Gamesindustry: David Braben: "Physical games will go away in two to three years"

[Ciao]

I can see some high profile games skipping physical release in a couple of years, making headlines for that "bold" move, and it starting to become slooowly the norm. And a rise of services like Limited Runs making batches for collectors. But what do I know, I consume my music in vinyl form.

 

[Alucardx23]

This is exactly where i stand, i can buy a game 45€ day one and sells it 30-35€ two weeks later, in a digital-only world i would have to wait years before buying games

Click to shrink...

I buy my Playstation digital $60 games day one at $30 and get to keep them.

 

[dziga]

I buy my Playstation digital $60 games day one at $30 and get to keep them.

Click to shrink...

Great for you, i cant to afford to do that

 

[Cicero]

I wonder about what the timeline was like on PC. When was the first AAA PC game offered with a digital option and when was the first AAA PC game offered exclusively digital? What percentage of purchased games were digital vs physical by the latter case?

Might have to research this one myself.

 

[Alucardx23]

Great for you, i cant to afford to do that

Click to shrink...

In that case something like Gamepass sounds like a better option for you, since you don't plan to keep the games anyways. PS Now also looks like it will get a lot better next gen.

 

[Automagical]

Will it be at 80% in 3 years? I doubt it.
But i can see it easily at 80% in 7 seven years at start of the following generation.
I'm 100% certain PS6 and Xbox one series one X (wild guess @ microsoft naming scheming evolution here) will both be digital only baseline with disc drives only available as add-ons.

 

[jroc74]

Just like Vinyl and CD's.

Click to shrink...

Thank you.

I just posted in another thread there are still CDs, DVDs, blu rays, hell even physical PC games.

 

[The Silver]

If you keep saying this every year eventually you'll be right, foolproof plan.

 

[Mutley]

The big problem physical has got is that UHD Blu ray is going to be the last consumer based optical media developed. So Playstation 6 games will be too big to fit on a disk!

 

[Aadiboy]

Lol, they aren't going to stop making discs to make USB drives, you guys are crazy. Once physical production ends you guys are screwed.

 

[DeuceGamer]

Once we stop getting physical games I stop buying current gen titles and completely focus on retro games and my huge backlog.

 

[BizzyBum]

I think the fact that this will come to pass eventually (and sooner rather than later.. I really think next-next-gen (PS6) around 2030 will be digital only) is one of the main reasons I'm just going all digital now.

Collecting games nowadays is not as fun. Cases are generally ugly with awful, generic boxart and nothing but the disc inside unless you pony up $100+ on some LE version. I already have decades-worth of retro game collections back when cases were cool and games had dope manuals to collect. Collecting Series X and PS5 games just doesn't have that same appeal.

 

[Dust]

Digital only is also pretty much death wish for emerging and developing markets.

 

[TaySan]

I really hope this means ISP will drop data caps now that people will be downloading more games, but of course that will never happen.

 

[Empyrean Cocytus]

I know this is something publishers/developers are probably pushing for hardcore since they undoubtedly make more money off digital game sales (as well as gets rid of the pesky used game market), but I can't imagine physical games are going to go away that quickly. And even then, there's still a lot of people, myself included, who will get physical games whenever possible.

 

[Bman94]

Digital sale are up way more because reductions in price happen way more frequently on digital titles. There are times when a game goes on sale on PSN or Xbox Marketplace for $20 digital while still $40 physical. So obviously the consumer is going for the digital because it's cheaper. Used game sales were so popular in the past because it was the only way to get games cheap before digital store fronts really took off.

Also, I can't see Sony or Xbox giving up on physical releases so close to the release of their new consoles. IF they really wanted to phase out physical media it won't be until the end of next gen, and even then I don't know if they want to do that since their consoles also double as 4K Blu-ray players.