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Topic: Digital vs physical

Posts 61 to 80 of 140

JasmineDragon

ReaderRagfish wrote:

I prefer physical, but you're getting the same game either way, so it isn't that important to me. It's not like the difference between reading a hardcover book and reading an ebook on a tablet.

I pretty much agree, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Digital wins on convenience, physical wins on ownership, but bad things can and will happen to both of them. For games that require no downloads or patches or server connections, physical theoretically can last a lot longer, but those games are becoming increasingly rare, and physical cards can always be lost or stolen or damaged.

Personally, I like physical because I like to have a physical thing and I like the look of a collection on the shelf. But it's undeniably handy to have everything digital on one or two SDs and not have to change carts all the time or bring extra carts with me when I go on a trip. So I've got about half and half in my collection.

Switch FC: SW-5152-0041-1364
Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

LzWinky

I fail to see the value of physical due to the sheer amount of updates these days

Current games: Everything on Switch

Switch Friend Code: SW-5075-7879-0008 | My Nintendo: LzWinky | Nintendo Network ID: LzWinky

electrolite77

A digital only future would be awful for consumers, no doubt about that. However this isn’t the same debate it used to be. Very few games these days are complete on the cartridge/disc. That counterbalance to the convenience of digital isn’t as potent as it used to be.

Xbox Gamertag - GJB77XBOX

Playstation ID - GJB77

Switch friend code - SW-5907-7972-1196

Nintendo network Username - GJB77

Octane

@electrolite77 Define ''complete''. Patches and DLC didn't exist 20 years ago, and it's not as if those games exist without bugs and glitches either. The number of games that is unplayable without a patch or a download is surprisingly low. I usually don't download the day-one patches, because if I'm turning on my PS4 to play a game, I want to play it now and not wait on the patch. I've yet to encounter a game that isn't playable without a patch. I'd say that physical copies are only pointless for always-online service games, like Destiny, and many of the Ubisoft games. They are unplayable in a few years from now. Anything that doesn't rely on an internet connection? I think you can still play those in 20 years from now just fine.

Octane

Zuljaras

@Octane Exactly my point of physical based games. I want to have a functional physical collection. As you said in 10 years or more you want to just put the disc in install the game and play on the old console like I do with my DS or my GBA. Well except the discs are more fragile and they require extra care but that depends on the person.

The servers may die but the physical games (single player) should live on.

Edited on by Zuljaras

electrolite77

@Octane

There are very few games that will be completely up to date. Playable yeah but not complete. I’ve always preferred physical but my completist OCD instinct just doesn’t take hold the same way at the prospect of a game missing a load of bug fixes, performance improvements or additional content.

Take Forza Horizon 3 for example, these all add up

http://forza.wikia.com/wiki/Forza_Horizon_3/Update_history

God of War will be missing the performance options for PS4 Pro and HUD Toggles. BOTW got that very early performance patch.

Might not mean much to some, but it makes it harder to worry about not being able to access the games when you’re essentially getting the first draft.

Edited on by electrolite77

Xbox Gamertag - GJB77XBOX

Playstation ID - GJB77

Switch friend code - SW-5907-7972-1196

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Octane

@electrolite77 Of course. But keep in mind that if an internet connection was a thing 30 years ago, many SNES, N64, GameCube, early PS1/2 games would've been patched as well. Yet we don't mind that, because patches didn't exist back then, so we don't think about it that way. Take Ocarina of Time, a great game, but that runs worse than BOTW, at any time. Mario 64? Another classic, and I love it, but there are so many bugs and glitches that would've been patched out had it released today instead of 20 years ago.

So sure, games like Forza that rely heavily on online are an exception. But BOTW, God of War, or The Last Guardian? Those are all games that play ''fine'' without their patch. Patching has made them ''better'' games arguably, but we don't consider OOT obsolete just because the remake exists on 3DS, people still play the N64 version with its bugs, glitches and slow-as-molasses frame rate.

Octane

Sisilly_G

@Octane : A precursor to the internet, known as BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) gave users a means to patch games on PC in the past, and was quite commonplace. You will find many software from the 90s with information within the software itself (or separate BBS executables) that provide information on how to access the developer/publisher's servers so that one can download hint sheets/cheat codes/patches etc. So patches have been around on PC around 30 years ago, though not on consoles due to obvious logistical constraints (short of recalls, which would be horribly expensive), but it did seem that developers and publishers were more cautious with bug testing (at least on consoles) to ensure that the software was fully playable as they only had one chance to get things right.

Nowadays, publishers seem happy to rush an unfinished product to shelves with bug fixes being an afterthought. Troublingly, publishers/developers may decide not to bother trying to fix bugs/performance issues (as was the case with the likes of WWE 18), or not fulfil promises (such as the level editor in Toki Tori 2 for Wii U).

Edited on by Sisilly_G

"Gee, that's really persuasive. Do you have any actual points to make other than to essentially say 'me Tarzan, physical bad, digital good'?"

