PS5

[avatar! | 1,811]

19 hours ago, zeppelin03 said:

Hopefully LRG and others can find a way to stay afloat when OEM manufacturers stop making the physical media.

I'm hoping they will. While not too many people have answered my poll thus far (if you haven't do so!) but so far about 1/3 of respondents said they would stop buying games if not physical. That's huge! Sure, I know this poll is small in scale, but if that's even remotely correct, assume around 25% of gamers would purchase physical copies regularly, or at least at intervals when their favorite games were released. I think that would be incentive enough for gaming companies to be smart and continue to support physical games. Otherwise, I think as mentioned before, it wouldn't surprise me if bootleg physical copies would start emerging. At any rate, I do hope LRG and other such publishers which are enjoying a golden age, continue to be able to do so. 

[Tulpa | 3,501]

13 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Otherwise, I think as mentioned before, it wouldn't surprise me if bootleg physical copies would start emerging.

How would they play if the console itself is all digital?

 

[avatar! | 1,811]

1 minute ago, Tulpa said:

How would they play if the console itself is all digital?

 

Bootleg console, PC, something along those lines. 

[Tulpa | 3,501]

Maybe several years after the console is released, but not during its active lifetime, I would think.

[zeppelin03 | 314]

38 minutes ago, avatar! said:

I'm hoping they will. While not too many people have answered my poll thus far (if you haven't do so!) but so far about 1/3 of respondents said they would stop buying games if not physical. That's huge! Sure, I know this poll is small in scale, but if that's even remotely correct, assume around 25% of gamers would purchase physical copies regularly, or at least at intervals when their favorite games were released. I think that would be incentive enough for gaming companies to be smart and continue to support physical games. Otherwise, I think as mentioned before, it wouldn't surprise me if bootleg physical copies would start emerging. At any rate, I do hope LRG and other such publishers which are enjoying a golden age, continue to be able to do so. 

I think the average user here approaches physical media quite differently than the general public.  25% here is likely much lower among the overall consumer base.  Despite that I bet LRG and others can keep going.  They could probably create their own disc based stuff without a hassle.  Cart based might be a bit more trouble.  Prices would likely increase quite a bit though. 

[avatar! | 1,811]

33 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Maybe several years after the console is released, but not during its active lifetime, I would think.

Article from 2015 disagrees  

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-bootleg-ps4-xbox-one-design

[Strange | 1,700]

Having to import a bootlegged console and then buy bootleg physical copies is a hassle that outweighs the current cons of digital games IMO.

 

[Tulpa | 3,501]

8 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Article from 2015 disagrees  

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-bootleg-ps4-xbox-one-design

 

Yeah, but would they bother to add a disc drive for the handful of luddites? I'd think they'd just copy the digital design wholesale and call it a day.

edit: Heck, they didn't even bother to add one to the disc based consoles they were copying!

"Observant backers may notice a lack of disc drive, so don't expect this to take centre stage in your home cinema set-up. But while Blu-ray playback is apparently ruled out, the Ouye does have some multimedia aspirations, with support for regional content streaming services."

Edited June 14, 2020 by Tulpa

[avatar! | 1,811]

1 minute ago, Tulpa said:

Yeah, but would they bother to add a disc drive for the handful of luddites? I'd think they'd just copy the digital design wholesale and call it a day.

I personally think they would. Physical-minded people will pay a premium for their goods. Also, I think said gamers would feel that the big companies gave them the middle finger, so said angry gamers would support bootleggers thus returning the gesture  

[Tulpa | 3,501]

I can see it being a DIY thing, but not a concerted effort by profit-seeking entities.

[avatar! | 1,811]

1 hour ago, Tulpa said:

I can see it being a DIY thing, but not a concerted effort by profit-seeking entities.

I disagree. I absolutely see this as being fueled by profiteers who take advantage of a situation where there is a substantial demand for physical copies. 

Lots of money to be made were that to be the case. 

[zeppelin03 | 314]

Instead of hackers creating ways to run games off of SD/HDD they begin working on means to use external blurays for your bootleg disc based games. 

Physical won't even be practical by the end of next gen.  Triple layer discs store 100gb.  Red Dead Redemption 2 was 90GB. A launch window game like Black Flag was 20GB.  I don't think it's unreasonable to think that games will at least double in size over this gen.

I can't imagine Sony wants to pay the expense for high capacity discs.  Could only imagine the cost for a limited producer compared to a giant corporation.  At this point I would begin expecting physical to get more expensive than digital or to disappear completely.

