Topic: Any benefits to purchasing games digitally?

Are there any real benefits to downloading games that are also sold in stores?
I know the ones i can think of are:
-If u own a Wii U Deluxe system, u get 10% of ur money back after each purchase.
-No discs needed.
-I'm guessing it's really mainly a preference.

I don't know if anyone could tell me this but would they have faster loading (not that this is a problem for me, I'm just curious)

Also would a hard drive like this work with the Wii U: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149225 I bought one of these for school but rarely used it, but i MIGHT need it when i go back for an IT degree. Just curious to know if it would work with the Wii U so i don't have to spend $50-$100 on another hard drive,

Beyond from what you listed there is :
*reduced load times
*Less Noise (if you are like me and like to play on the gamepad only before dozing off, this can become very obvious )
*Minimal Wait for game to arrive

• Nintendo likes to do promotional sales, commonly
• No fear of the disk being lost or damaged
• The game may be sold out at stores, digital copies never sell out
• Nintendo likes to do Midnight launches for their retail games

Everything said above, +

You won't have any jewel cases for discs, so they won't take up extra space. This is especially useful for me since I usually take my Wii U to my friends' houses more than I have them come to my house, and fitting a bunch of games in my backpack is pretty hard. Now all I have to do is take my Wii U, gamepad, maybe a few controllers, and AC adapter and I'm all set!
-
I usually skate to my friends' houses so having boxes wouldn't really be an issue if I had a car I guess, but still! It's a lot easier to take less stuff

Advantages of purchasing retail:
You can usually get a discount
You can sell your games, or trade with friends
You can buy used games for pretty cheap
You get the nice box art and a tangible instruction manual (I really like holding instruction manuals, but I've gotten used to reading them off my TV now)
You do not need extra memory to download your games (No external HDD)
If you don't like the game, you can sometimes return it and get your money back (depends on the store)
If you REALLY don't like the game, you get the satisfaction of setting it on fire and watching it burn

I download mainly to take advantage of the digital deluxe program, and so I don't have a bunch of jewel cases to carry around with me
Also, I can get Pikmin 3 a day early when I go to GameStop tomorrow!

I like my 3DS cartridges...but when I close my 3DS and slip it inside my front jeans pocket, sometimes when I remove it later I discover the cartridge has accidentally ejected itself from the slot. It's most frustrating to lose a few hours worth of Animal Crossing...

If I had a digital copy of the game, I wouldn't have to worry about such things happening.

There are many advantages, but until I can be assured any given game will be available in 10 years, I prefer physical copies. They look good on the shelves. I make exceptions with free and/or download only titles.

My main rule for Buying digital, is buy digital with a game you dont intended to resell.

Yeah everyone pretty much said everything already. Only thing you have to think about is that...you're stuck with the game you buy digitally.

I'm just way too lazy to be bothered getting up from my well worn a$$ groove to change a disc. Also playing downloaded games means my disc drive won't burnout which would force me to send it back to Ninty for repair. But if the HDD dies all I need to do is buy another $80 2TB mofo and easily download the games again... Beats waiting weeks for the Ninty repair

Having your hard drive die is VERY unlikely (they're getting much better now), and having your disc drive burnout is also VERY unlikely. Maybe in like..50 years of nonstop playing?

The oldest disc-based gaming console I have is a PlayStation 1 and that still reads discs just fine. That's almost 18 years (older than me)! And technology has gotten much better since then, so I don't think you have to worry about any of that

Hardware fails so I wouldn't say that is true. I've had plenty of HDDs and ODDs fail over the years and even more that went very close to failure before I stopped using them. My original Wii for example still works but is close to it's last legs in terms of its optical drive. So I wouldn't be pretending that it never happens @PloXyZeRO because it definitely does. That said I don't think being digital rather than optical makes that huge a difference. Not while we're still reliant on moving parts in storage.

As for the actual topic I think the main advantage is the ability to be more lazy. Not having to get the disk/cartridge and being able to move between games easier. Being able to impulse buy it from your couch then and there if you want. It's not often cheaper but it's often the same as the launch price. So for some games, like Animal Crossing, it makes a whole lot of sense. Other titles? eh...

This would be main reason for going digital, i MIGHT get digitally Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 (MOST LIKELY), The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (MAYBE), Sonic Lost World, and Bayonetta 2.

I tend to keep a lot of my games in various CD cases rather than a jewel case which would hold only 1 disc.

Also if it is something a game i DON'T INTEND ON RESELLING and I want to buy DAY 1.

I will ALWAYS buy retails unless buying DLC so I can take the disc to a mates house. If your get a new console and it's not back compatible in future then your digital download is stuck on your old console.

Yeah I know, but I'm saying that the failure rate has decreased significantly over the years. The only two hardware failures I've ever had (under normal use), is my Xbox 360 getting the RRoD..but hey it's an Xbox...and my DS Lite not turning on. I've never had a disc drive burn out, hard drive fail (not even from my old PC that has Windows 3.1x on it), or anything else like that happen..ever. The only time I've had an disc drive not work was when I was playing a Gamecube game on my Wii, my mom tripped on the cable, it flew it into the wall and cracked.

I guess I'm just very lucky that I haven't experienced many hardware failures?

Either way...I'm sticking with digital for now, on my Wii U anyway. I'm still buying cartridges for my 3DS, however.

Its better if you download on 3ds cause its more portable, but for wii U its just more convenient for lazy people

Yes. Either that or you don't have enough of a sample size of mechanical drives you've used for a long period of time. Maybe when you've had a laptop for a few years you get a new one and the old drive sits on the shelf. Unable to hit the mean time to failure. Maybe you simply don't go through much tech in general.

Either way I know I've personally had a small handful of failures of both kinds over the last ten years or so. Nothing that caused data loss but enough to make me have a decent backup schedule. Enough to make me want to put my Wii U saves on the console rather than the external HDD but not enough to make me actually bother most of the time

No "oh crap, I went to grab my console, but the cartridge popped out. I haven't saved in hours! "