still don’t get your point.

How can we get the most out of games today, and what steps can we take to build a better future for our hobby?

What is the best and most sustainable way for players to pursue their gaming hobby today?

There's no use in mourning the past, and looking toward a digital future where one provider holds a monopoly with their own shop is something I strongly dislike.

I not against physical media though I think it needs a rethink.

I'd like to see a universal premium physical format that allows the game to played directly off the physical media again. Has fast read speeds and probably have updates downloaded and written to it. Yeah I know that's technically tricky in terms of piracy...

Maybe it is only sold as a "collectors edition" sort of price.

 

[mckmas8808]

It is probably about 10% more to physical sales

The end of the year, which has not yet been reached, is likely more favorable for physical sales. It also depends on which titles are released throughout the year. According to gamesindustry, this year simply did not have the volume of AAA & AA single-player games that would sell well physically in 2023.

Nevertheless, it seems that physical games still make up about a third of the market, which, while far from being "dead," is nonetheless concerning if this trend continues.

IMO, digital buyers are ultimately making a mistake by exchanging that final piece of freedom in deciding where and under what conditions to buy a game for convenience. Competition is good and invigorates the market, even within the same system. If a provider holds a complete monopoly over their distributed media and consumers have no other option but to "purchase" them in the provider's own store, the provider can do whatever they want.

And Sony wants to get to this point

Maybe because there is a lot of only digital games, physical games are limited in stock and used games don't count towards sales?

When you look at the split from Insomniac's leak, it's ~60% physical for 1st party titles. Yes, a lot of people still "I need me disk drive"

They don't care about this clear obvious data. Some here just want to kill physical media.

 

[mckmas8808]

Let’s not kid ourselves. This is the way to jack up the price, not lower it. Sony can sell digital console versions for same price or higher vs disk ones came before (way higher in case of Pro) AND charge extra for the drive and even cheap to make stand.

They are basically brazenly bumping up margins while driving customers to locked down and more profitable digital only store.

It boggles my mind that people are happy to accept this but it is what it is.

Personally I suspect I will be Switch 2 / PC customer in the future while keeping my PS5/XSX for older games.

And yes, while PC is digital, the gaming market there is completely different vs locked down console stores.

You do know Nintendo also "bumps up" the price of their 1st party games when they are out for more than a year. They also do that to drive up profit margins. This is a business at the end of the day. Nvidia does the EXACT same thing!

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I not against physical media though I think it needs a rethink.

I'd like to see a universal premium physical format that allows the game to played directly off the physical media again. Has fast read speeds and probably have updates downloaded and written to it. Yeah I know that's technically tricky in terms of piracy...

Maybe it is only sold as a "collectors edition" sort of price.

Do some googling of data transfer speeds and I think you'll be disappointed.

 

[Brucey]

They don't care about this clear obvious data. Some here just want to kill physical media.

Interesting with ratchet and clank at 76% physical and sackboy at 77%. Both fun and easy to share in physical form, why lock it into a single console digitally?