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

2 hours ago, zeppelin03 said:

Instead of hackers creating ways to run games off of SD/HDD they begin working on means to use external blurays for your bootleg disc based games. 

Physical won't even be practical by the end of next gen.  Triple layer discs store 100gb.  Red Dead Redemption 2 was 90GB. A launch window game like Black Flag was 20GB.  I don't think it's unreasonable to think that games will at least double in size over this gen.

I can't imagine Sony wants to pay the expense for high capacity discs.  Could only imagine the cost for a limited producer compared to a giant corporation.  At this point I would begin expecting physical to get more expensive than digital or to disappear completely.

The doubling in size of games might not be true. In fact they might shrink in size.

From what I’ve seen from people way smarter than me, modern game engines are designed to duplicate assets and bundle them according to what needs to be loaded at once.

This increases file size dramatically, but decreases load times on spinning hard drives.

Since the PS5 is all SSD, then this is no longer a bottleneck and assets no longer have to be duplicated, triplicates, etc. resulting in smaller file size, or granting a budget for bigger files in the same amount of space.

[zeppelin03 | 314]

51 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

The doubling in size of games might not be true. In fact they might shrink in size.

From what I’ve seen from people way smarter than me, modern game engines are designed to duplicate assets and bundle them according to what needs to be loaded at once.

This increases file size dramatically, but decreases load times on spinning hard drives.

Since the PS5 is all SSD, then this is no longer a bottleneck and assets no longer have to be duplicated, triplicates, etc. resulting in smaller file size, or granting a budget for bigger files in the same amount of space.

Hopefully you are right.  I could see the quality of assets bringing the game size back up.  Maybe efficiencies and quality will balance out and we stick with 100GB or so.

[RH | 4,904]

Well, if in 10 years time the Microsoft XBox Y, PS 6 and Nintendo Goobee are all digital, maybe there will then be hope for SEGA to see the hole in the market and finally create a new, real system but physical based. It could even be a system only 1.5x as powerful as these new systems and I'd still buy it just to support the idea.

[TDIRunner | 2,740]

Going digital doesn't stop the big retailers from selling games.  Wal-Mart and Target (and many others) have been selling digital games for years.  

[Boosted52405 | 178]

Despite the poll, I assume that when the time comes that a blockbuster AAA+ title comes out as digital only, that many will change their tune.  It's the inevitable future just like music CD's etc.

Personally, the older I get I'm surprising myself with a newfound interest of purging a large amount of of my physical assets.  I might be in the minority there though.

[RH | 4,904]

7 minutes ago, ChickenTendas4PokeyEater said:

Not to be an asshole or anything, but the poll isn't too accurate. Pretty much everyone here is a financially-stable collector, and it makes sense that they prefer physical. I highly doubt very many people will stop buying games entirely if we go all-digital, especially if something like Persona 6 or another Witcher game comes out. I think we're slowly drifting towards all-digital, as soon as Sony and Microsoft realize how much their profits could shoot up when they make the switch. Games could be cheaper, bigger budgets on AAA titles, more freedom to experiment, ect. The only thing stopping games from being consistently cheaper digitally is agreements with retail stores, but if the big 3 go digital, then they don't have to worry about Walmart no longer carrying their games, and more money goes straight to the publishers.

I didn't point this out but I agree. In fact, seeing 1/4-1/3 of the people around here wanting physical only is a bit sad to me.  Not in a "shame on you" kind of way, but I just hoped maybe a higher percentage of people would want to keep it around.

I've definitely paid for digital downloads of games but those occasions are rare.  The biggest offenders for me are freemium mobile games. If someone makes a good game that doesn't throw ads in your face, or gives you the option to use them at your own discretion, and I put hours into a mobile game, I'll gladly spend a few bucks on their app because I enjoyed it.  Before collecting, I use to put about $20-30/month into whatever gatcha had caught my attention.  Of course, even then I just told myself that even though that wasn't a lot of money to me, I could take that same money, buy games I want whether old or new, and if I didn't like it, I had something physical I could sell and recoup the cost, which you can't do with digital.

It just blows my mind that some people wouldn't at least want the option for physical.  In 10 to 20 years time, there will be some games that there will just be no legal way to play them and due to weird circumstances, there will be others that no one will even have a way to play due to odd bugs and no emulator capable of overcoming the internal issues.  If you have a physical game, at least the media is locally archived and if you can get a working console, you have a way to play it.

Oh, and this is all for console games.  I do like to own physical PC releases but since I've not had a laptop with a disc drive for over 7 years, I've accepted to use services like GOG which I highly respect their "100% DRM free, archive it if you want but we will always keep it available for you if you want it" policy.  Of course, all it will take is for Steam or EA to buy them out one day and, poof.  I give GoG 1 year before it goes the way of NintendoAge.

