@@r3gulat0r I got the $300 Spiderman 2 Collectors edition and Horizon Forbidden West. Both of them came with a steel book case. Within that steel book case… was a digital code.
@@TheShadesOfBlack to be fair thats arguably worth more than a disk is these days. Half the time bigger games are utterly unplayable with the data on the disk, they're basically a download code you can accidentally scratch and break.
@@r3gulat0r tbf though, I do wonder what will happen to ppl who pre-order a Collector's edition of a game, but it have physical disk and the person have a Digital Edition console. I guess they are no longer allowed to buy physical media? Or they now need to resell the useless game being bundled and bought a separate online copy. That's what I'm thinking since I ordered Metaphor's collector's edition, and it came with physical copy of the game. I am sure that some ppl that want this, also may have a Digital Edition console.
It also takes less energy and environmentally friendly, to put games on physical media regardless of what you choose and send it out to anyone who wants one then it is to keep and maintain servers for digital only games. Selling those digital code only boxes is doubling down on waste.
You forgot one important point, which I believe is the reason for the companies to remove the disc drive. Once all consoles are digital and you have no option of using used physical copies, the digital (sale) prices are going to increase. Right now the digital sale prices are competing with the used market, without that effect, it's obvious what is going to happen.
Not just that, but if the console is digital only, you're going to have to buy from THEIR STORE, right now Sony/Microsoft/etc have to pay retail stores a cut to stock their products, the pressing of discs costs them money. If you buy it from THEIR STORE, they can make more money when spending less. They can also decide what developer/games get the most advertising/prominent placement on their storefront.
@@MrWhereIsYourGodNow Microsoft has already done that to some extent on the storage. Internal M.2 SSD is paired to the board via its serial number so you can't replace it (unlike on the xbox one, where you can just slap in any 2.5" HDD or SSD) and the external proprietary storage cards are only made by 2 companies (WD and Seagate), are *horribly* overpriced for the amount of storage you get (upgrading a Series S is entirely pointless as a 1TB card costs as much as the whole console is worth) and there's no third party option as there's a software based whitelist which prevents that from ever happening. Designed to screw you over from the ground up
I think this is a fallacy proven by the PC. While you can argue PC has multiple store fronts, there is no denying that Steam holds the majority of the PC sales market. PC physical sales are for the most part non-existent for years now and yet sales on platforms like Steam have beat out console sale pricing. If anything, the move to digital will push current console manufacturers further towards cloud and the race to the bottom for getting people access. Why have a barrier of entry of $500 when you can sell the customer a TV stick for less than $100 that streams a game and provides consistent revenue through a subscription?
I noticed that this video has quite a few voice over corrections numbers that weren't quite right and during the original shoot. This is the CORRECT way to issue corrections, because an on-screen pop up is NOT accessible for visually impaired audience members. If you care even a tiny bit about your visually impaired viewers, PLEASE continue using this strategy for corrections!
I was about to comment this. If you're a movie enthusiast and have invested in a budget but decent Home Theater you can just double dip on the physical media perks even though it's not the best BR player out there, it's good enough to enjoy 4k UHD
@@rotinhellorg LTT did a video on this, and to normal people, it doesn't really matter on the difference between a console and a dedicated BR player for most people
With built in backwards compatibility, its way more worth it to have the disc option to be able to play older games. I play my 360 discs on my series x all the time.
I can't connect my own external BD drive to the Series S, no matter how good and expensive it may be. That's very scummy of Microsoft to disallow it outright.
This is a pretty good selling point, and basically the only reason I have disc-reading versions of the PS5 and Series X; one for Godzilla PS4, which never released digitally, and one for Minecraft Xbox One Edition, which is no longer available digitally (it just sends you to the Bedrock Edition, which is different)
@@brandonalexander1062 This is a great point until you realize that you can’t play these 360 games completely offline, especially if it’s a single player title. So if you want to play these old games of yours, you’ll have to be at the mercy of Microsoft’s online servers in order to play your own games.
@@Evil_Pasta that part i can at least understand, as if they were to allow 3rd party drives, this would open up the console to piracy via modified optical drives or ODEs (similar to how the first xb360 mods were altered firmware for the DVD drive so it would allow playing burned copies)
The biggest saving is buying a used game and selling it again after you've played. That way you maybe spent only 5 bucks on a game, sometimes maybe nothing or even get more than you've paid for if you were lucky. Biggest argument for me to still buy a lot of games digitally even though I have a disc version is the convenience of not needing to swap CDs.
It's not all about cost. Sometimes it's game availability. What if I wanted to play Forza Horizon 1,2 or 3? These were all pulled from sales at the digital stores because the music/car licensing was not renewed. I could still go out and pick up a physical copy, however, and play through that without an issue.
Even if you own the digital copy it won't show up in your library? I don't usually go back to older games but when I do I haven't come across this issue.
@@riopato2009 What they remove from the store is the option to purchase. If you bought the game while it was available, then 99% of the time you can still re-download it and play it just fine. There have been a few rare examples where the publisher pulled a game down and actually removed it from players libraries, but it's very rare. Ubisoft did this with The Crew recently, but only for the people who bought it through their PC digital store. If you got it on consoles or Steam, it's still available to be downloaded. Ubisoft has been the worst about this from what I've seen.
And if that happens, I am migrating to PC. The reasons I have use consoles are: (i) ease of use; (ii) exclusives; and (iii) physical media If exclusives and physical media are no longer part of the equation, that is enough for me to migrate back to PCs and be happy with it.
It was inevitable, the consumer optical disks are archaic technology abandoned by nearly every other industry, even PC gamers. The injustice with consoles is you won’t be given proper ownership of your digital purchases and there will be no competition of games distribution as there is in PC
@@maquiavelmg For a lot of people there’s still the question of price. GPU pricing is really putting down the value of PC gaming right now, especially if you’re only getting 2-5 games a year.
@@Tomiply The global median daily income is ~8$, not everyone lives in western Europe or the US and earns 25~60k a year. For billions of people gaming is a luxury and 50$ can make a big difference
@@joshknight1620 in my country PS5 Drive sells for 150$ on average, with maximum retail price of about 350$ recently after ps5 pro announcement. This transfers to about 2 premiere titles, 100 is not enough for us :)
@@Ethan_Fel but your computer is still gonna work that's the point, the digital only Xbox can't do anything else than gaming specifically with software downloaded from Xbox' servers, while Steam runs in a platform that supersedes them, computers don't only come pre-packaged with steam
TL:DW 10:19 The console with the disk drive could also be calculated by always taking the lower price - no matter if phyiscal or digital. If the digital game version is cheaper you can still buy it on a console that has a disk drive.
For 10 minutes I was thinking how stupid it was that they compared the lowest physical to digital instead of the lowest overall. I was relieved when they finally got to that conclusion.
