PS5

[Californication | 1,477]

4 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Digital games do not cost less to make, they cost less to distribute

Games are mostly not even games anymore, they are full length movies with games included. So much dialogue and cinematics. 
 

I’d really like to pay one price and get the entire game with no add ons to purchase. But I never play a game for more than a month so getting the base edition usually works for me

Agreed. And digital games would allow publishers to control the price more. With physical games available, as original owners do not want games anymore they resell them at a lower price. Without physical games the publisher/distributor would have more control over the source. Distributors will also probably be able to get away from a large percentage of brick and mortar locations.

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

7 minutes ago, Californication said:

Agreed. And digital games would allow publishers to control the price more. With physical games available, as original owners do not want games anymore they resell them at a lower price. Without physical games the publisher/distributor would have more control over the source. Distributors will also probably be able to get away from a large percentage of brick and mortar locations.

Shouldn’t even need distributors anymore, send your gold image and whatever updates that follow right to the Microsoft or PS store and just pay a nominal fee based on the # of downloads to help with infrastructure and bandwidth costs because I can’t be downloading fucking cyberpunk 2077 at 30Mbps when I’ve got a 1G connection!

Not to mention that physical games are pretty much a waste at this point on Xbox and PS because the disc is really just an activation method and you still need to download 100% of the game and updates anyways. 
 

Save the environment folks. 

[Californication | 1,477]

3 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Shouldn’t even need distributors anymore, send your gold image and whatever updates that follow right to the Microsoft or PS store and just pay a nominal fee based on the # of downloads to help with infrastructure and bandwidth costs because I can’t be downloading fucking cyberpunk 2077 at 30Mbps when I’ve got a 1G connection!

Not to mention that physical games are pretty much a waste at this point on Xbox and PS because the disc is really just an activation method and you still need to download 100% of the game and updates anyways. 
 

Save the environment folks. 

That would Microsoft of Playstation store the distributor in this example. Others will pop up though.

[TDIRunner | 2,742]

11 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Why would a company marginalize a user base if it isn't profitable? Like if +50% of customers buy physical why would they switch? If 5-50x the revenue of physical games is generated by content that is DLC, then why would companies focus on distribution of games over distribution of DLC? 

 

Because they can.  

The vast majority of people who buy physical will switch to digital if they have no choice because they are going to play the next COD no matter what.  If the console manufactures can switch to a more profitable distribution network without losing any sales, why wouldn't they do that?

By the way, you keep proving my point when you say the most profitable portion of most games is the DLC and micro transactions (that stuff is all digital).  When they switch the games over to all digital, they will make more money because they will be using the same distribution channel as their DLC and micro transactions.    

They will make more money.  If you still aren't grasping it, that's your answer.  They will make more money.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

7 hours ago, TDIRunner said:

They will make more money.  If you still aren't grasping it, that's your answer.  They will make more money.

Let's look at Nintendo. Big ol company that controls the price of 1st party games better than any other. The best selling FE game is 3 houses with 3M sales. Total revenue on the high side would like $180M. FE mobile game that's 100% free to play made over $800M...

Ok now to put this in regular terms. Image you had 18k in the bank from selling trash on ebay. For 1 years. Now the next year you stop selling trash and start selling gold and you ended that year with 80k in the bank. Which one would you focus on selling?

Ubisoft made 40x more off of digital digital content in siege than they did on game sales. That means your 15k from trash would go to 600k! Why would they marginalize any potential dlc buyer when it accounts for 40x the original purchase price?? 

Fortnite is a free game and makes billions a year were more likely to be sent games in the mail on the odd chance you'll buy the dlc than be offered no physical games.

The fact that people can't grasp the landscape of the new gaming world honestly shows the disconnect. If anyone is thinking games are linear, story driven worlds, you're in the minority of gamer's. Which is ok, but the minority of gamer's don't have their fingers on the pulse of the industry. 

The fact is pay to play model works better and physically distributing games contributes to over half of gaming companies worst streams of revenue which are classic stay games like 3 houses. The focus is not on changing the distribution of those games. The focus is on adding micro transactions to those games.

Edited December 7, 2020 by RegularGuyGamer

[Webhead123 | 678]

The beautiful thing about DLC/micro-transactions in particular and video games in general is that they are a luxury hobby and can be entirely ignored at individual discretion. I find the "free-mium/season pass/in-game store" model obnoxious, predatory and lazy, so I simply refuse to participate in them. I find the general trend of "games as a service" and "games that have no end" about equally unappealing...so I refuse to participate in them.