[avatar! | 1,811]

6 hours ago, ChickenTendas4PokeyEater said:

Not to be an asshole or anything, but the poll isn't too accurate. 

Saying it isn't "too accurate" doesn't mean much. You have to have context. I agree that VGS is a microcosm of gamers. However, how many video game collectors are out there in the real world? Maybe it's a small fraction of those that play games, but I would bet a significant fraction that spends a lot of money. This is true for many collectibles that have existed for decades. Baseball cards are still being made as are MtG cards. Why? because people collect them and spend large amounts of money, despite the fact they can easily be available digitally. Same thing with books, movies, and yes, CDs. So when you say this poll "isn't too accurate" I would argue it depends on what you're looking at. If we assume that 1/3 of all video game collector's will stop purchasing games that are digital that is a huge amount of money that will be lost. Will that deter all-digital? I hope so, although I certainly don't know. 

[phart010 | 1,707]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:27 AM, RegularGuyGamer said:

Idk about the all digital everything future that everyone points to. Think of all the countries with people who have unreliable internet. There's no way they would take out a decent % of their total player base by forcing digital only unless high speed wifi gets beams from space for all the world. 

That’s assuming they want to expand into the regions that have very poor connectivity. Most video game revenue comes from Japan, West Europe and North America, something like 75%. These places all have “adequate” internet and within another 2-3 years will have ultra fast 5g infrastructure pretty much everywhere.

The other 25% are spotty regions around the world, probably mostly concentrated in urbanized areas. They could probably get at least adequate internet connection in the next couple years if they don’t already have it. 
 

Rural areas probably won’t get the infrastructure any time soon, but then again the people living in those areas probably don’t make enough money to afford to buy these consoles anyways

[Tulpa | 3,501]

Most new consoles require an online connection to be fully functional anyway, don't they? Or to at least download day one patches to play many games.

[avatar! | 1,811]

18 minutes ago, ChickenTendas4PokeyEater said:

Collectors are a very tiny fraction of gamers. Plus, many collectors don't even bother with newer stuff...A large portion of collectors collect because of nostalgia for the games of yesteryear...I'll be very generous here and say that 5% of gamers will stop buying games and new consoles entirely if we go all-digital...And your "1/3 of all video game collectors" isn't even in the realm of possibility. Honestly, no one will be able to resist GTA 6. Sure, maybe you cry about no more disks to buy, but at the end of the day, you'll get over it. And your disk probably doesn't even have the complete game on it anyway. 

 

NO offense, but you're pulling stuff out of, well let's just say "thin air". Do you have ANY actual idea what fraction of gamers are collectors? Do you have any idea how many collectors collect "new stuff"? Do you have any idea how many collectors only collect because of nostalgia? NO you don't. 

The 5% is again something you just conjured up with absolutely no evidence whatsoever! 

Honestly, no one will be able to resist GTA 6 Wow, I'm not even sure what do say here, except I can assure you I WILL easily be able to resist GTA 6, hence making your argument null and void.

Sure, maybe you cry about no more disks to buy, but at the end of the day, you'll get over it. Did you look at the poll? Currently over 1/3 of those polled said they would stop purchasing games if they went all digital, so clearly NO there are people who will not "get over it". 

And your disk probably doesn't even have the complete game on it anyway. - That's a completely different issue. And by the way, the Complete Edition of Horizon Zero Dawn DOES include the DLC on disc - I have it. 

In the end, what you said is just your opinion (which you are 100% entitled to) without any evidence to back it up. I would go so far as to say, as I noted above, some of your arguments are just wrong. I will also admit that I don't have great statistics, but the statistics I do have from the poll are much more relevant than just making up numbers and going by nothing more than personal belief. 

[Quest4Nes | 376]

On 6/13/2020 at 11:34 PM, Tulpa said:

Most game consumers play a game for a few months and then never play it again when the next shiny new thing comes along. Digital plays right into that.

the one thing with that is generally those people trade it in for another game. Cant do that anymore. No more facebook trades etc.

[Tulpa | 3,501]

3 minutes ago, Quest4Nes said:

the one thing with that is generally those people trade it in for another game. Cant do that anymore. No more facebook trades etc.

I don't see that stopping people wanting to play the latest and greatest game.

[Quest4Nes | 376]

Just now, Tulpa said:

I don't see that stopping people wanting to play the latest and greatest game.

It will affect the parents buying for their kids.