Yup and you can do that for all consoles/platforms you own. Take the lowest price unless you want to collect, lend or gift the game later. I do that for Xbox and PC, meaning I'll mostly buy digital bc on PC the sales are a lot better but try to grow my physical collection for Xbox as much as its financially reasonable. I've only bought digital on Xbox a few times like when they had the The Crew - Motorfest for $1 😁
As someone who works on gaming retail I'd pick a physical game playing console every time. Physical games: 1 ) Can be swapped between friends/family. 2 ) Can be sold to stores, marketplace or eBay. 3 ) Can be bought for cheap. 4 ) Has no input from the console manufacturer, meaning they don't get to decide how much you pay or if you can even buy it at all 5 ) If your account gets banned or the service shuts down you don't lose your entire collection. 6 ) You can return games you don't like / want as easily as just going back to the store with your receipt. 7 ) Literally everything the digital console does so will the physical drive console but also let's you put in disks. This means all the benefits digital has physical also has and more. Edit: Well this got more attention than I expected. Just to clear some things up. I have been working at a game store part time for several years as I study. I am not a CEO or big regional manager or something, just a dude who sells games to kids & grandmas. If the entire industry collapsed today I would have another part time job by tomorrow. It's a little over the top to say I have a vested interest in all of this, I'm just commenting on the real world examples of benifits to the customer I see several times a week for the past few years. 4 ) I was referencing pre-owned games. You can sell those for $1 or $1,000 without the console manufacturer or game maker getting a say in it. I should have been more clear on this. 5 ) Kids especially get themselves permanently locked out of their accounts all the time & adults often get accounts banned / deleted by ex's. Again I have these conversations with living breathing human beings every single week & spend a not insignificant portion of my week in contact with Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo on behalf of clients. The points about game disks not containing the whole game or just containing licence keys are very good ones & while not always the case it is sadly becoming much much more common. However those licence disks still give you the ability to sell it to others, swap it with friends, buy it cheap second hand, not lose access if your account gets suspended and return the game if you do not like it. They also often will work even if the console's store does not sell that particular game in your region. All in all digital is the way of the future but I don't think a future where console manufacturers hold all the cards is a good one. Imagine a world where Nintendo gets to decide IF you can play your favourite Mario ever again or if they're just going to remove it from sale permanently / jack up the price to thousands of dollars. With a digital only future you don't own anything, which means it can be removed with little to no compensation at all.
Only thing is nowadays *only while the store stays online/supported Nintendo is even stopping Wii downloads at some point in the future. Sure the physical games will still work, but current gen xbox and ps games often don't have the full game on the disk (often the disk isnt even full, so for no reason). When they eventually stop being supported, those disks become frisbees. Switch often only has 1/2 the game on the card.
Except physical games are all but nonexistent these days. The disk is a glorified "CD key" (those were the days) at this point. I'm not arguing against you. I'm just lamenting the fact. The silver lining is that it does actually seem the consumers are waking up to this sort of trash and there's even been some minor legal advancements in the area. Right now the big thing is the woke backlash (which is well deserved). But if we're lucky, the next big backlash will be against the fact that we're paying AAA prices to rent games at this point.
Just playing some Devi's Advocate. 1) If you trust them, and I've had people I thought I could trust, let them borrow things and never get them back or get them back damaged. 2) Yeah, but for how much? Is it worth the time, effort, and money to ship games you have to take individual pictures of? I guess it's something, but is it worth spending $10 in gas and $5 in shipping to make $5 or less? It really depends on the game and how rare it is. 3) Cheaper than sold. If the person is looking for a marginal profit or an older game, there are plenty of copies of so it's really cheap or a bad game no one wants. 4) That's really the best argument; I can't think of any Devil's Advocate argument for it. 5) Keyword entire, there will always be something about the current era of internet access that is less of a factor when you go backwards. 6) That's not true, at least not since I tried doing it with an open game. If the game was open, they didn't accept it. I'd have to try and sell it for used. Maybe some of these used games you're talking about. 7) Yeah, that's true, I have some old PC games on disk, and even if I get an external disk drive, they don't work. I'm sure there is a way, but I couldn't be bothered just for nostalgia. But my PS5 plays all my PS4 games. I think the current Xbox can play the 1st Xbox games. Look, I'm not looking for an argument; I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. IMO, there's nothing wrong with your position. I just think people use that as a justification to own a collection rather than an actual reason to.
@@LarryJ602 7. The current XBOX can't play all 1st Xbox games, it'll use your disc as a license and download the port (if it exists) from the store. Similar thing for 360 games, but there it's because the 360 used a PowerPC architecture. M$ has a list of the games on its site.
Don't forget you were talking originally about Xbox where you can buy games at a cheap price from cdkeys g2a ect, where as on PS you don't buy a code you purchase a PSN acct
I always buy, sell, and trade my physical games, yes it's time consuming but as a college student who is saving up money it is worth it. I am able to play newly released games without having to spend so much money. I could buy a $70 game and sell it afterwards for $40+ on the marketplace depending on how much time has passed since its release, so technically I only spent $20-$30 for new games. Not to mention trading which is a 1:1 or 1:2 swap if I want to get older games for my new one without having to spend any money. Then I use those newly acquired games to find and trade to other games and the cycle repeats, its also fun having to talk to other fellow gamers in the community when I'm meeting them for a deal.
We went a loooooong way from 1 of your friends having a copy of Mario Kart DS and everyone else playing along through Download Play vs the crap they are pulling nowadays...
All multiplayer games used to come with a LAN mode or private servers. I'm so tired of being physically with friends and needing to play through online servers anyway. Not to mention those multiplayer modes will disappear along with the servers.
The problem is potentially getting locked out of the games you purchase, on hardware you purchase. I don't think it's about physical or digital, it's about having control over your own property.
... You must have missed the part about day one patches in the video where he addresses the problem with your particular argument. When the servers go so do the patches that make the files on disk usable.
Exactly. I currently can't access any digital games on my PS3 with a broken wi-fi chip. I need to update firmware on it to access PSN, but I can't because the broken chip sends it into a loop during update. My only options are to wait till custom firmware gets updated, or to replace the chip, which is soldered on. Meanwhile, I can play all of my physical games without any problems at all.
@@user-cz6us7ok2jdamm I genuinely thought that for the ps3 (or any play station console in general) your downloaded digital games were saved locally so even if you didn’t have wifi, you could still play single player offline
Saving 50 on no drive won’t even get you a new release digital AAA title, so it’s not worth it at all, take it from someone who only managed to get a hold of a digital ps5 when there was a supply shortage during the initial release and been kicking myself ever since. The only feasible argument for digital only currently is PC due to more frequent discounts, and key sites to help getting a games cheaper.
Honestly at this point I'd rather mail $60 USD in cash to Larian Studios HQ and pirate BG3 rather than buy it, they get more money, I get the exact same product.
If its primarily a blu ray player to you, then you can probably just buy an xbox one or ps4 for like 50 bucks on facebook market. No need to look at hot newness. Just buy a used, old beater system and they do the same things mostly.
@diogopadrao4118 Let me rephrase: The only reason I consider buying a console instead of just playing on PC only, is because a console could play my Blu-ray movies on my TV. It would also have the added benefit of being able to play multiplayer games with friends in the living room without much hassle, instead of having to run cables or set up a second PC for that. I will not buy a console to play games only, especially if I have to buy all of them in an online store I would not otherwise use.
So you are saying that even if I keep my console offline, there may come a day when I can't play any of my digital games? I'm confused. How would they stop you from playing digital games if you are updated and not connected?
@@bradb2a89 Yes. Lik Hp, the latest update wil not allow u to play old games if the game developer decided not to continue work with the company that provide the OS system.
I just can’t get over the lack of true ownership with digital media. When you buy a physical copy it’s YOURS, until you decide you no longer want to own it anymore and decide to sell it, give it away, etc. Sure, digital media is convenient but we’re trading actual ownership and a future with whatever physical media we’ve purchased for convenience. It’s just not worth the trade off.
