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Topic: Pros & cons of digital downloads vs physical media.

Posts 21 to 40 of 52

Hawkstream

So they were talking about this on IGN NVC and I agree with what they said. I have been buying physical games as much as possible but I now regret it for some. For games like Zelda it makes a lot of sense to have the physical because that is a game that you usually sit down and play for a long stretch of time. But for games like MK 8 and Spaltoon 2 its better to have the digital because those are games where its nice to pop in for a few races / battles here and there and its nice not to have to find and fumble around with the cartridges.

I now wish I would have bought MK8 and Spatoon 2 digital and will consider this with future purchases.

Hawkstream

Samus7Killer

If there's a physical version avail, go with that. Especially when dealing with nintendo, cause they force you to call them and beg for your digitals back if you dont have your original console. I had a Nintendo system stolen and another burn in a fire. I had to beg nintendo for these games back. Such a junky conservative out of touch policy nintendo has.

Samus7Killer

Hawkstream

@Samus7Killer But I keep my Switch and games in the same place and that means the physical games would have been stolen or burned with the Switch and in that case I would never get them back. At least you did get them after begging so the win still goes to digital.

Hawkstream

Samus7Killer

I also just prefer a shelf full of games to display. Plus i have the BBGC discount and rewards and never pay full price while earning cash for more games.

Edited on by Samus7Killer

Samus7Killer

gildahl

If you had asked me before I bought the Switch, I would have said physical. Especially for AAA games. As evidence, I purchased physical copies of Zelda and MK8 when I finally did purchase a Switch. That's changed though. With about 10 digital games on the console now, I find that having to carry and swap carts slightly mars the completely self-contained nature of the console. A lot of times I'll go into the menu to pick a game on a whim with no particular preference. In such cases as long as Zelda is plugged in I won't play much MK and as long as MK is plugged in I won't play much Zelda. All the digital downloads, however, get about even play time. It's not laziness as much as path of least resistance winning when all else is equal. As a compromise I think a cool enhancement would be for Nintendo to offer a multi-cart case that could be plugged into the dock's usb port for full-time access to all carts in the case, or pulled out to carry around.

gildahl

spizzamarozzi

I find it comical how many people mention "storage space" as the reason not to go physical.
At the end of the Switch lifespan, you'll probably be able to fit an entire collection of physical Switch games inside a single shoebox. Unless you live in the doll house, it's a non-problem.

The games themselves are as big as a stamp and light as a coin, and most carrying cases come with pockets to carry the games aswell.

Digital games are always way more expensive, you can't resell them nor you can buy them 2nd hand, you can't lend/borrow them and you need to invest more money on SD Cards to store them (an expense that has 0% ludic value) - money that could be spent on more games or something else.
In a few years hackers will find a way to dump Switch roms onto the internet, making digital purchases as valuable as .roms illegaly downloaded from a russian website.

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

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Hawkstream

@spizzamarozzi Even if the games were the size of a pin head the fact that you can only have 1 in at a time and have to carry them around and remove and insert them is highly inconvenient and ruins the fluidity of the device. And saying physical is "always" cheaper is certainly not true. Take a look at a site like cdkey.com and look at the older Nintendo platforms, many of the digital codes are less than what you could by the game for at Gamestop or eBay. That's only true now for Switch because its new and even then you are only saving a few dollars at best.

Hawkstream

spizzamarozzi

@Hawkstream a device itself has no "fluidity". It's just you that like to do game surfing and zap from game to game, playing five minutes of this and five minutes of that. If that's the way you use your device, fair enough, but to most people the 2-second-act of swapping cartridges is not a problem, especially if makes the games substantially cheaper, resellable, lendable, borrowable, returnable etc etc etc.

As for prices, I took a look at cdkey.com for older Nintendo platforms such as the WiiU. That's the result when comparing them to a Amazon in Europe:

Xenoblade Chronicles X - €46.79 (digital) vs €30.40 (physical)
Star Fox Zero - €41.19 (digital) vs €28.77 (physical)
Bayonetta 2 - €33.39 (digital) vs €26.90 (physical)
Zelda Wind Waker - €44.59 (digital) vs €17.00 (physical)

these are just some examples, but nearly every single game I checked was substantially cheaper physically than digitally on either Amazon or Ebay brand new. You are basically paying digital a good 30% more to have much less. And if you want to go second hand, the price gap becomes ridiculous.

Top-10 games I played in 2017: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (WiiU) - Rogue Legacy (PS3) - Fallout 3 (PS3) - Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - Guns of Boom (MP) - Sky Force Reloaded (MP) - ...

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Samus7Killer

Physical > Digital
I like seeing more money in my account.
I like seeing a game library on my shelves ive conquered.

Edited on by Samus7Killer

Samus7Killer

Tyranexx

My reasons for preferring physical, in no particular order:

  • My games aren't all on one device, so I won't have to worry about redownloading them should the device become lost, damaged, or stolen.
  • Going hand-in-hand with the above point, the internet where I'm at isn't the best. Downloading all of that would take FOREVER, mainly because I'm at the mercy of the only broadband company in my area who likes overcharging and shaping.
  • They cannot easily be loaned out or sold.
  • As others have mentioned, physical game prices (on Nintendo systems, anyway) are normally cheaper after they've been sitting on the market for a bit.
  • This is more of a personal thing, but I don't trust DRM and licensing in the digital sector. A game that you spent good money on could be blocked or pulled without any warning, and you can't do much about that. I haven't seen this happen yet with games, but I've seen it happen with things like digital movies. Most companies are sensible enough to issue refunds when this happens, but IMO it shouldn't be an issue to begin with.

