Gaming Is the Switch future compatible with a new digital-only infrastructure for Gen 9th consoles?

[Xzi]

lol at anyone who thinks physical games are going anywhere

Yeah because it's still super easy to find physical PC games, right?

Of course MS/Sony/Nintendo would rather go digital, then they get to keep more of the profit.

Digital titles don't have any resale value if you sell or trade your consoles to Gamestop or a similar store because they factory reset it.

True, but at the same time, digital pricing goes down way faster than physical pricing does. Unless a game is like 2-3 years old, Gamestop's used prices are like $45 or $50. Meanwhile, three months after launch or so, you can get that same game from Steam for around $30. Consoles might be more stingy with the sales, but it's still way less of a hassle to get discounts on digital games.

 

[pedro702]

i never buy digital only games becuase in less than 10 years the servers are down and f you want to redownloaded it or your console dies and you need another one you are screwed.

Phisical media will always exist, only hardcore gamers go to websites seeing wich games are released and when, and hardcore gamers arent even half of the console buyers, the casual game gets their game from stores, or atleast sees publicity on stores and buys it digitaly, having games on shelves is free advertisement to the devs wich is very welcome, you can compare the sales of games being made digitaly and phisicaly and phisicaly always wins, becuase there are manny more casual gamers that buy a game becuase they saw it on store shelf and looked good.

there is a reason why steam has alot of games that are also and consoles and manny more million users and sells like crap, every developer makes more money on console rather than steam.

 

[Xzi]

i never buy digital only games becuase in less than 10 years the servers are down and f you want to redownloaded it or your console dies and you need another one you are screwed.

Servers for specific games go down, not online store servers. I've never seen a digital game made inaccessible this way.

Phisical media will always exist, only hardcore gamers go to websites seeing wich games are released and when, and hardcore gamers arent even half of the console buyers, the casual game gets their game from stores, or atleast sees publicity on stores and buys it digitaly, having games on shelves is free advertisement to the devs wich is very welcome, you can compare the sales of games being made digitaly and phisicaly and phisicaly always wins, becuase there are manny more casual gamers that buy a game becuase they saw it on store shelf and looked good.

I mean, any gamer who is easily enticed by the cover of a game is also likely to be easily enticed by screenshots or trailers.

there is a reason why steam has alot of games that are also and consoles and manny more million users and sells like crap, every developer makes more money on console rather than steam.

PC sales have been totaling more than console sales since at least 2015.

https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1333/13335885/2935021-0921111363-29302.jpg

 

[pedro702]

Servers for specific games go down, not online store servers. I've never seen a digital game made inaccessible this way.


I mean, any gamer who is easily enticed by the cover of a game is also likely to be easily enticed by screenshots or trailers.


PC sales have been totaling more than console sales since at least 2015.

https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1333/13335885/2935021-0921111363-29302.jpg

your telling me when microsfot shuts down the entire xbox360 network and sony shuts own ps3, and nintendo shuts down wiiu you wont loose games you need to redownload? of course you will, when you can log in on psn,xboxlive or nnid you wont be able to redownload anything, heck if your consoles dies you are screwed, also pc games have alot of exclsuives, i meant pc games that come out on consoles, basicaly multiplatform games like cod,fifa,battlefield,etc.

 

[Xzi]

your telling me when microsfot shuts down the entire xbox360 network and sony shuts own ps3, and nintendo shuts down wiiu you wont loose games you need to redownload? of course you will, when you can log in on psn,xboxlive or nnid you wont be able to redownload anything, heck if your consoles dies you are screwed, also pc games have alot of exclsuives, i meant pc games that come out on consoles, basicaly multiplatform games like cod,fifa,battlefield,etc.

That's what you're not getting. They shut down multiplayer game servers, they don't shut down the servers for their online stores. Your account info allows you to re-download a game at any time, but if you buy it physical and lose the disc/cart, it's gone forever.

I enjoy having physical games as well, but it's not hard to see which direction the wind is blowing.

 

[dogmarch]

They shut down multiplayer game servers, they don't shut down the servers for their online stores.

dsi shop.

 

[pedro702]

That's what you're not getting. They shut down multiplayer game servers, they don't shut down the servers for their online stores. Your account info allows you to re-download a game at any time, but if you buy it physical and lose the disc/cart, it's gone forever.