Switch Friend Code: SW-1910-7582-3323

skywake

@SwitchForce
I'm not sure why you took that post of mine so personally, clearly I wasn't responding to you. I was actually responding to a comment which I quoted extensively earlier. Specifically these two points:

SKTTR wrote:

Physical: Only need to change cartridges, which is fast and easy since you know what's on the cartridge label.
Digital: Depending on the size of the microSD card you need to switch them microSD cards around as well, and label your microSD cards yourself (which often looks like a mess).

Physical: Can take hundreds of games with you. These cartridges are tiny after all: A 100 games won't make a noticeable weight or space difference.
Digital: If you need to have a 100 games with you at all times without carrying an extra 200 gram bag full of cartridges.

Now you can take offence at me pointing out the obvious here if you want. You can take it extremely personally even though I didn't even see your post in the thread. Even so, the simple fact is that if carrying around 100s of cartridges and having to swap them out all the time is not a big deal? Then you can't reasonably argue that swapping out a library full of content on a microSD is.

You really have to do a LOT of mental gymnastics to argue that physical media is more convenient. Cheaper? Sure. Better "consumer rights"? It's definitely a thing. Does it save on internal storage? Of course it does. But it's not more convenient.

Edited on by skywake

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"

Gameplay_Matters

I'm an audiophile and I used to collect music. I'd often by both, vinyl and CD, from artists I like. It took me quite a while to get rid of the need to physically own something, so I can understand the collectors.

But at some point artists just stopped printing lyrics in the booklet and providing nothing else than detailed copyright infringement details on the case. It's even worse now with Switch games. They don't even print the inside of the case or include a booklet. It's useless. It's a just a bunch of plastic and wasted paper.

I see a reason to buy the physical version if a) download and installation size is huge or b) I do not want to "own" the game but sell it later. Actually now I rather download games if I want to add them to my collection.

Gameplay_Matters

SKTTR

@skywake They need to update the user interface for digital now to be more convenient than a physical collection. I mean, yeah you can scroll through, to find one of the hundreds of games you may have on SD card.

But you can also use this, have all the games you want to play in order.

Untitled

For me it's at all times more convenient anyway to have a physical copy of the game. Even an empty cartridge with a downloader on it is still a little bit more valuable than the download-only version.

See, when value comes into play, the whole convenience thing shifts to a different level. A physical game can gain or lose value but it will never be absolutely worthless (at least when always held in good condition). You can always get a few bucks for a Switch cartridge, even for a bad game. The same digital game costs often the same but it never gets valuable. You can only sell it with the rest of your personal user account. And in around 15 years when the servers are down, if you do not make backups you lose all digital games completely. Not convenient enough for me.

Edited on by SKTTR

Switch fc: 6705-1518-0990

RenderSpotlight

@Octane I very recently obtained a physical game for the Switch and I wanted to play it without any patches or updates just to see how the game played as it was released. As I was leaving for a vacation (to a place without high speed internet), I disconnected from my home internet completely, making sure there was no way for the console to check for an update. Yet when I popped in the cartridge and tried to play the game I was greeted with a message telling me there was an update that I must download before I could load the game. I had never played the game on this console before, yet I could not play the game unless I downloaded the update. Unless I totally missed how to bypass that prompt, I was slightly disappointed that I could not play the game without the update. And since I was leaving for vacation in a short time, I did not have enough time to download the update before I left, so I was not able play the game until I returned. Not cool.

On another note, have you tried to play the Switch version of Monopoly without the update? I put the game in the console and waited and waited and waited. I was waiting to simply get to the game's main screen. The loading times were so horrendous I never made it to the game's main screen before I gave up and went online and tried to figure out what was wrong with the game. I learned the update fixed the loading times. So I gave in and downloaded the patch and now all loading times are reasonable.

@Silly_G is right, just because publishers have a way to update/fix/patch games does not mean they always will update/fix/patch a game. Many games are "playable" yet despite having the knowledge the bugs exist and the means to patch them, many companies still do not. It is not like game bugs have been eradicated simply because of the internet. If companies would have been able to patch games in the 80's and 90's on consoles, my guess is we would be in the exact same situation back then as we are in today. In that publishers would have started pushing less finished games out the door earlier, with the intention of "fixing" them at a later date. Who knows what conditions the games we have today might have been released in.

@skywake you are correct, digital wins for convenience, no doubt about that.

Edited on by RenderSpotlight

RenderSpotlight

skywake

SKTTR wrote:

They need to update the user interface for digital now to be more convenient than a physical collection. I mean, yeah you can scroll through, to find one of the hundreds of games you may have on SD card.

Again, you're not making a particularly convincing argument here. But for the sake of the argument lets flip this on its head for a second. I am infact a pretty huge fan of physical media of all kinds for various reasons. Many of which people have outlined here. And for me I feel probably even more fond of physical media for movies and music than I do for games. For movies in particular physical copies actually give you a significantly better quality experience. That's not at all the case with games.