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Skyaese

Physical, always. I love collecting, especially games that I highly enjoyed.

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EvilLucario

I do both. Games that I'm not sure on will be physical so I can potentially trade it in if I end up not liking it/not get good replay value/whatever reason I have. Sometimes it backfires in a good way, though. Good examples of it were Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy on 3DS. I was unsure if I would enjoy it since I never played an Ace Combat game before, but I quickly fell in love with it and it's probably in my top 5 favorite 3DS games. That game is incredibly underrated and doesn't get as much attention as it deserves.

Games that I am positive will be awesome like Odyssey and BotW? Make it digital so I can play them whenever the heck I want.

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SKTTR

Since it's unlikely that all the games that I want fit on a micro SD card, I'll need to switch out micro SD cards later on.

On Wii U going download-only wasn't a problem, I have a huge external hard drive to store 300 Wii U games and saves. And if you have a disc-based system digital is the better choice.

But with Switch running cartridges, and having just tiny/more expensive external memory, I'm buying physical.
For me it's similar to digital, but instead of switching micro SD cards, you just switch original games.

How do multiple micro SD cards work on Switch anyway?
I know on Wii U it messed up how you organized your Wii U menu.
But on Switch you can't even organize your games so I guess it won't matter.
With physical I can at least organize my Switch games in real life. ^^

Edited on by SKTTR

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JasmineDragon

Top reasons to buy digital: it's convenient and takes up no space.

Top reasons to buy physical: it's permanent and it's yours.

The only thing I buy a lot of in digital form is books, and I only do that because I already own several thousand books, my wife and kids own hundreds more, and our entire house is filled with bookshelves. We're about one bookcase away from starring in an episode of Hoarders. So, yeah, digital now or no new books at all.

I don't see that happening to us with video games.

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MalcontentsUnite

I almost exclusively buy digital because I don't want to keep swapping cartridges to play different games. This was a big friction point for me with the PSP, and I ended up hardly playing it. So I bought a 250GB microSD card for the Switch so that I can download to my heart's content and not worry about filling it up (yet), and I'm able to go from game to game easily.

The exceptions to this so far are cartridges for Lego City Undercover and Zelda: BOTW, because I didn't expect to have repeat play after finishing the game. This was true for Lego City, but I'm still playing Zelda, so it's the only cartridge that stays inserted into my Switch.

MalcontentsUnite

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Anti-Matter

For Me, Physical retail Rules !
I don't mind to swap my games all the time.
It's not about convenience, it's about its existence that can be hold.
When I buy something, I want the Real thing, not Virtual thing.
Digital Download might be convenience, but I don't want to risk lose all my games and saves data when something bad happened to my machine.
Since I like to collect things, I like to display them neatly.

I only buy Digital download if :
1. I like the game so much and I want buy another same games again due to One Save Data Only. ACNL is one example I own 3 Physicals and 1 Digital download.
2. The games are Digital download only.

Anti-Matter

skywake

My general stance on physical vs digital:

Games:
Physical if its significantly cheaper and if I don't expect to be playing it forever. Digital if it's a game like Animal Crossing that I'm going to be playing just a bit of for a long period of time. Also I'm more keen on a Physical copies for cartridges than I am for discs. So far I've brought physical copies for all my Switch games but I got digital copies of ~30% of the retail games I got on Wii U.

Music:
In general I'll just go with whatever option is cheaper because in the end it'll be an mp3 either way. All things being equal I'll prefer a CD copy because then I effectively get both. Also if it's an artist I particularly like I'll get a physical copy just to have a physical something in my collection even if it costs a bit more. But for less popular music finding a physical copy is not worth the effort. ~70% of the music I got in the last year was digital

Movies:
If I want a particular movie and it's not on Netflix? I'll buy the BluRay. It just gives me more options and is way more flexible than buying a digital copy. Especially if you rip the movie. I've only ever brought two movies on iTunes and that was only because I was given a giftcard and wanted to use it up.

Edited on by skywake

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Ryu_Niiyama

I prefer physical but I am starting to wish that there was some sort of digital key included with physical games. So the ones I play the most often I can install on the system. This would be abused terribly I know but I think it is a nice concept.

@JasmineDragon No such thing as too many books.

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Tibob

Digital is better for the planet. Like way better. To me it beats "I want people who come to my place to witness how many games I own".

Tibob

skywake

Ryu_Niiyama wrote:

I prefer physical but I am starting to wish that there was some sort of digital key included with physical games. So the ones I play the most often I can install on the system. This would be abused terribly I know but I think it is a nice concept.

It already happens for other media. If you order a CD/Vinyl from some online retailers they'll give you a link to download the mp3 after checkout. And if you buy a BluRay they'll often include a DVD and code for a digital copy in the box.

The issue with games though is that you don't have any reason to own the game in multiple formats. If I have an album on Vinyl or CD an mp3 copy is still useful for listening to that music on my phone etc. But for a game it's not really the same. If tomorrow Nintendo had a promotion where somehow I ended up getting a digital copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? I'd sell my cartridge.

The only way I could see this idea working for games is if they found a way to stop me from selling the physical copy. The only way they can do that is if they tied the physical copy to your account. Like how it already works on PC and how Microsoft wanted it to work on XBOne. But at that point they're basically selling you a digital copy in a box....

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

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