Technically, we don't own physical media either. We only own the physical discs. The media is sold under license. If we're caught breaching that license, such as making illegal copies, the copyright holder can sue us.
As jubly already said, you don't own physical media, the disc yes, but the data (software) on it is the exact same licensing as digitial. Which also means as much as: If a company that uses revocable licensing decides to terminate a license you got a nice coaster that you either never use, or you're using it which ends up legally being the same as using a pirated version (with the obvious exception that the pirated version got all fixes whereas the disc doesn't).
I value the additional comments here as the licensing aspect is true in a technical, legal sense, but it’s not really the point here. I understand the need to flex on technicalities but what’s actually more important here: The technicality of licensing or ownership? I still have many of my PS2 and 360 games. Some of which have never seen a digital release, some of which have been released digitally and then removed from the online stores, etc. I can still play those games that I physically own even though they’re no longer accessible. This extends far beyond the scope of gaming, too. The bigger issue here is allowing consumers the right to purchase something and then continue using it, or to use it as they see fit, irrespective of licensing. My take is that it’s a fundamentally flawed system and that it needs to change. Again, I genuinely appreciate both of your comments, and neither of you are wrong, but they aren’t addressing the broader issue, or how wrong it is that we’ve all, for the most part, just normalised it to the point of it being standard practice.
The issue is that physical media is slowly but surely becoming the same as the digital version (in regards to ownership) due to companies pushing for online only/live service models with DRM. Even if you have a physical copy of the game, they are starting to lock people out of games via login verification or mandatory updates. The fact that we can "buy" a physical copy only for there to be a code in the box is alarming.
You could have the $50 on a single game. Older CoDs are still $60 on the digital store, while you can find them in bargain bins for $5-10 often at stores. My neighbor bought a Series S at launch despite me telling him to get the X(or PS5 but he wanted Xbox) to save some money, then quickly realized all the games he wanted were still full priced on digital. He never plays online games and likes playing older shooting campaigns like CoD or Gears, etc. He also really likes the 360 era games. So, within just a month or so, he had realized the games he wanted were all still either full priced or 3-4x what they were physically and went and bought a Series X and told me I had been right.
I don't know how you get 50$ on a single game, when steam usually has very steep discounts on old games. I checked the last cod I played, cod 4: modern warfare. Normally 19€, but nearly half the time it's 50% so 9€. You can't save 50$ on a 10$ game.
@@ruukinen because he is on Console,,, so not able to use steam. I regularly see multiple year old games on PsStore for upwards of £40 and just laugh because I picked the same game up from a local supermarket for £20 or less in most cases. I once saw a game that was in a local game shop for £10 but it was in the Ps lineup at £59,99. So totally possible.
I picked up Fallout New Vegas woth all DLC from a bargain bin for the 360. Still have that game and can play on my Xbox series x because I own it physically.
It's always better to have options. When you have a disc drive console, you can always go both ways and win. If you only go Digital - you lose too much.
Something else that also doesn’t help the situation is that the $50 difference is only when comparing the MSRP of the two SKUs. The regular Series X with a disc drive was literally on sale for $50 less than the MSRP for the All-Digital Series X when Microsoft announced the latter, and that’s not factoring in how much lower certified refurbished units have gone for. With the All-Digital Series X only just coming out, it’s going to take a while for it to go on sale, while the regular Series X is likely going to be back at its lowest sale price of $399 during the holiday season, making the All-Digital Series X an even worse value than y’all pointed out. If this is all sounding familiar, it’s because the exact same thing happened with the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition. The MSRP was also $50 lower than a regular Xbox One S, but you could frequently find the regular One S on sale for lower than the All-Digital Edition, which ended up making it a terrible value. Microsoft seems to have learned nothing from that.
I picked up a series x for $350 last year brand new at best buy. The Series X digital should just be $350 or $400. They should've got rid of the Series S model and kept the Digital Series X to take it's place.
The Xbox One SAD also suffered from just not having a place in the lineup. It came way too late to be meaningful, and didn't offer any real incentives over any of the other Xbox One consoles. Most people who would purchase a One console at that point would either pick a One S or a One X, and the others would just wait the year (or two?) until the Series came out That, and it came at a time when nobody wanted it or expected it. So it seemed more like a last ditch money grab before releasing the next-gen consoles The Series and PS5 consoles made it work because both manufacturers got in on it and released a digital and disc version at the same time. For Xbox in particular, size and price were major draws of the S for the people who don't feel they need the raw power of the X
I think that the best middle-ground is in form of GOG that allows you to download offline installers. So, technically, you can buy digital games, but make a local offline backup on external drive & own digital stuff pretty much permanently, without the risk of losing access to stuff you paid for. As for "phisical" - there is one important thing that was not mentioned - collecting. If you own a bunch of old games & keep them in relativity good shape, those over the years wil actually go up in value to the point where they can be worth way more than when they were brand new.
This will probably be buried in the comments, but here goes some constructive criticism: when there's a lot of data on screen one table after the other, the videoediting and narration are just too fast. If possible in these cases slow down the narration, and leave lomger cuts, or take your time and pick out a few examples and talk about them, to leave time for the viewer to check the data they are interested in. The way it is now is fatiguing. A usually silent but avid watcher.
@@wilko2 there is a reason it’s roughly around 10 minutes. The watch time metrics between a 10min video and 20 min video is quite different. It’s better to have most users watch 90% of the video at 10 minutes than only 50% of the video at 20 minutes. It’s a balance.
I'd agree with Myrtanae (Partially). I, personally, am not as interested in delving far into the fine details of the information. Viewing it at a glance is all I need, and I'd personally find it less interesting if they spent a lot of time on the fine details. If I were the minority, I'd say have at it, but I expect most people also only need to glance at it as well. Edit: Although, now that I think about it, simply keeping the tables up for longer where they can wouldn't be a problem for me. I think that'd be a benefit.
Another pro for physical: it makes you slow down a little. Slowing down is actually very beneficial for mental health, and having to go buy a game, then having to wait more for installation makes you slow down. I know, spoken like a 60 smtg, but actually I'm 30. I'm just sick of our already ultrafast and still accelerating society 😅
Its sad isn't it? The accelerating society... By not buying a physical copy some of the time youre not even interacting with a human being. Society just keeps going towards soulless automation. Saving cost at every corner. Games being digital... New cheap mobile broadband subscriptions because the customer service is a bot or service spreadsheet...
I'm 42 and time is precious. So digital all the way... Think of all the time wasted a year opening and shutting cases alone. I interact with plenty of people, I certainly don't have time to talk to the Gamestop kid who says "Hi, cheers, thanks man, see you later". 😂
Growing up with an Atari 8bit where loading a game off tape took on average 15 minutes, while I don't miss it I think it had its merits, like you could do stuff while the game loads, and you appreciated the game more (even if it was kinda crap) because you've waited this long you might as well try to make the best of it lol. Times sure have sped up over the past 40 years.
Plus ejecting discs, putting it back in its case, finding the next case, opening that case, putting that disc in, and waiting for the console to read the disc
One major point AGAINST the digital only side that wasn't represented in this video, is that in some countries there are still monthly download caps on your internet connection. Several ISPs in Belgium have a monthly cap, and some offer no expandable bandwidth packs (free nor paid). If you cross the monthly limit you're on basically 56K speed for the remainder of the month. Good luck downloading your library or even gaming on that.
