Topic: Physical or Digital?

Which format is everyone planning to choose for games and why?

I am planning to go all-digital for a few reasons.
1) Having all my games available at all times without needing to carry game cards on the road
2) OCD knowing that some indie games will be digital-only and this way I can have ALL my games in the same format rather than some physical and some digital.

The downsides are primarily related to cost: Digital games typically being more expensive, requiring MicroSD storage, and having no resale value. And then of course not having the "old school" feel of physical games, but ultimately I am choosing convenience over cost.

Physical.

• Game Cards are a fraction of the size of a disc...
• When I travel, I don't plan on taking more than a handful of games (Most cases so far store up to half-a-dozen Game Cards).
• Retailers are already undercutting the RRP; the eShop will almost always be full price.
• You can resell the games easily;
• Performance (load times) should be on par with a digital download.
• Hey, there's some nice cover art going on so far!

Digital. I aint got room for hundreds of games physically. My Wii U and 3DS digital collection is over 100 games each, thank goodness I switched to digital only lol

To me it's important to buy physical whenever practical. Buying physical helps sustain the 'Used' market, which provides valuable access to cheaper games for those that can't afford new, and uncontrolled access to older games.

Developers would love us all to go digital only, cos then they'd have us all by the balls.

Physical. It's cheaper, and I don't have to worry about losing games when the system breaks.

Looks at Steam and Mobile markets... pretty sure Digital has helped customers more than Developers or Publishers...

Physical all the way. Nostalgia overload with having little carrying cases full of cartridges once again lol

All digital.

I've got kids that could lose the cartridges easily. I like having everything with me and direct access to it. One lost cartridge makes up for the price difference. Knowing your game is just one redownload away helps lots.

I am going to be wary of storing these though. I'll need a 512 micro sd card sooner or later, which adds to the cost. If the cartridges are small enough, I might reconsider carrying them in the case.

Not betting on that though.

@DefHalan Steam is great, because PC is a free market. There's a lot of competition. On consoles there isn't, the online store is also owned by the hardware manufacturer. In terms of prices; Steam > physical > digital (console).

I can always find games day one for less than on PSN or the eShop. Additionally, I don't have to worry about SD cards when I'm going physical.

@Octane I know a lot of people in Europe say they can easily find physical games cheaper than digital day 1, that isn't true here in the States, often digital is cheaper because of sales tax for me.

Developers don't have as drastic sales on consoles because they aren't expected. Steam they are expectes to have gaint sales often. Consoles are having sales a lot more often however.

SD cards? I only have 1 SD card for my 3DS. If I had to have several SD Cards for my portable system, I wouldn't bother with it and just have the most important games downloaded all the time and cycle through other games. Having to deal with game cards will mean more switch or less options for me.

@DefHalan I never understood how tax works in the US. When you buy a $60 game, do you have to pay tax on top of it, or is it already included? The MSRP over here is €60 (and that's including tax), but retailers are free to lower the price as much as they like. I often get most of my AAA day one games for €50-55. Uncharted 4 for example was €60 on the PSN store, but I got it for €52, and I recall getting TLG for €53 for example.

@Octane In California our Sales Tax is almost 10%, Which makes a $60 game $66. However buying a game digitally doesn't have tax, so a $60 game is actually $60. Tax is not included in the advertised price. I don't think stores are able to sell products for less than that but at the same time, why would they. They have to pay a price for product and make money off reselling it. So I don't understand how European stores set their own price, way lower than MSRP, and still make profit.

Are you sure about that? Maybe it differs by state, but I have tax added to my eShop (and Steam) purchases in Illinois.

I'm in Pennsylvania, and I have tax added to my eShop stuff, too. (6%)

@DefHalan Competition. If a store sells a game for €55 instead of €60, they earn less per game sold, but the lower price means that they will sell more copies, making up for the difference in price.

Tax on digital purchases must vary state by state. I'm in Missouri, and just like @DefHalan, I've never had to pay taxes on my eShop (or Google Play) purchases.

I still prefer physical when possible, though.

@Octane I get that they would want to, but I remember (when I worked at Game Crazy almost 10 years ago... time flies) profit on software sales were so low that we had a price match "guarantee" but my district manager would call us every week and tell us what we can't match because other stores were putting things on sale they shouldn't have been or something like that. It was very complicated and profits were so low that they couldn't have too many sales unless they were getting stock for cheaper.

It's physical for me for the following reasons:

• Price variety from retailers, while the price for the digital download is constant (except during sales and/or when the status of the game changes to "Nintendo Selects"). That way, it is possible to buy a physical copy below the official digital download price.
• Don't need to buy an extra Micro-SD card (at least not as soon or not as big), which does not bloat up the costs for an already expensive system.
• Games retain resale value (for a digital download, it is only the case if you sell the complete system).
• No messing around with the transfer of digital copies to a new Nintendo Switch (e.g. that was purchased because the old one broke or because a "New" Switch has been released with extra features).
• Makes game exchange between friends possible without the need to exchange the system.
• If you visit your friend(s) who have a Nintendo Switch and you want to play one of your games together, you only need to bring the cartridge, not the whole console.

The few disadvantages of physical copies is that they consume space and can get lost. The latter can easily happen because they are so small, which means that the space they consume is negligible.

@DefHalan I have never seen anything like a price match over here. But still, it's weird indeed. However, I do notice that online retailers often have the lowest prices, probably due to not having to rent a store space, I guess that helps too. But I have also no idea how much the distributor pays per game, and how much income they need to keep their business afloat.

It's also buying power too, bigger companies can buy in bulk to get better credit terms and discounts. You've also got Amazon's technique of not actually making a profit just to ensure they stay in the no.1 postion.