I enjoy having physical games as well, but it's not hard to see which direction the wind is blowing.

not they arent lol, nintendo wii e shop will be shutdown this year, you can not redownload anything ever again lol

so all wiiware/vc and stuff is forever locked after 2018, same happenend with xbox lol

original xbox was cutted off so you cant redownload any dlc you had or anything because you cant login to xbox servers anymore, when the company shuts down the store all your licenses are crap, you cant redownload becuase you cant log in.

the easy thing is original xbox and wii had few online only games, but when ps3,xbox360 and wiiu get shutdown alot of games will be lost forever.

Same happened with dsi e shop, shop got shutdown and now you cant redownload any dsi exclusive anymore.

you have no idea what you are talking about about redownload lol, consoles arent PC, when store is down your redownloads are gone.
so far original xbox and dsi.
wii is up this year, i bet in 4 or 5 years xbox360,ps3 and wiiu wil be shutdown too.

nintendo,sony and microsoft arent gonna pay for servers that no one uses anymore almost every single month, i dont give 5 years for xbox360,ps3 and wiiu you will see.


also if i lost a game i can buy another disc and play it and it would be 1 game, if your console dies you will loose every fraking game and cant redownload shit lol its a major diference, there was a reason microsoft is loosing hard this gen is becuase of their launch reports saying always online with discs being licenses and worthless after install, if anyone wanted 100% online only and no retail xbox wouldnt have backed out of their original claims lol.

 

[Xzi]

snip

You're talking about a bunch of issues from the early online days. Sony/MS/Nintendo could each make a universal account at this point, much like Steam, where you can download old and new games alike. There's even incentive to do that if you get to carry over your games from an older system to a new one. Pretty sure MS and Sony already do this to some extent.

Niche online services like DSi are something completely different from modern PSN, XBL, eShop, and Steam.

 

[Polopop123]

i never buy digital only games becuase in less than 10 years the servers are down and f you want to redownloaded it or your console dies and you need another one you are screwed.

Phisical media will always exist, only hardcore gamers go to websites seeing wich games are released and when, and hardcore gamers arent even half of the console buyers, the casual game gets their game from stores, or atleast sees publicity on stores and buys it digitaly, having games on shelves is free advertisement to the devs wich is very welcome, you can compare the sales of games being made digitaly and phisicaly and phisicaly always wins, becuase there are manny more casual gamers that buy a game becuase they saw it on store shelf and looked good.

there is a reason why steam has alot of games that are also and consoles and manny more million users and sells like crap, every developer makes more money on console rather than steam.

By the time the servers are down, you’ll be able to emulate it decently on a PC

 

[pedro702]

You're talking about a bunch of issues from the early online days. Sony/MS/Nintendo could all make a universal account at this point, much like Steam, where you can download old and new games alike. There's even incentive to do that if you get to carry over your games from an older system to a new one.

sony wants you to purshase the ps1,ps2 and ps3 games again or streaming which some people do they dont want you to carry over your games they want you to buy a streaming rental, xboxone needs to ask every developer to make their game backwards compat and nintendo isnt also backwards compat either.

So while it would make sence they would still need to have server with millions of gb worth of redownload stuff wich cost money taht barely anyone would use.

im telling you sony(primarely) has no reason to keep hosting ps3 store in 5 years same with nintendo since no backwards compat at all.
xbox could but i doubt they were the first ones to close xbox store even tough manny xbox games worked on xbox360 and people even bought dlc for them on 360 and they still shuted them down.

they have no obligation to continue infinite supporting them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

By the time the servers are down, you’ll be able to emulate it decently on a PC

i dont play games on pc emulating or otherwise, my pc is a piece of crap, and i doubt any emulator for xbox360 or ps3 would run on mid low pcs in 5 years lol

heck original xbox still has no decen emulator at all up to this day and its store was closed for years.

 

[Xzi]

they have no obligation to continue infinite supporting them.

The obligation comes in the form of competition. If things do go digital-only, consoles will have no choice but to offer universal accounts/downloads as an incentive, or they'll never be able to compete with Steam. As it is right now, the physical market is pretty much crap with the price gouging that goes on for both new and used games. One brick and mortar retailer available in most areas is hardly any better than zero.