@@jean-philipperottiers614 talk to somebody forced to use f.e. Cable from Telenet. They still have "fair use" unlimited for the bigger contracts, but they have very real limits - that "fair use" is limited to 750GB! With no option to unlock your connection if you accidentally cross it or have to cross it.
My parents are in the US, in a quickly growing suburban area. They just switched off of their old ISP which had a 1 TB cap per month. New ISP has no caps, better speeds, and lower cost. Lots of places in the US have ISP monopolies with caps
Unless you pay 10€ month with the worst operator in the country (scarlet) there's not really caps anymore in Belgium, at least on the walloon side where Proximus, Voo and Mobile viking are the most prevalent and none of them have downloads limits.
Most of those games can be bought on a key site, similar to PC games, and use a VPN to add it to your library. It's an extremely common way for PC and Xbox gamers to save money.
Most likely will be the same price on steam, I mean cod games on steam are still 60$ and the key sites only give accounts with the game. Not to mention Activision doesn't let you game share their games
One thing people don't realize with a potential digital only entertainment industry is that there is nothing to stop them from making it worse. $15 for 24hr rental. or $70 for a 24hr rental Sounds impossible, but the number of people who would care will get smaller & smaller every year. Gaming companies have proven it's about making the most money well, giving the least effort. Digital gaming was announced. People assumed that meant cheaper launch prices. Greed proved that wrong. Digital entertainment will only get worse as time goes on & people accept a digital only entertainment industry.
Tbh u are not exactly wrong and I would not be surprise if this is the direction of console gaming. Rent to play. Profitability over owning a game forever
"nothing stopping them from making it worse" Is supply and demand not a thing anymore? This isn't health care. People don't have to buy video games no matter the cost.
@@kritikalgamer that's not what supply and demand is. What *you* think the value of a game is is a moot point. The value of a game is only as much as people are willing to pay for it.
Great investigation and advice, but once you get outside NA, the physical argument just wins so hard. At launch prices, I can save £20-£30 per game, which is insane to me. Average about £45 physical to £70 digital and I usually get the game a day earlier than the release date!
Living in a 3rd world country, yep this is the case. I can literally get the same game for at least $40 less if I buy them physical instead of digital, and that's without factoring in sales and clearance. Although one point in digitals favor is steam's regional pricing. When used by the developers, it actually is really great.
Australia is the same as UK. PSN typically is $109 at launch and I can easily get it physical for $30-40 cheaper day one. And if I don’t need to play it day one I can get it second hand for even cheaper!
I'm Nintendo only. Nothing can replace a game that comes in fully functional. Yes it has patches, but the base fame is still really good and playable. Plus you save space. I don't have a 1 TB sd card.
Second hand games is where physical media wins , You can get used second hand AAA games for $5 if you wait long enough. and you cant sell a used digital game. It is a license once you are done it will sit in you library.
I might not be a normal consumer, but I would never sell a game I enjoyed playing. Just like people have shelves of physical collections, I enjoy seeing all of the games I digitally own, all immediately available from a single button press, no faffing about with discs required. Not to mention, a massive digital collection can exist on just one console, whereas a physical collection will require exponentially more storage space. I prefer to pay for convenience, not wasting my time removing and inserting discs that are just installing themselves to the internal drive anyways, so what's the point?
First of all, yes you can sell your account with the digital games in them. Not legally, but technically the license on the discs nowadays is the same anyway so selling that license is equally "illegal". You could just also use a computer instead and get those AAA games on sale from steam.
@@bubba842 LOL Do you even own more than 10 games? How large is your gaming shelf then? If I had to store every single game I owned digitally on a shelf, it would probably take up an entire wall from top to bottom of nothing but shelves. To start with, I own 6 unique kinds of consoles with digital games on then, from WiiU, 360, PS3, Series X, PS5, and Switch. Even with just the physical games I was forced to buy for these consoles (due to delistings from digital stores), I already needed 2 rows of shelves, which was annoying to store. My digital collection on each console ranges from at least 20 to over 100 (with only a couple of repeats for deluxe/enhanced editions). Imagining the logistical nightmare of having each and every one of those games on a shelf, and having to manually load every single game whenever I wanted to play something else sounds simply awful.
A bit confused where the physical price of Baldurs Gate 3 is set at 129.99 @ 9:47 . Is that Canadian? Cause the highest price was for the deluxe which was $79.99 for the PS5. The next highest was the collectors edition at $270
I have the deluxe version and I’m in Canada.. in the end it cost me $160 Canadian… it’s $79.99 USD which is like $95 and then it’s I think $30USD shipping.. the shipping was killer but that seemed to be the standard rate… then of course add tax depending where you are (here sales tax is 13%)
Good conclusion. Also should mention, that the disc drive also gives you a 4k bluray player while getting a separate player would cost way more than $50.
@mobrocket No idea. I have PS5 and Series X and play blurays all the time, though. Would be interested to know what percentage of ps5 or Xbox owners use them to play movie discs.
@@B_Ahmed1234 I feel like most people by 2024 are digital only for movies or own a Blu-ray player of some type Granted I think Xbox is a dead console line, and MSFT is going to make Xbox a service / publisher only soon
@@B_Ahmed1234 I'd guess it's around 5%, I only know like one other person besides me that still buys and uses blu-rays but I bought an Xbox One X specifically for the 4k Blu-ray support and now use my PS5 for them. I wouldn't buy a fully digital console simply because I have tons of DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-rays (and physical games) that I would hate to lose access to them. I could always just buy a BD player for my PC and rip them all, but that's super time consuming and I'd rather just put them in the console and have them play nice and have the menu/special features all in one nice UI, and being able to have something to watch/play if the internet goes down is very valuable to me.
@mobrocket Probably true. Even I usually get games and watch movies digitally. I get games on disc if there is a good sale, and movie discs if it's a movie I think is worth having in higher quality.
Physical always wins for me. Can't buy an over priced new release game on digital play it through then sell 2 weeks later for only a few bucks less than you bought it for like with physical.
This as Linus said is REALLY complicated. Something he didn't mention is how even when buying disc games some of those still need a download to work, so if they shut down the servers your disk is pretty much nothing but a key that opens nothing.
Ironically, my 360E is more in use than my Series X. I'd call that one a waste of 500 bucks because the games still look better on my PC if the port isn't mangled and I am a long way from having played all the 360 games I own, even. It's a goddamn shame they took down the 360 store.
They already are. It's just that because their pocket book is so big it's happening slower so they have more time to course correct.(Edit - ... Or burn more money doing the same thing.)
Why because they built a business and poor people find it trendy to hate big tech ... If they all crash u know the stock market will crash ... And u know what happens to ur dear money and the job u working after it crash 🥱... U people don't know how the world works
poor people hating big tech ... u do know their money is the reason you re living that comfortable life right and if they go down today are you ready to become homeless ...
A new ps5 game will cost around 80 dollars new in digital, wait 1 month and buy a second hand disc for half the price and there is the disc drive paid for
This, and to add to that bonus: easily expandable cheap storage (bog standard M.2 2280 Gen4 SSD). Something the current-gen xboxes don't do either (with their horribly overpriced proprietary storage card thingies). Can't replace the internal SSD (a mostly standard M.2 2230 SSD) either as it has both a model whitelist and is tied to the specific console via the SSDs serial number. It's basically designed from the ground up to screw you over and milk money out of you
@@KnaeckebrotsaegeI mean, the PS5 isn’t better in the regard of internal storage, it’s literally soldered to the board. At least there is some trickery involved in replacing the Xbox SSD rather than desoldering and resoldering the PS5 SSD.