That's where the mass-market of the industry is headed and that's fine but there is enough content still being produced to speak to the audience that likes self-contained, linear experiences that we can get by. Indie developers are taking the reigns on that market and have offered some truly incredible games in the last 10 years.

And even if that all faded away, there's already a backlog of about 45 years of video gaming to draw from.

[avatar! | 1,819]

I honestly believe that if each of the big three consoles - Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft decided to go all-digital, an alternative console would appear on the market that offered physical games. Now, this alternative certainly wouldn't play any exclusive games, but I do believe that it would play numerous indie titles such as those produced by LRG. Heck, if "the worst" came to pass maybe LRG would produce their own console

The video game industry is approaching $100 billion. Even if physical games are only 10% of that, I think tapping into a $10 billion market is incentive enough to guarantee that there will be some console in the foreseeable future that offers physical games.

[Splain | 2,571]

21 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Not to mention that physical games are pretty much a waste at this point on Xbox and PS because the disc is really just an activation method and you still need to download 100% of the game and updates anyways.

This made me mad the first time it happened to me on PC. I went out of my way to NOT download Portal 2, I wanted a disc so that I'd "always have a copy of it." I found a copy at Target and popped it in. The disc contained nothing. That must have been in 2011. Why even have a disc? So that people like me would finally download Portal 2.

Turns out the % of gamers who are serious about playing "old" games is very small, and not only do game devs have no reason to cater to them (since they don't make any new money from secondhand sales of physical media), but they probably want to actively disabuse them of their nostalgia so that they'll play "new" games that bring in $$$.

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

3 hours ago, Splain said:

This made me mad the first time it happened to me on PC. I went out of my way to NOT download Portal 2, I wanted a disc so that I'd "always have a copy of it." I found a copy at Target and popped it in. The disc contained nothing. That must have been in 2011. Why even have a disc? So that people like me would finally download Portal 2.

Turns out the % of gamers who are serious about playing "old" games is very small, and not only do game devs have no reason to cater to them (since they don't make any new money from secondhand sales of physical media), but they probably want to actively disabuse them of their nostalgia so that they'll play "new" games that bring in $$$.

If the digital download games were noticeably cheaper at launch I’d probably just move to that. I like having my nintender tapes but don’t really care about physical media stuff anymore unless the collectors edition is good. 
 

I feel bad for people with shitty internet trying to download 50gb day one patches

[avatar! | 1,819]

47 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

If the digital download games were noticeably cheaper at launch I’d probably just move to that. I like having my nintender tapes but don’t really care about physical media stuff anymore unless the collectors edition is good. 
 

I feel bad for people with shitty internet trying to download 50gb day one patches

Why has it gotten to the point that people are okay dealing with 50 gb patches? I don't think it's right. Well, that's a so-called AAA game thing anyway. Most of the games I purchase (indie, LRG, etc) are already patched and good to go.

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

1 minute ago, avatar! said:

Why has it gotten to the point that people are okay dealing with 50 gb patches? I don't think it's right. Well, that's a so-called AAA game thing anyway. Most of the games I purchase (indie, LRG, etc) are already patched and good to go.

I dunno that we are OK with it, no other choice really

[avatar! | 1,819]

12 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I dunno that we are OK with it, no other choice really

Could avoid purchasing "AAA" games

Honestly, I'm trying to think when was the last time a AAA game really caught my attention. I guess the answer would be Nioh 2. The patch was 6.5 gb. In general, I really do avoid AAA games with some exception.

[TDIRunner | 2,742]

11 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

....

You continue to bring up microtransactions as if it supports your position.  The profits they make off microtransactions are the same whether the game is sold digitally or physically, so those profits stay the same regardless.  They aren't marginalizing anything since game sales aren't going to change.  The digital games have higher profit margins.  They make more money off individual games in a digital only world and continue to make the same margins off the microtransactions.  Therefore, they make more money overall.  If you want to say something actually refutes that fine, but otherwise I've wasted enough time over this nonsense.  

 

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

2 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Could avoid purchasing "AAA" games

Honestly, I'm trying to think when was the last time a AAA game really caught my attention. I guess the answer would be Nioh 2. The patch was 6.5 gb. In general, I really do avoid AAA games with some exception.

I’m going to play the shit out of Cyberpunk 2077 

[avatar! | 1,819]

8 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I’m going to play the shit out of Cyberpunk 2077 

I mean, I can't blame you. Well, hopefully the game will be great, I do respect CD Projekt Red. They do care about the quality of the game and gamers, not just about $$$.

