Hence why nobody should ever buy the digital-only edition of a console. You buy like one used game and make the money back. Then, you can sell that game once you’re done and turn a profit over digital-only.
I still remember when AAA games where $30 and that cost included the disk and case, sure inflation is a thing but with digital only these games still should be cheaper, not the same or more expensive than a physical copy.
For the longest time, they couldn’t undercut physical MSRP with digital MSRP because they didn’t want to upset Walmart and have them stop stocking their wares.
I started buying games after buying myself an OG play station. Even back then, I remember $40 and even $50 MSRP game prices. Their greatest hits line was discounted to $20. Final Fantasy 7, which remains an all time favorite of mine, was $50 at launch.
Their greatest hits line was generally priced at $20, which offered a way of discounting games after launch. IMO man games in Steam follow a similar pricing strategy these days - high launch prices with discounts later.
Note that I’m not advocating for the digital only model. Not being able to sell your games again is super lame.
Honestly? It’s been probably a decade-and-a-half since the last time I bought a physical game, and I don’t exactly miss it. I lived through the era of having cubic metres of space taken up by discs and boxes of games that you finished once but don’t really want to get rid of since you liked them and might want to revisit them. I lived through scratched discs and reading errors crashing the game mid session or preventing installation altogether. Having a digital games library is just magnitudes more convenient in practice, and I don’t mind paying for that. Especially since I buy 90% of my games on big GOG/Steam sales anyway.
Sure, but this is specifically about consoles. They don’t have the same open market that PC digital games have so the only way to not be price gouged is buying physical.
Bluray is extremely scratch resistant. I’m sure there are extreme cases, but scratched disks haven’t been a problem for 15+ years.
PC games don’t have an open market in the way you think.
The reason digital console games are more expensive than physical is precisely because physical console games are still a thing. Digital prices are kept high to not piss off the physical stores. If digital was cheaper then the brick and mortar stores would sell way less games. Shelf space in stores is limited and if they don’t sell enough games they rather use that space for something more profitable. As such, lowering digital prices would effectively end physical game sales.
Once you take physical sales out of the equation digital prices will drop. The fact digital PC games are so much cheaper proves this.
Why would Sony care about GameStop’s share price? Physical stores already are using the shelf space for more profitable things. GameStop’s shelf space is like 90% not-games now, plus they’re closing down tons of physical locations to focus on online sales.
Physical games still exist because they’d lose too many sales if they exclusively sold digital games. Otherwise, they’d happily stop selling physical games since they make less money for every physical game sold. Money gained from digital-only sales is less than money lost from pissed off customers not buying your console or games at all, so they keep physical games.
PC is not cheaper because there are no physical games, lol. How would less options and less competition lower prices? PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers. This article is literally about Sony restricting digital sales to their own store so they can have a monopoly and artificially raise prices.
PC is not cheaper because there are no physical games, lol. How would less options and less competition lower prices? PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers.
Exactly. That’s why I personally don’t mind buying digital games on PC, because the PC is an open platform. If Valve decides to drop the ball and sell every game for double the price or something, I can still get and copy games via other means on my Steam Deck. If Sony decides they double the price, you’re out of luck.
Exactly. That’s why I personally don’t mind buying digital games on PC, because the PC is an open platform. If Valve decides to drop the ball and sell every game for double the price or something, I can still get and copy games via other means on my Steam Deck
That’s not how it works at all. Valve doesn’t set the prices in their store, the publishers do. Valve just takes a cut of whatever the publisher decides to charge. If a publisher for a game decides to double the price for a game, why would they do so only on Steam and not on every other store that game is sold?
It was just an example. If they only allow publishers to publish racing games from now on or whatever, you have a choice to run other software on your hardware. A console is locked down, it’s a brick if the manufacturer want it to be.
From the perspective of a PC owner you sound like you are stuck in the 90s or early 2000s, back when you needed extra shelf space for physical game boxes at home.
Lmao. I primarily game on PC. I own hundreds of digital games. Even with it’s superior sales and open market, PC struggles to beat buying a used game from marketplace or ebay.
Also, are you seriously dissing physical media? The benefits of actually owning something cannot be overstated. Even with Steam, you’re technically just buying a revokable license to play a game. Physical media can not be revoked, it can be resold/shared, and it works offline. See: the recent PSN outage where people were locked out of their digital games for a few days.
Plus, having a physical collection is just plain fuckin cool.
Hence why nobody should ever buy the digital-only edition of a console. You buy like one used game and make the money back. Then, you can sell that game once you’re done and turn a profit over digital-only.