As someone with kids, ease of Physical is a no brainer. I do own 2 copies of a lot of games, but there are plenty of games I can just wait until they've played through and save $40-60. The "Primary Console" thing is nice, but I don't think there is way to get around owning multiple consoles (even within the same household). Like if my son is done with a digital game, he can't make my console the primary, because then it locks him out of other games on his console. Also like you mentioned, the ability to SELL a game is HUGE. I sell games a few times a year and it typically covers my next round of purchasing. I only keep games I know I'll come back to. Especially since during a console generation, games don't go up in value. It's like selling a stock you know will only go down. If you think you'll play it again, you can just rebuy it when you want to play it or near the end of a console lifecycle.
Linus has mentioned it in the video: there are pirates who will preserve the game for all eternity once the game servers of that game go offline. as long as publishers don't agressively attack pirtate platforms that host these copies, which is another gotcha. nintendo has been relentless against emulation sites.
My physical games were an asset. When I moved to the USA I sold my game collections for a few thousand dollars and it helped me get a start in a new country. Can't do that with digital
I’ve had to do the same in the past, and it’s a big reason to why I prefer physical products. The only way I’ll go fully digital, is if I’m literally forced to because discs/disc drives don’t exist anymore. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that happens on both consoles on the next generation. Hopefully gamers fight back and force their hand though.
@@Quizack nah, they will lose so much customers if they did this. And more likely push more people to PC. Because even if phisical is dead on PC, with Steam games that you purchased 20 year ago, you can still play them on your upgraded PC now, that stands for gog also. And that PC games are cheaper on PC is just an icing on the cake.
@@JPEightAs opposed to what? Go PC? Digital only as well. But whereas a digital console is seen as bad by some, PC gamers are fine with ditching physical.
As of dec 3, 2024, the digital series x is $100 cheaper than the disk version I’d say it’s pretty worth it if you haven’t played physical games in a long time and don’t really care for disks. Regardless, for those who like disks because “you own it”. It’s almost the same as digital. You just paid for the license to download it from the same store as a digital player. That’s why you have to download after you put in the disk instead of instantly playing it. When those servers shut down it won’t matter if you have digital or disk . So disk aren’t the best way to “preserve” games.
Loving David as a writer the past few videos he’s done. Would like to see him more on screen too, he’s got good chemistry with hosts since behind the camera. The fixing broken handhelds vid is still one of my faves haha
8:55 You can't absolutely justify this claim, since you could buy say, the latest C.O.D., but want to play MMO. You will STILL need to subscribe to PS+, even though you have the physical disc.
Coming from someone that grew up with computers, seeing them grow. Having owned a Super PET, Commodore Vic 20 and Amiga before building my own computers later on. I'll take physical media any day of the week over media that I'm supposedly buying, but don't actually own. F*** that!
anyone remember when the XB One S digital was referred to as the "SAD edition", and nobody wanted that one. The digital only consoles are one trick ponies, whereas the disc version gives you the flexibility of disc & digital whichever you choose - plus I think it's often not mentioned for some reason, but you also get a player for CDs, DVDs, and BDs enabling you to listen to music or watch TV shows or movies all without the "you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy" continual money grab subscriptions. Never trade ownership for convenience
I think you forgot to add in corporate greed into the mix and when they get you locked into the digital platform they can start charging whatever they want even though they're saving money by not printing discs and still charging you the same exact price right now
The fact that physical games are cheaper than digital is mind boggling, considering that you need to spend money on producing disks, shipping them and actually running a physical store to sell them!
It's all part of the con. That's why they want you to go digital. All they do is send a bunch of 1s and 0s down a broadband line a charge you the same price as a physical product that 1. Has a disc, case and artwork. 2. Has to be shipped. 3. 3rd party has to make a profit on the game. Chances are, Walmart and Best Buy probably buy a $80 game for $60 from the distributer. Then why does the same company charge you $80 if it's digital?
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena It seems like because PCs didn't have sophisticated copy protection built-in, publishers had all sorts of moronic ones that broke many physical PC releases, so no, don't bring that back.
One thing that you might want to take into consideration is game renting. From where I am (Mumbai, India) this is a fairly common practice among "power users/ power gamers?" You rent a game for a nominal fee for a week or 2 and then send it back. It's opposite of building up a library to play games as many times as you want, it's great for single player games. I've personally rented games like black myth wukong, miles morales, ghost of tsushima. each for about 299 INR 2 weeks ~ roughly 5 CAD I binge played all those titles, completed to 100% (achievement hunting, collectibles, etc) now that there's nothing new the game can offer me it's with someone else who's experiencing the game. And I got to do all this for $5 (per title)
Rental markets used to be massive in North America, but for a bunch of reason they all died. A lot of the move to extracting money via microtransactions is due to the death of that assured return market.
@@darkspyro1991 But like Linus said at the end which is common sense. All the perks for a digital only console, applies to the disc The only benefit is that $50 less upfront that you need to recoup over 8 years if you wait a 2 weeks to month, you can get a game for $20-30 less used and thats when it would've got some of the patches to fix major issues You can do that for multiple games a year
@@gregorymirabella1423 Or the Mass Effect Trilogy or Mortal Kombat XL & 11 Ultimate... Witcher 3. It's possible but most like Activision don't because of greed.
The only reason I kept buying consoles for all these years is because of physical medias, something that Steam killed on PC a long time ago. But if consoles are going to get rid of it as well, what is left? I guess the hardware is cheaper and Nintendo is still making good exclusives.
When a physical release, with disc / packaging / artwork / etc is cheaper at release than a digital file on a server… it’s hard to promote digital sales. Here in the UK most Mario/Zelda games drop to £32 on preorders physically, but are still £49 digitally.
Man seeing you complaining make me laugh , PC didn't have physical shit for years and its market is getting bigger and bigger ( and don't come with in PC there are other stores , cuz 90% of PC sales are on steam ) , physical is dead just accept it
When buying brand new PS5 games it is often £10 - £15 cheaper to buy the physical copy on Amazon compared to PSN. At that price you would recover the extra cost in only 4-5 games, which depending on how many games you buy would be less than a year.
@@WhyitJellyDonut You are not likely to get sale prices on release day. Sales are great if you are willing to wait for a game. If you want it day 1 them digital is normally more expensive. Also with PSN you cant buy a game for someone, you can only buy it for your own account so if you want to give someone a game as a present you cant. There is no reason for this.
the ones who say physical discs cant hold enough are liars, game discs can scale upwards if needed some discs can hit 100gbs. costly yes but if done at scale then the costs go way down. Physical will always have the final say and i prefer owning a disc even if they screwed you out of a plug and play game because atleast you have some leverage for pirating a game if you own the disc.
While the death of discs is dumb (especially on consoles, they should always have a drive for DVDs/Blu-ray alone): No, you don't have any leverage for pirating with a disc - the only thing you own is the disc itself, all data on it (so the software) obeys the same licensing as digital. I only buy discs if they go on massive sales in a nearby store (so them being cheaper than a steam sale), otherwise they're just a waste of space for me personally.
@@Unknown_Genius though in the US you do not have the legal right to pirate, morally if you own the game or dvd or software allready you in some countries including france CAN pirate the item as long as you own a copy of it somehow. Though i do doubt it will ever make it to america i could care less and will not feel bad pirating a game or software/movie i already own. PC games i just get through steam, otherwise i buy physical because i actually own physical copies. If i have to download a game like a modern console disc i will back it up to a seperate drive aswell for my own keeping and i have a storage in my house of hundreds of games, used to be about 1k but im downsizing to buy more of the games i will actually play instead of just collecting.