 

[pedro702]

The obligation comes in the form of competition. If things do go digital-only, consoles will have no choice but to offer universal accounts/downloads as an incentive, or they'll never be able to compete with Steam. As it is right now, the physical market is pretty much crap with the price gouging that goes on for both new and used games.

how is the price for used games hard? you can go on ebay or amazon and get ps4 used games for under 10$ lol, i bough with shipping from usa to portugal wolfenstein double pack for 17$ phisicaly lol.

i buy my games used for under 20$ each, you only need to wait abit and you get amazing deals, specialy on ps4 on eby and amazon.

 

[Xzi]

how is the price for used games hard? you can go on ebay or amazon and get ps4 used games for under 10$ lol, i bough with shipping from usa to portugal wolfenstein double pack for 17$ phisicaly lol.

i buy my games used for under 20$ each, you only need to wait abit and you get amazing deals, specialy on ps4 on eby and amazon.

Yeah but now you're talking about buying online, which does not help keep physical games afloat. Publishers/developers look at online physical sales and think about how easy it would be to cut out the middleman and turn those into digital sales instead. Saves them money and saves the customer a wait to play their game.

 

[pedro702]

how is the price for used games hard? you can go on ebay or amazon and get ps4 used games for under 10$ lol, i bough with shipping from usa to portugal wolfenstein double pack for 17$ phisicaly lol.

i buy my games used for under 20$ each, you only need to wait abit and you get amazing deals, specialy on ps4 on eby and amazon.

i rest my case just check a recent game like wolfenstein 2 ps4 on ebay, you get a phisicaly ps4 copy for under 20 euros with shipping(18.90 euros) from spain to me.

on steam it cost 60$ tell me how is used games price hard?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Yeah but now you're talking about buying online, which does not help keep physical games afloat. Publishers/developers look at online physical sales and think about how easy it would be to cut out the middleman and turn those into digital sales instead. Saves them money and saves the customer a wait to play their game.

new game sold online on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wolfenstei...047080&hash=item362588b87b:g:BM0AAOSwKQ9aBsdp

cost for me shipping and everything under 30$ on ps4 and cost me 60 on steam, its new and sealled.

games after 2 or 3 months are dirty cheap on ps4 and xboxone this days, its never been cheaper to get phisical copies if you wait 2 or 3 months. heck even on day one online stores give you 15% or more off on preoder, i never pay more than 53 euros for a new ps4 game on launch day this days.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I prefer that they keep doing retail games. As much as people see digital games cool and all, is not all that great, pro and cons people.

Retail Pro

• You purchase, you own it
• Data stored on disc/cart
• Easy sell or trade process
• Collectors edition are packaged with content that digital can't do

Con

• Damaged products result in not useable
• Possible to lose if not careful (probably fault of player)
• System requires installing data (Which I hate)

The problem I have with retail games, mostly Xbox/playstation is that the game data is installed on the system taking up considerable amounts of space which is supposed to do in order to reduce loading times of these "Huge game files" Let me be the first to say that not many games even use more than 25% of the supposed blu ray disc even before ps4 and xbox one came out. Sure people like having quick load times and higher definition games but at the cost of storing 15GB-40GB data on a very limited HDD the system is shipped with?

Digital pro

• Easy purchase of all games
• All games are stored in one device
• Able to redownload without buying again if you must for some reason (HDD failure, format system, new system or HDD purchase)

Con

• Doesn't really feel like owning a game. (Can't do anything with it if you can't access the digital store to download if you lose it somehow.)
• Cannot resell or trade (ALL SALES FINAL)
• Usually stores more data than disc do making it more likely to fill up storage fast

Is bad enough you pay prices like $60 then need to spend money on extending or upgrading the storage device to compensate for all those games you either download or have to install. A system like WII U and switch where we didn't have to do any data installing from retail disc was nice to have, but doesn't excuse the poor 32GB system file size which at best can hold about 4-7 retail eshop games depending on file size before you required to buy a storage upgrade. It be nice if all games could be at retail but I would prioritize the games with the bigger file sizes first.

Switch is already handling it poorly with retail games like NBA 2K 18 and such requiring to have a SD card upgrade to even play the game cause they thought it was a good idea to split the data of a obviously huge game they couldn't fit on to the capacity of those carts which is bad, not to mention some less expensive games on other systems has a $10 increase when buying it on nintendo switch. Sometimes I feel like digital games should get a lower price than retail but don't listen to me about it.