I still remember when AAA games where $30 and that cost included the disk and case, sure inflation is a thing but with digital only these games still should be cheaper, not the same or more expensive than a physical copy.
For the longest time, they couldn’t undercut physical MSRP with digital MSRP because they didn’t want to upset Walmart and have them stop stocking their wares.
I started buying games after buying myself an OG play station. Even back then, I remember $40 and even $50 MSRP game prices. Their greatest hits line was discounted to $20. Final Fantasy 7, which remains an all time favorite of mine, was $50 at launch.
Their greatest hits line was generally priced at $20, which offered a way of discounting games after launch. IMO man games in Steam follow a similar pricing strategy these days - high launch prices with discounts later.
Note that I’m not advocating for the digital only model. Not being able to sell your games again is super lame.
Honestly? It’s been probably a decade-and-a-half since the last time I bought a physical game, and I don’t exactly miss it. I lived through the era of having cubic metres of space taken up by discs and boxes of games that you finished once but don’t really want to get rid of since you liked them and might want to revisit them. I lived through scratched discs and reading errors crashing the game mid session or preventing installation altogether. Having a digital games library is just magnitudes more convenient in practice, and I don’t mind paying for that. Especially since I buy 90% of my games on big GOG/Steam sales anyway.
Sure, but this is specifically about consoles. They don’t have the same open market that PC digital games have so the only way to not be price gouged is buying physical.
Bluray is extremely scratch resistant. I’m sure there are extreme cases, but scratched disks haven’t been a problem for 15+ years.
PC games don’t have an open market in the way you think.
The reason digital console games are more expensive than physical is precisely because physical console games are still a thing. Digital prices are kept high to not piss off the physical stores. If digital was cheaper then the brick and mortar stores would sell way less games. Shelf space in stores is limited and if they don’t sell enough games they rather use that space for something more profitable. As such, lowering digital prices would effectively end physical game sales.
Once you take physical sales out of the equation digital prices will drop. The fact digital PC games are so much cheaper proves this.
You don’t really believe that, do you? Why would a for-profit company would ever lower the prices if it wasn’t absolutely necessary?
You don’t have to believe me, just look at the price for PC games which are already digital-only.
I bought resident evil code in the box PC because it was cheaper that directly on steam.
Why would Sony care about GameStop’s share price? Physical stores already are using the shelf space for more profitable things. GameStop’s shelf space is like 90% not-games now, plus they’re closing down tons of physical locations to focus on online sales.
Physical games still exist because they’d lose too many sales if they exclusively sold digital games. Otherwise, they’d happily stop selling physical games since they make less money for every physical game sold. Money gained from digital-only sales is less than money lost from pissed off customers not buying your console or games at all, so they keep physical games.
PC is not cheaper because there are no physical games, lol. How would less options and less competition lower prices? PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers. This article is literally about Sony restricting digital sales to their own store so they can have a monopoly and artificially raise prices.
Exactly. That’s why I personally don’t mind buying digital games on PC, because the PC is an open platform. If Valve decides to drop the ball and sell every game for double the price or something, I can still get and copy games via other means on my Steam Deck. If Sony decides they double the price, you’re out of luck.
That’s not how it works at all. Valve doesn’t set the prices in their store, the publishers do. Valve just takes a cut of whatever the publisher decides to charge. If a publisher for a game decides to double the price for a game, why would they do so only on Steam and not on every other store that game is sold?
It was just an example. If they only allow publishers to publish racing games from now on or whatever, you have a choice to run other software on your hardware. A console is locked down, it’s a brick if the manufacturer want it to be.
From the perspective of a PC owner you sound like you are stuck in the 90s or early 2000s, back when you needed extra shelf space for physical game boxes at home.
Lmao. I primarily game on PC. I own hundreds of digital games. Even with it’s superior sales and open market, PC struggles to beat buying a used game from marketplace or ebay.
Also, are you seriously dissing physical media? The benefits of actually owning something cannot be overstated. Even with Steam, you’re technically just buying a revokable license to play a game. Physical media can not be revoked, it can be resold/shared, and it works offline. See: the recent PSN outage where people were locked out of their digital games for a few days.
Plus, having a physical collection is just plain fuckin cool.
With physical media you are also just buying a license.
Blatantly incorrect
I bought a digital-only PS5 because I know I will never buy a physical game. I bought a handful of physical games for my PS4 and I still regret it.
I gladly trade time and convenience for a little extra money.
Won’t be “little” for long.
Isn’t “little” even now unless you always buy day one.