@@thedillon25100 Most countries that claim so are only allowed to do a backup copy of the disc content, it doesn't change the licensing tho. Not familiar with france itself, but alot of people claim the same in germany, yet it's wrong and piracy will be prosecuted regardless of having a disc or if they bought it somewhere else. (Not that it's gonna stop people from doing it to avoid e.g. always on DRM on singleplayer only games, which is morally correct imo as there's no excuse to demand being online to start up games, especially if they're offline only and even more so if it's a re-release of older games that didn't require it previously).
@@Unknown_Genius France if you have a copy of a program or game physically or have proof of purchase inside France you cannot be prosecuted for obtaining illegal copies as long as you have purchased it once
Just out of interest do you guys consider things like g2a or cdkeys for the pricing? I save a stupid amount of money with cdkeys like £60 on microsft store vs £30 on cdkeys, which physical really cant compete with.
Fair enough. But you can purchase physical copy whenever you want to, you can pirate games if you want to, you can share pirated games to your friends, share your steam account and games. These digital only consoles won't allow anything like that ever. I like collecting physical copies of games cause some of them have really great packaging, custom manuals and what not. Digital games feel lifeless and bland.
Sure but we aren't restricted to Steam or any store, we can do whatever we want. I only got Steam in 2020, pretty late for someone who mostly plays on PC. You'd be forced to only buy from the MS store or use game pass and their sales are not great, at least around here I never seen a game reduced in price by more than 10. I've bought all the consoles over the years because I enjoyed them but I can tell you this generation is the last one for me outside of maybe Nintendo, if there's an exclusive I really want and it won't run on the current Switch.
You worded this issue very well. I hope people take the issue seriously. On PC, you can pick up AAA games for less than £10 every sale. On Playstation and Xbox, that just simply isn't the case.
It seems like they've kind of fixed the sale prices for most games across Steam & consoles. The main difference is you can buy Steam keys from third party stores and get a few more dollars off usually.
Can someone please explain this to me... As i have not tested it yet... But does downloading a digital game vs installing the physical game (same game of course) take the same amount of space?? Or is there a win for physical media, as in there is less storage space being added to the console?? Please someone!!
Gamepass is a scam now. Is $250 a year + tax. Buying used games and cheap digital games still outclasses that. Had he been open about it, ms would be pissed. That's why he used psn
I have an Xbox Series X and Game Pass. I've been on Xbox Live Gold since '07 and Game Pass since day one. I often go months playing a single game and sometimes, no game at all. Plus I own hundreds of games. All I'm saying is SOMETIMES, Game Pass isn't the best value.
@@chasejackson7248 If you played all of the games on gamepass ultimate + the constant stream of new releases coming in day 1 years ago you're either lying (for obvious reasons) or should get a life honestly. Gamepass simply is the best value for money by far, especially since about everything is on a revocable license either way - gamestreaming on the go included with MS having one of the most stable streaming services for it available is just a massive bonus on top. So it makes no sense to name PSN and PS+, it's inferior in server stability, features and content. The only proper comparison would be PS+ Premium, which honestly... is still better value than "buying" the games but way to overpriced given how much it lacks content & stability compared to gamepass - but honestly: From my experience "lack of proper functionality" is usually the name of the game for PS either way, I'm glad that I could get rid of that system when Sony finally started to realize that they have to stop making exclusives to be able to properly stay afloat and not get eaten up by Microsoft at some point.
I don't get it. This is about an xbox without a disc drive. Then the comparison is only done for PS5 digital and physical copies. And then in the end there is some talk about 'Game Pass' but only PSN Plus free games are actually discussed. I have an Xbox Series S and don't really miss the disc drive (I do miss some disk space though). For Xbox it's actually possible to sometimes get quite a good deal on digital games through online code resellers (I had a PS4 for which I could rarely find good value codes from resellers). Digital games also seem to get supported for a long time on Xbox as well. The main point for a diskless Xbox though is of course Game Pass. The Game Pass library can hardly be compared with the PSN Plus one. Game Pass actually gives me access to almost all games I want to play on day one. The next game I will buy will be probably GTA VI. These points make a diskless Xbox an easier sell to me than a diskless PS5.
Agreed, putting the PSN prices / catalog on an Xbox video makes no sense at all to me, it's like they never heard of the Gamepass or a Sony afficionado made the video script... Also bitching about digital only when 90% if not more games on PC are bought on various digital stores since ages is pretty pointless too... Who still has DVD drive when cases don't even have a 5 1/4 bay anymore, and buys their games in stores ?
@@Wolfcritic64 and the PSN plus whatever that they show in the video is free maybe ? The gamepass is cheaper, has more games, gives you access to the EA pass + PC gamepass, and almost all the 1st party games are added in it day one, unlike the PSN where you still have to pay for 1st party... And you have discounts on the games when you want to "buy to keep".
7:34 tbh the time has past where game from each console is preserved. Nowadays if it's on PC and doesn't have DRM, it will be preserved on PC. It's not 2000s anymore where you will have different regional versions as well as different version of the game when it comes to console. Today with internet, it changed that aspect
I went through literally all of this math and value analysis (on a very basic level) a few months ago before buying my ps5, and ultimately after reaching the same deadlocks you guys kept falling into, I decided on the disc version for one crucial reason, and it's that I would always rather cover my ass and have an extra feature rather than not.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES!!! I can borrow games free for xbone and PS5. Makes it such an easy choice not even including all the other factors involved. Ita like going to blockbuster to rent but its free real estate!
YES THIS!!!! Libraries are amazing! They are 100% free, and you can just check the game out again if you want to re-visit it! This is ESPECIALLY relevant when you are already factoring in the cost of Game Pass (and similar) for digital, where the offered games already rotate in and out at random!
@@Jalex0021 While that may be true I'd say it rather comes from digital being the most used method to buy games. A cheaper digital only option is always nice, but it should never be the only option, for the fact alone that even digital only buyers may want a DVD/Blu-ray player to watch something they got around already every once in a while.
Not true for everyone… i bought the disk version because it was the only one available. I put in a disk once because i borrowed RDR2 from a friend. The noise was so annoying for me I didn’t want to put it in again… I also never came to a point where I would want to sell a game… i literally bought two games in the last three years. The rest was included with PS+…
9:12 , you guys should really emphasize the online play aspect. Especially for future videos like these. If you buy a game for the sole purpose of online multiplayer, you will NEED a console subscription. While both Playstation and Xbox have made a subscription unnecessary for online play in f2p pay games like Overwatch, Fortnite, Apex Legends, CoD Warzone etc., there's a ton of games that have multiplayer mode like GTA5, CoD, Minecraft, and every major sports game (fifa, nba), that still require a subscription to play the game online. I wonder how many of the top games listed NEED a subscription just to have access to the entire game.
I never normally comment on Linus videos but there's so much missing here. 1: Game licenses digitally get pulled, perhaps for music reasons, whereas I can still get a phsyical disc. 2: Realistically, waiting for historic lows isn't true. If it's a new release, I'm not going to wait 3/6/12 months for it to end up on sale when the physical price begins to crash often 2 weeks after it's out. 3: Single player games. I'm personally a "one and done" kind of guy with those products, and prefer to move them on once I've finished everything I'm happy with. I then sell the game on for say, £30-40, and that covers half the cost of the next game that I purchase, which by the time I've done that is probably already less than the digital copy.