 

[Xzi]

new game sold online on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wolfenstei...047080&hash=item362588b87b:g:BM0AAOSwKQ9aBsdp

cost for me shipping and everything under 30$ on ps4 and cost me 60 on steam, its new and sealled.

games after 2 or 3 months are dirty cheap on ps4 and xboxone this days, its never been cheaper to get phisical copies if you want 2 or 3 months. heck even on day one online stores give you 15% or more off on preoder, i never pay more than 53 euros for a new ps4 game on launch day this days.

I mean in terms of value, Xbox Game Pass is gonna beat out used physical games for sure. You still didn't address my previous point about online sales contributing to the decline of physical media, though. The only way to guarantee physical games stick around is to buy them in retail stores, where they're always more expensive. Which is part of the reasoning behind why we're moving toward digital-only, because when people pretty much only buy online anyway, why should devs/publishers waste the money on printing physical media?

This isn't to say I don't understand why you'd defend physical games, I prefer physical for Switch as well, but we're at a point where you can often get 1TB of space for around $50. Once storage gets to a certain price point, physical media becomes pointless, almost more expensive to print physical than it is per MB to stream the game or send the game download to everybody.

 

[pedro702]

I mean in terms of value, Xbox Game Pass is gonna beat out used physical games for sure. You still didn't address my previous point about online sales contributing to the decline of physical media, though. The only way to guarantee physical games stick around is to buy them in retail stores, where they're always more expensive. Which is part of the reasoning behind why we're moving toward digital-only, because when people pretty much only buy online anyway, why should devs/publishers waste the money on printing physical media?

there are retail stores online that made huge deals, and companys makes money , like i said go to ebay there are online sores selling preety much any 2 or 3 months games from ps4,xboxone for under 30 euros sealled and new, the devs are getting money from selling them to this online retailers that sell phisical copies online.

just look at it yourself, choose any xbox one,ps4 game with 2 or 3 months taht was also on pc, see the price of a sealed copy on ebay or amazon and then see the price on steam, and them explain to me how used price is hard.

look at assainc creed,wolfenstein 2, fifa,etc.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

Not really... The switch wouldn't be able to handle a all digital market due to its low amount of internal memory. Although their are memory cards they wont be able to hold that many games especially triple AAA games that can be 50 gigs. The only way the switch would be able to surive an all digital market is if sd cards are made which can hold 1 to 2 tb or at least 500 gig. Their are now 256 gig sd cards that are 20 $ but still that wont be enough...

https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/22/the-first-512gb-microsd-card-arrives-in-february/

 

[Xzi]

there are retail stores online that made huge deals, and companys makes money , like i said go to ebay there are online sores selling preety much any 2 or 3 months games from ps4,xboxone for under 30 euros sealled and new, the devs are getting money from selling them to this online retailers that sell phisical copies online.

These do not have storefronts usually. They don't have shares on the stock market. There's no reason Sony/MS/Nintendo would feel a need to continue supporting them with physical games. Also, not all of the physical copies on eBay were bought legit (obviously).

I understand you like physical copies, so do I, I'm just being practical about this.

 

[pedro702]

I mean in terms of value, Xbox Game Pass is gonna beat out used physical games for sure. You still didn't address my previous point about online sales contributing to the decline of physical media, though. The only way to guarantee physical games stick around is to buy them in retail stores, where they're always more expensive. Which is part of the reasoning behind why we're moving toward digital-only, because when people pretty much only buy online anyway, why should devs/publishers waste the money on printing physical media?

This isn't to say I don't understand why you'd defend physical games, I prefer physical for Switch as well, but we're at a point where you can often get 1TB of space for around $50. Once storage gets to a certain price point, physical media becomes pointless, almost more expensive to print physical than it is per MB to stream the game or send the game download to everybody.

also xbox is doing that becuase they lost, xbox sales are a disaster this gen, they need to make something to make it worth it lol, sony doesnt even need to do this becuase they already won, even after the xbox one x launched xbox is still selling like crap compared to the competition, companys when they are loosing make huge deals even ones that make almost no money to get some sales, which xbox is doing to stay relevant.