[Webhead123 | 678]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

I’m going to play the shit out of Cyberpunk 2077 

I'm really excited about that game, a combination of the fact that I was a big fan of the Cyberpunk 2020 pen-and-paper RPG many years ago and the fact that it's CD Projekt Red behind the wheel. As the reviews are coming in, I'm hearing that there are a *lot* of bugs that need to be smoothed over, so I'm going to end up waiting about 6 months for them to iron out the kinks before I pick it up.

That's the unfortunate state of AAA today. Games are so massive, development so involved and investors so entrenched that getting games out of the gate in a "final" state is rough. I know it isn't entirely the developer's fault (and I'm confident that CDPR will give it the necessary support) but that's just what consumers have to expect today.

I'll wait until the game is more stable so that I can fully appreciate the experience.

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

1 minute ago, Webhead123 said:

I'm really excited about that game, a combination of the fact that I was a big fan of the Cyberpunk 2020 pen-and-paper RPG many years ago and the fact that it's CD Projekt Red behind the wheel. As the reviews are coming in, I'm hearing that there are a *lot* of bugs that need to be smoothed over, so I'm going to end up waiting about 6 months for them to iron out the kinks before I pick it up.

That's the unfortunate state of AAA today. Games are so massive, development so involved and investors so entrenched that getting games out of the gate in a "final" state is rough. I know it isn't entirely the developer's fault (and I'm confident that CDPR will give it the necessary support) but that's just what consumers have to expect today.

I'll wait until the game is more stable so that I can fully appreciate the experience.

Can’t be as bad as Watch Dogs Legion that randomly corrupts your saves and forces you to regularly replay missions you have already done. Oh and they have released patches and know about this issue, but no patch to date has fixed it. 
 

I’m a bit angry about it

[Webhead123 | 678]

1 minute ago, a3quit4s said:

Can’t be as bad as Watch Dogs Legion that randomly corrupts your saves and forces you to regularly replay missions you have already done. Oh and they have released patches and know about this issue, but no patch to date has fixed it. 
 

I’m a bit angry about it

Agreed. It is sad though that we've reached the point in the industry where we have to say, "Well, at least the bugs don't corrupt your save data". 

[Estil | 1,265]

I don't know about the rest of you but getting this kind of surprise for Christmas in a wittle stocking would be way way WAY better than getting a new PS5, Xbox Series S, and Switch combined!   Or at least it would be if my apt would let me have more than one kitty...  

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Estil

[avatar! | 1,819]

Sony recently announced their next-gen VR system for the PS5! Now, if only one could actually find a PS5...

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/03/18/next-gen-vr-on-ps5-the-new-controller/

Features: adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, finger touch detection, tracking, etc.

Don't know too much about the VR system, but it won't be launching this year. Still, I'm excited!

[avatar! | 1,819]

Can anyone confirm whether this is real?

Supposedly this was sent from email@email.playstation.com - but of course email addresses can be faked. Anyone else get this? Legit or not?

[Gloves | 11,790]

2 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Can anyone confirm whether this is real?

Supposedly this was sent from email@email.playstation.com - but of course email addresses can be faked. Anyone else get this? Legit or not?

Nothing in the world could get me to click on anything in that email. 

[Brickman | 3,992]

40 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Nothing in the world could get me to click on anything in that email. 

This. The email just screams fake. Also I’m sure if you hovered over the link it would be a garble of an address.

[cj_robot | 542]

37 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Can anyone confirm whether this is real?

Supposedly this was sent from email@email.playstation.com - but of course email addresses can be faked. Anyone else get this? Legit or not?

So, this does look just like an email that Sony supposedly did send out to select people last year inviting them to pre-order the PS5, with almost exactly the same wording.

That being said, I would NEVER click on a link in an email that I wasn't sure about, ESPECIALLY if it's telling you the next thing they need is your username, password and credit card info.

If this is legit, then Sony really needs to learn how to communicate with emails that don't look like phishing attempts.

[avatar! | 1,819]

14 minutes ago, Shmup said:

This. The email just screams fake. Also I’m sure if you hovered over the link it would be a garble of an address.

Interesting point.

I'm leaning towards very good scam, but if anyone thinks otherwise do let me know. At any rate, I'm basically with @Gloves and have no intention on supplying my username, passwd, and credit card info!

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by avatar!