Ive been doing digitally only since 2013... My biggest reason for doing so is game sharing on the Xbox, where you both can play the same game with the same license. This was a MONEY saver for my brother and I where we both just paid for 1 game and were able to play it together. Not only that, since I paid for it, the games that had a PC release are games that I can now play on PC. Didnt need to buy a 2nd license. I have more to add but Ive only watch 2/3rd of the video but wanted to comment now, edit later to remember my points as I go.
There's almost no point in having a disc drive for the XBox series anyway as far as gaming goes. Basically every game straight up requires updates to run in the first place. Xbox friends lost that war already. Removing the drive is probably a mercy at this point. Puts your hopes to the right level of acceptance. Playstation still seems to be generally OK on that front, but with their recent pivoting, I see that only as a matter of time. Both Playstation and Xbox are probably salivating at the opportunity to run like Steam, no more worries about physical versions so all their profits are theirs, they kill an entire after market, and can then push pricing however they see fit until the lifetime of the product. God I hate what the gaming industry has become.
There is genuinely one niche which is that some older games have an enhanced version on the newer series x console, like with Forza Horizon, and the only way to prove you have a license for that game if you don't already have a digital version of it on your account is to put a physical disc into the drive. This is an incredibly small niche, other titles which run better on the newer console like Sonic Unleashed are sometimes still just available digitally; but it is at least one very small niche until emulation improves and the real preservationists can take over.
So in short, digital games can be taken away from you any time so you lose the game and the money you spent on it, you can't resell or trade digital games and you're stuck with whatever the price is on the storefront. With physical games you always own the game forever, you can trade the game and get money back in your account, you can buy used games cheaply and flip them for profit then use said profits to buy more games or consoles for free, you can trade the game back after completing it or if you didn't like it or you can resell on the marketplace for next to cost price after you complete it within a week or so thus effectively buying a new release game for a few dollars instead of $70+. You can find physical games in thrift stores for a few bucks but to buy that same game digitally they are still often almost full price even when they are decades old. Just look at Call of Duty. You can't do this with PC games though which is why Linus was trying hard to paint digital in a positive light. If you're on PC, it's digital or nothing and your money is as good as lost.
At about the 06:15 mark Linus says EXACTLY why I've moved on from modern physical releases. Your physical games, are not physical games. They are physical license keys to install a digital copy of the game that's actually finished.
On the buying used-argument, you always forget mentioning that you also can sell them. Buy used, sell a week later for the same price or a little bit lower. It's always way cheaper for newish games
If buying isn’t owning.. pirating isn’t stealing..
Yep torrents are strong
I stand by you.
You’re right piracy isn’t stealing, it’s copyright infringement.
gonna be real never understood this. pirating just isn’t stealing like its legally defined as copyright infringement not stealing. No ifs needed.
Not talking against piracy but I tired of this quote. You're not original and you know it.
one of the worst things is the physical boxes that are sold, with only a download code and no disk
@@r3gulat0r I got the $300 Spiderman 2 Collectors edition and Horizon Forbidden West. Both of them came with a steel book case. Within that steel book case… was a digital code.
@@TheShadesOfBlacka fancy case that holds paper would make me rip my hair out 😂😂
@@TheShadesOfBlack to be fair thats arguably worth more than a disk is these days. Half the time bigger games are utterly unplayable with the data on the disk, they're basically a download code you can accidentally scratch and break.
@@r3gulat0r tbf though, I do wonder what will happen to ppl who pre-order a Collector's edition of a game, but it have physical disk and the person have a Digital Edition console. I guess they are no longer allowed to buy physical media? Or they now need to resell the useless game being bundled and bought a separate online copy.
That's what I'm thinking since I ordered Metaphor's collector's edition, and it came with physical copy of the game. I am sure that some ppl that want this, also may have a Digital Edition console.
It also takes less energy and environmentally friendly, to put games on physical media regardless of what you choose and send it out to anyone who wants one then it is to keep and maintain servers for digital only games. Selling those digital code only boxes is doubling down on waste.
You forgot one important point, which I believe is the reason for the companies to remove the disc drive. Once all consoles are digital and you have no option of using used physical copies, the digital (sale) prices are going to increase. Right now the digital sale prices are competing with the used market, without that effect, it's obvious what is going to happen.
This should be top comment. Non-disc consoles are removing the only competing market.
Not just that, but if the console is digital only, you're going to have to buy from THEIR STORE, right now Sony/Microsoft/etc have to pay retail stores a cut to stock their products, the pressing of discs costs them money. If you buy it from THEIR STORE, they can make more money when spending less. They can also decide what developer/games get the most advertising/prominent placement on their storefront.
@@MrWhereIsYourGodNow Microsoft has already done that to some extent on the storage. Internal M.2 SSD is paired to the board via its serial number so you can't replace it (unlike on the xbox one, where you can just slap in any 2.5" HDD or SSD) and the external proprietary storage cards are only made by 2 companies (WD and Seagate), are *horribly* overpriced for the amount of storage you get (upgrading a Series S is entirely pointless as a 1TB card costs as much as the whole console is worth) and there's no third party option as there's a software based whitelist which prevents that from ever happening. Designed to screw you over from the ground up
Enshitification.
I think this is a fallacy proven by the PC. While you can argue PC has multiple store fronts, there is no denying that Steam holds the majority of the PC sales market. PC physical sales are for the most part non-existent for years now and yet sales on platforms like Steam have beat out console sale pricing.
If anything, the move to digital will push current console manufacturers further towards cloud and the race to the bottom for getting people access. Why have a barrier of entry of $500 when you can sell the customer a TV stick for less than $100 that streams a game and provides consistent revenue through a subscription?
I noticed that this video has quite a few voice over corrections numbers that weren't quite right and during the original shoot. This is the CORRECT way to issue corrections, because an on-screen pop up is NOT accessible for visually impaired audience members.
If you care even a tiny bit about your visually impaired viewers, PLEASE continue using this strategy for corrections!
The optical drive also turns a console into a perfectly fine dvd and Blu-ray player
Both PS and XB have trash blu players.
@@rotinhellorg Do they? I use a One X and a Series X as my 4k blu ray players in different rooms and have no issues.
I was about to comment this. If you're a movie enthusiast and have invested in a budget but decent Home Theater you can just double dip on the physical media perks even though it's not the best BR player out there, it's good enough to enjoy 4k UHD
It's true but I haven't used this feature of PS4pro and only bought one physical game so I decided to buy digital only PS5
@@rotinhellorg LTT did a video on this, and to normal people, it doesn't really matter on the difference between a console and a dedicated BR player for most people
With built in backwards compatibility, its way more worth it to have the disc option to be able to play older games. I play my 360 discs on my series x all the time.
This is the answer. You can also sell the games and get your money back.
I can't connect my own external BD drive to the Series S, no matter how good and expensive it may be. That's very scummy of Microsoft to disallow it outright.
This is a pretty good selling point, and basically the only reason I have disc-reading versions of the PS5 and Series X; one for Godzilla PS4, which never released digitally, and one for Minecraft Xbox One Edition, which is no longer available digitally (it just sends you to the Bedrock Edition, which is different)
@@brandonalexander1062 This is a great point until you realize that you can’t play these 360 games completely offline, especially if it’s a single player title. So if you want to play these old games of yours, you’ll have to be at the mercy of Microsoft’s online servers in order to play your own games.
