Topic: Anyone get the feeling that physical gaming may be on its way out?

I'm not a collector, but I would rather have a physical copy in my hand. I think I have 3 non physical games, god knows how many physicals, last count was 150 but that was back in September last year

I need a time that my wife is out and I don't want to play Tears of the Kingdom to sort them and find out the current count.
But I'm pretty old school with everything, I still buy DVDs and CDs, yes i normally stream them first to make sure they are good.
I think it's quite sad the way it is going, but I am not surprised.
But if people want the digital format that's fine, PROVIDED it does not turn in to cloud gaming, now THAT is robbery

I wonder if part of the logic of a later physical release for games like Pikmin 1 + 2 and Metrid Prime Remastered is to keep the release under wraps? It is more likely to leak if the game is being being printed for a release the same week as a direct. No one outside of Nintendo needs to know about a shadow drop onto the e-shop.

No not even close, physical media is still the majority of games sales still if I recall correctly and just because digital media is on the rise doesn't mean the other will die out soon.

There will always be demand for physical media for games and the day it days is when I will lose interest in gaming personally.

On youtube, Kevin Kenson made a good video discussing why we need both but also the very real reality of moving to a digital only market. If you haven't seen his content, he does a good job of commenting on the gaming industry as a whole, and is a fan of Nintendo as well as Sony and Microsoft.

It would save space, but the physiciality of owning a product, being able to touch and hold it, is something else

I think its one of those . . . once it's out of the bag . . . sort of thing.

Or . . . once one company does it . . .

There are pros / cons either way.

With digital . . . you don't have to hope that your local store has a copy of the game you want in stock. You don't have to drag a lot of cartridges around with you when you get up and go with your Switch. And sometimes you can get a game cheaper digitally if you wait for a sale / promo. And if someone steals your Switch . . . your games are not lost. You can get another Switch and re-download all your digital games and their progress. (If someone steals your physical cartridge . . . that's it, it's gone.)

With physical . . . you can lend / swap / sell (old) games. If you have two Switches and you want to play a game on your non-primary Switch off-line, I think it might be easier with a cartridge? And for parents that want to have something in the box (when they give a present), physical is king. LOL.

For the Switch, we've bought a lot of digital games. Either games that were cheaper to buy digitally . . . or that were impossible to find physically. Besides Steam . . . this is the first console that we have just as many games digitally (if not more) than physical.

I think the thing I am waiting for is to see what happens with Switch 2. Does our digital library move over to the Switch 2? Or do we have to buy everything again, if we want it on the new console? Or do we at least get a discount for buying the same games again on the new console? (Like how there was certain discounts when you bought the same games digitally on Wii U as you had on your Wii?)

Another aspect is about monthly fees. I got the basic Nintendo on-line service. But it comes with GB(C) / NES / SNES games! For those games . . . no need to go out looking for old physical copies. How convenient is that! But . . . as long as I pay the monthly fee. But it is a great way to gain access to these old games!

I think for me personally . . . this going digital thing has gotten me to think a little bit less about the "collecting of video games", and more about playing them. I mean . . . buying digital means I got it on the console, and it shows up in my menu . . . but it's not like it's an artifact or anything like that. If we get it digitally . . . it's because we actually want to play the game. LOL. So it's got me more thinking about the experience of actually playing the game . . . and I think I've actually been enjoying playing the games with this in mind more than when I was hunting around trying to find copies of games I wanted to play. LOL.

This is completely the reason why they do it. I don't know how much Nintendo has feelers in their online communities, but if a Gamestop employee posted online that there was a mystery Nintendo Switch listing for a day in February/June/September, it would immediately reveal the Direct date and that there was a shadow drop.

Of course, physical media is on its way out as a mainstream way to play games. But it's a slow death so far. I see Nintendo as a holdout. Nintendo has not had forced installs of physical games as the standard, and a card slot takes up far less space than an optical drive.
Switch 3 (or whatever the replacement of the replacement of Switch is called) will probably be the first Nintendo platform to either support no physical games, or require an add-on to do so.
Keep in mind Japan and some other countries are still cash heavy. I'm pretty sure they'd much rather buy physical games than an eShop voucher.

I hope they dont stop physical games, but I do think nintendo and all the computer game companys need to make brand new games instead of just rereleses, or there WILL be just digital releases, also digital releases should be cheaper than a physical release. Like half the price.

Here's a old tested YT that tells why your the loosing end if you think Digital only helps the consumers wallet.

Digital Distribution Vs Physical Media and True Ownership

On the subject of scary license agreements, have a read of a Switch game box. The relevant text reads "This product contains technological protection measures. The use of an unauthorised device or software that enables technical modifications of the Nintendo Switch console or software may render this game unplayable. A system update may be required to play. Unauthorized commercial use prohibited."

Exact text may vary between regions but basically you're assigned a license to play the game on an unmodified Switch connected to the internet so you can download the necessary update - and there usually is one - and that's that. You don't own it any more than you would a download.

A lot of older gamers seem to be stuck in an era twenty years ago when owning the cartridge, disc or, if you go back far enough, tape pretty much meant owning the game. It doesn't any more, and it hasn't for a while.

@SwitchForce

Yeah. I scanned through the video.

He's not wrong. And I agree with what he says . . .

I've been keeping my eyes open for old physical copies to enjoy down the road . . . after I stop buying the latest console . . .

