Topic: Physical vs Digital my take 2 years later

When the Switch first came out, I thought it would be a great time to start collecting. So I mainly bought physical copies of games, and I did amass a lot, I also had a load of amiibos, posters, limited edition copies, trinkets etc. 2 years later, I am digital only. I realised recently that collecting physical games was just me overcompensating for my miserable marriage and it was my way of thinking it was making me happy.
Now I'm single, I can't be bothered with finding physical space, changing the cart over and now my Switch doesn't even leave the dock. I've got myself a bigger memory card and just filling it up. I have sold most of my collection and just repurchased the games I loved the most digitally. And now I just pick and choose whatever game I want, when I want, where I want cringe. I actually take more pride of my digital collection now than I ever did with my physical collection and I play and enjoy games more. I didn't even unwrap most of my physicals, so half my games didn't even get played. Also the sales in the eshop are usually always great with the exception of most 1st party games and I've picked up some cracking offers lately.

PS. I LOVE SINGLE LIFE HIGHLY RECOMMEND

After 5 years of buying and downloading games for Wii (which was neat, because physical games were physical only, and downloadable games were download only with a couple exceptions) and another 5 years of going digital only on Wii U I came to the realisation that physical is the best option whenever possible. I'm actually a bit disappointed to have downloaded Thimbleweed Park and Undertale for Switch when later, or in a different region, a physical version was available.

So after 10 years of downloading Nintendo games, I'm back to physical whenever possible. With the shutdown of the Wii Shop Channel, and with downloading retail games on Wii U, I found It's just a gigantic waste of money to go digital only. I even bought a retail copy of Xenoblade Chronicles X (Limited Edition) for Wii U in January, because having a masterpiece like this only as a download that eventually just evaporates felt wrong.

I guess physical is the best backup plan as I don't want to backup all my catalog regularly to a new SD Card (Wii) or external harddrive (Wii U) every 5-10 years. I want my games to be independent of a PC or laptop, and I don't like the work involved to manage all the coded file names, especially with 200+ downloads on every console. I also wanna be the owner of art that I value highly, because there's no safer place than being in my possession.

So because of my laziness in managing a thousand codenamed files, and my 10 year experience that downloads feel hollow and can turn into smoke in an instant, physical is the only option for me.

An additional thing I've noticed, and tell me if anyone else has or hasn't, but it seemsike battery life is significantly better when running digital games vs cartridge or SD

I know this this is a bit irrelevant, but I thought I’d share my experience anyway.

I recently won a PS5 on eBay by accident & it was the digital edition. With the price I ended up paying for it, I’ve started looking at selling my PS3 & PS2 stuff. I usually don’t like throwing stuff away, as I said previously on here, but if I don’t use the system then why bother keeping it? Eventually it won’t start up & most of the discs will stop working anyway. It’s nice I can get some of my money back by selling them though.

So far I’m not regretting having a digital only console, as I like the convenience of being able to go home & just select another game. We will see how things pan out in a few years time when a new console comes out. You can’t get your money back on the PlayStation store either, so I’m being more careful with what I pay for.

Digital on Wii was ok, there were no retail versions of Virtual Console or WiiWare games (except on extremely rare occasion) and vice versa, there were no retail games for download. It was a great balance.

Digital on Wii U was different. You were able to download most retail games, just like on Switch. I straight went digital only, with my fancy shiny new 500GB harddrive. I regret it. It was a mistake. I should have bought all the physical games on retail. Like the Wii, the Wii U has memory for only 300 game icons, and it doesn't matter how much space you've left on the console or harddrive, you have to delete games if you have more than 300 downloads. As long as the servers are up you can re-download most, but before the servers go down you have to carefully select the 300 you wanna keep. I even double-dipped and bought Xenoblade Chronicles X again, but this time as the beautiful physical limited edition.

On Switch I have a list of physical games I want, so digital is only for must haves that have no retail version in sight. I really wish I had the retail versions of Thimbleweed Park and Undertale instead of the downloads.