But even so I'm not even going to try and argue the merits of flipping through CDs vs flipping through digital albums. Same deal with BluRays or DVDs when compared to videos dumped into network share. There's just no contest in terms of convenience. Digital media is just flat out more convenient and more portable.

SKTTR wrote:

See, when value comes into play, the whole convenience thing shifts to a different level. A physical game can gain or lose value but it will never be absolutely worthless

Different argument, not what I'm talking about. Re-sell value doesn't make something anymore convenient. A collection of original pressings on Vinyl is valuable but those same tracks as 320kbps mp3s are more convenient. Same thing with games.

Now you can make that argument if you want, go ahead. I literally said as much in my previous post. It is definitely one of the advantages even if I don't personally care. All I'm saying is that you guys are stretching it a bit when you start saying stuff like "physical games are easier to swap out than digital games"

Edited on by skywake

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"

Zuljaras

@Hikingguy What game? When I do not want to update games ion my Switch I just turn on the Airplane mode on and the console will not be bothering you with updates.

It worked perfectly on Skyrim, Lego Worlds, Portal Knights, Legend of Zelda BotW and Axiom Verge. All cartridge games.

SwitchForce

Zuljaras wrote:

@Hikingguy What game? When I do not want to update games ion my Switch I just turn on the Airplane mode on and the console will not be bothering you with updates.
It worked perfectly on Skyrim, Lego Worlds, Portal Knights, Legend of Zelda BotW and Axiom Verge. All cartridge games.

It's whining for nothing. They should rather enjoy NSW gaming but they are using this for other means not for what it really is.

SwitchForce

Zuljaras

@SwitchForce I do not understand. I mean if he could not play a game he should try Airplane mode.
Also he might try and play game like Rocket League that is designed for online play only.

Buizel

@SKTTR not sure if you're being sarcastic?

Surely it's always quicker to pick something out of a menu than to go through a case of games. And if you want to keep your games in order, don't you constantly have to rearrange your case as you make new purchases?

Edited on by Buizel

At least 2'8".

RenderSpotlight

@SwitchForce I do not I understand your comment. I am not whining about anything. Everything I stated was not complaining, but was exactly what I experienced.

@Zuljaras That is exactly what I did. My Switch is basically always in airplane mode unless I am not able to connect to another Switch for local play via a wired connection. I use the USB to Ethernet to connect to the internet. As such, I primarily play my Switch docked. But for one of the rare times I was going to be away from an internet connection I decided to try and use the portable side of the device (something I rarely do). I got my hands on a copy of Breath of the Wild, took my Switch out of the dock as I was ready to leave, popped in the game and was greeted with the prompt to download the update.

Per your comment I tried it again, because you are right, other games allowed me to skip past the update screen. So I grabbed another Switch that never played the game. And sure enough, this time I got the option to Start Software, Cancel, Download. Maybe I was just in a rush to leave, but I am not sure how I missed that!
Now I am going to go back to my primary Switch and Delete everything and try again!

..........(pause before I hit reply)

Now as I was typing this, you got me thinking, I wonder if this might be the problem.
I had already played many, many hours of BotW on the Wii U. So in anticipation and knowing that I was going get my hands on a copy of Zelda for the Switch, I had decided to buy the DLC and I installed it a day or two before I got the game so I could jump right into Master Mode.
I bet that was enough to cause it to stop me from playing and require me to download the update! I bet that was my problem. I bet all I had to do was delete the DLC.
Oh well.

RenderSpotlight

Eel

Octane wrote:

@electrolite77 Of course. But keep in mind that if an internet connection was a thing 30 years ago, many SNES, N64, GameCube, early PS1/2 games would've been patched as well.

@Octane: then again back then, most games would release first in Japan (and in your case more often than not America too) and then months later in other regions.

They had time to patch games.

We would often get the fixed versions, and sometimes even Japan would get a second release with the big fixes.

As an example, Minish Cap. The one game they tried to release first on Europe. It had at least one severe glitch that was patched out for the American release.

Edited on by Eel

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Therad

Octane wrote:

@ValhallaOutcast Depends on the games you buy I guess. Most games are perfectly playable without patches, even today. And whilst some may contain game-breaking bug, or weird glitches, that is also true for older games. How many SNES, N64 or GameCube games have bugs and glitches? Plenty!

@redd214 It does happen. Although I have to assume that it's more likely for one SD card to break down than an entire collection of individual games.

@Ralizah Wii? If your Wii breaks down right now, you won't ever get the Wiiware games back. I'm not worried about the near future. That's when stuff is easily replaceable, but 20-30 years from now? Those Switch servers will be shut down for sure.

Funny you should mention the Wii, my disc drive died a couple of years ago. So I can only play my downloaded games...

Therad

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