But in the meantime . . . I've been buying digital.

I'm kinda taking the view . . . it's the enjoyment / experience I'm paying for.

Like paying for that perfect meal. You buy it. Enjoy it. It's not like you're going to try to sell it afterwards. But there's no regret on buying it, because you enjoyed it. LOL.

Or like going to the amusement park. Same thing. You don't end up owning the park. You're paying for the experience.

I've been hearing about the death of physical for the better part of 10 years now and it has yet to happen. Sony and MS are still putting disc drives in their consoles, though they do of course offer cheaper 'all digital' versions now. I have plenty of digital games on my Switch, but I will revolt if they try to force us to go all digital. Heck, I am one of those people who still buys some Blurays and DVDs, mostly select old school horror movies and the like, but I am an old fart who grew up in the 80s and 90s with everything on physical media so I am rather attached to it. Also physical media had been written off as dead with music and to my shock and amazement vinyl has now made a comeback of sorts.

@vio : I was a little surprised (in a good way) when UHD Blu-rays hit the market, because I didn't think that the physical market was big enough anymore to accommodate THREE separate home video formats.

I was also happy for home console users to be able to own games on larger capacity discs, though scummy publishers often short-change their customers (like Activision, who threw in a 72MB launcher on a 66GB disc for the last CoD game).

I will never go all digital though unless the content is free of DRM and the quality is at least as good as a Blu-ray (for film) and CD (for music). Parity with a 2006 video format and a 1980s audio format. I don't ask for much. But I don't think that it will ever happen as the move to digital has been mostly a cynical ploy for publishers to maximise profits to the overall detriment to the consumer (and under the insidious guise of affording convenience).

I'm a millenial, and I've never, nor can I ever see myself ever subscribing to a streaming service. If it's not on TV or Blu-ray (or some free/ad-supported on-demand service), then I'm not interested. There's no shortage of undiscovered film/TV/music to keep me busy in the meantime.

@Matt_Barber
Exactly. A physical copy of a game is little more than physical proof of purchase. It's not even like a movie or an album because the purchase requires some proprietary hardware to play it. And there's no guarantee that the next iteration of the hardware will run it

I'm all for physical media in general. I have 100s of CDs, 100s of BluRays and something like 50 albums on Vinyl. But games? I have no interest in physical copies of games. With games physical copies are all of the disadvantages of physical media with none of the benefits

@skywake : I understand your argument about console games requiring proprietary hardware, but I do not agree with the assertion that physical games have no use or benefit.

Physical games can be used across multiple consoles, whereas digital purchases are locked to a single account (and the ability to retrieve purchased digital content can essentially be revoked at any time). You can also share, gift, and resell them, and exchange/refund if the software is faulty (including software that is buggy/incomplete or otherwise not as advertised), while there does not seem to be a straightforward way to get a refund via the eShop, though this could vary based on local laws (and I cannot attest to how other platforms handle refunds, if they even offer them at all).

And as big a proponent as I am of physical media, it mostly boils down to the control that the consumer has over their purchase, and with respect to music/movies, the superior quality over streaming and the addition of supplementary materials (as well as being free from retroactive censorship).

I would seriously consider transitioning to digital if my purchases were DRM-free, but I can't see that happening any time soon; not from the big console-makers anyway.

@Matt_Barber @skywake Surprised you both came to that conclusion. Nothing in that text says to me I don't own the product I've bought. All it says is that if I attempt to modify the hardware or the software then it might not work anymore. That doesn't mean I don't still own the cartridge. If I hack my Switch and then get a brick-ban from Nintendo, I still own the game and can still use it on the hardware for which it was intended.

Even if, in 10 years time, all of my Switch devices have malfunctioned beyond repair, I'll still own the physical games I bought, and will be able to play them on any hardware capable of running or emulating Switch OS. And I'll still be able to sell them in any market that might exist for them. I just don't see how you conclude otherwise based on that text.

@NintendoDad Nothing wrong with Digital if that is the only options. I bought some games Digital because that is the only options to buy. But Lately from LRG and some other Indies I've seen those Digital games become Physical and I am collecting them just for that reason as well. So it's a consumer choice to for Digital or Physical but physical cost more because of the packaging but why they charge same Physical price for Digital and no drop in price is another form of Retail Scalping as well.

Well it has to happen eventually, ask PC gamers. And I don't think it is the horror show others claim it to be because again PC would have packed up shop years ago. A small part of it is ok with it because it means scalpers can go get bent, but because of delisting it is a mixed bag. I will be selfish and say that since I am at the point in my life where I have disposable income it doesn't bother me as much because I usually buy what I want before delisting but it is still not good to have pressure on what you buy. But I think it will take longer because console gamers are so resistant.

@SwitchForce

RE: Physical . . . yes. I think it is great that LRG brings out the physical copies. I've been snagging copies of old games when I see a good deal. Having the choice is great. It's up to the individual to decide what is important to them and do what makes sense for themselves.

As for price of physical vs. digital . . . I've seen games with physical releases have discounts for their digital versions as sales. Even Nintendo does their sales or voucher offers here and there.

As for keeping the price of digital the same as physical . . . I kinda think this supports the game shops. If digital was always cheaper . . . then perhaps there would be more digital sales? So less physical sales? So . . . in a way . . . this is making it more inviting to buy physical and keeping the doors open of your local game shop?