@@Evil_Pasta that part i can at least understand, as if they were to allow 3rd party drives, this would open up the console to piracy via modified optical drives or ODEs (similar to how the first xb360 mods were altered firmware for the DVD drive so it would allow playing burned copies)
I miss the days when you could put a disc in and not have to install anything.
rest well....sweet gamecube
So... Game consoles as they were 20 years ago?
You mean the PS 2 that your parents gifted you when you were 12?
It would be nice if they installed as you play - installing the files as they're requested.
@@bobowon5450 The wii and ps3 could still do this. Even the xbox 360 if i remember properly.
The biggest saving is buying a used game and selling it again after you've played. That way you maybe spent only 5 bucks on a game, sometimes maybe nothing or even get more than you've paid for if you were lucky. Biggest argument for me to still buy a lot of games digitally even though I have a disc version is the convenience of not needing to swap CDs.
It's not all about cost.
Sometimes it's game availability.
What if I wanted to play Forza Horizon 1,2 or 3?
These were all pulled from sales at the digital stores because the music/car licensing was not renewed.
I could still go out and pick up a physical copy, however, and play through that without an issue.
@@christopherrobinson387 Exactly what I was hoping Linus would mention but he didn’t 😭
that's game preservation part.
Even if you own the digital copy it won't show up in your library? I don't usually go back to older games but when I do I haven't come across this issue.
@@riopato2009 What they remove from the store is the option to purchase. If you bought the game while it was available, then 99% of the time you can still re-download it and play it just fine. There have been a few rare examples where the publisher pulled a game down and actually removed it from players libraries, but it's very rare. Ubisoft did this with The Crew recently, but only for the people who bought it through their PC digital store. If you got it on consoles or Steam, it's still available to be downloaded. Ubisoft has been the worst about this from what I've seen.
@@riopato2009 They're still in libraries, but you cannot buy them digitally anymore.
All the diskless, always online, DRM focused console releases this gen lead me to believe the next gen consoles wont have a non-digital edition.
Trying to subtly lead us into the screw-over
There are BluRays so
And if that happens, I am migrating to PC.
The reasons I have use consoles are:
(i) ease of use;
(ii) exclusives; and
(iii) physical media
If exclusives and physical media are no longer part of the equation, that is enough for me to migrate back to PCs and be happy with it.
It was inevitable, the consumer optical disks are archaic technology abandoned by nearly every other industry, even PC gamers. The injustice with consoles is you won’t be given proper ownership of your digital purchases and there will be no competition of games distribution as there is in PC
@@maquiavelmg For a lot of people there’s still the question of price. GPU pricing is really putting down the value of PC gaming right now, especially if you’re only getting 2-5 games a year.
0:36 $50 is a lot of money? That's not even ONE new AAA game. Come on, it should at least be $100 cheaper.
@@Tomiply The global median daily income is ~8$, not everyone lives in western Europe or the US and earns 25~60k a year. For billions of people gaming is a luxury and 50$ can make a big difference
@@raiza0666 50$ is only 10% of the price, its not alot
Is a disc drive worth $100?
@@joshknight1620 in my country PS5 Drive sells for 150$ on average, with maximum retail price of about 350$ recently after ps5 pro announcement. This transfers to about 2 premiere titles, 100 is not enough for us :)
@@raiza0666 If you are earning $8 or less per day, you are not the target market for a gaming console
I highly recommend supporting your local independent game shop rather than Amazon or GameStop.
God I hate all-digital consoles. 100% going to become e-waste when the servers are inevitably shut down
like steam
@@Ethan_Fel But my computer and steamdeck does not require steam to work
But even if you buy the disk it still has to download the rest of the game. So any console will be ewaste when the servers get shut down.
@@TylerAdlerthat’s why pc hardware is great because you have options unlike consoles
@@Ethan_Fel but your computer is still gonna work that's the point, the digital only Xbox can't do anything else than gaming specifically with software downloaded from Xbox' servers, while Steam runs in a platform that supersedes them, computers don't only come pre-packaged with steam
TL:DW 10:19
The console with the disk drive could also be calculated by always taking the lower price - no matter if phyiscal or digital. If the digital game version is cheaper you can still buy it on a console that has a disk drive.
For 10 minutes I was thinking how stupid it was that they compared the lowest physical to digital instead of the lowest overall. I was relieved when they finally got to that conclusion.
Yup and you can do that for all consoles/platforms you own. Take the lowest price unless you want to collect, lend or gift the game later. I do that for Xbox and PC, meaning I'll mostly buy digital bc on PC the sales are a lot better but try to grow my physical collection for Xbox as much as its financially reasonable. I've only bought digital on Xbox a few times like when they had the The Crew - Motorfest for $1 😁
So the old saying of "better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it" still applies.
As someone who works on gaming retail I'd pick a physical game playing console every time. Physical games:
1 ) Can be swapped between friends/family.
2 ) Can be sold to stores, marketplace or eBay.
3 ) Can be bought for cheap.
4 ) Has no input from the console manufacturer, meaning they don't get to decide how much you pay or if you can even buy it at all
5 ) If your account gets banned or the service shuts down you don't lose your entire collection.
6 ) You can return games you don't like / want as easily as just going back to the store with your receipt.
7 ) Literally everything the digital console does so will the physical drive console but also let's you put in disks. This means all the benefits digital has physical also has and more.
Edit:
Well this got more attention than I expected.
Just to clear some things up.
I have been working at a game store part time for several years as I study. I am not a CEO or big regional manager or something, just a dude who sells games to kids & grandmas. If the entire industry collapsed today I would have another part time job by tomorrow. It's a little over the top to say I have a vested interest in all of this, I'm just commenting on the real world examples of benifits to the customer I see several times a week for the past few years.
4 ) I was referencing pre-owned games. You can sell those for $1 or $1,000 without the console manufacturer or game maker getting a say in it. I should have been more clear on this.
5 ) Kids especially get themselves permanently locked out of their accounts all the time & adults often get accounts banned / deleted by ex's. Again I have these conversations with living breathing human beings every single week & spend a not insignificant portion of my week in contact with Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo on behalf of clients.
The points about game disks not containing the whole game or just containing licence keys are very good ones & while not always the case it is sadly becoming much much more common. However those licence disks still give you the ability to sell it to others, swap it with friends, buy it cheap second hand, not lose access if your account gets suspended and return the game if you do not like it. They also often will work even if the console's store does not sell that particular game in your region.
All in all digital is the way of the future but I don't think a future where console manufacturers hold all the cards is a good one.
Imagine a world where Nintendo gets to decide IF you can play your favourite Mario ever again or if they're just going to remove it from sale permanently / jack up the price to thousands of dollars.
With a digital only future you don't own anything, which means it can be removed with little to no compensation at all.
Scanning Statements....
No lies detected.
Only thing is nowadays *only while the store stays online/supported
Nintendo is even stopping Wii downloads at some point in the future. Sure the physical games will still work, but current gen xbox and ps games often don't have the full game on the disk (often the disk isnt even full, so for no reason). When they eventually stop being supported, those disks become frisbees. Switch often only has 1/2 the game on the card.
Except physical games are all but nonexistent these days. The disk is a glorified "CD key" (those were the days) at this point. I'm not arguing against you. I'm just lamenting the fact. The silver lining is that it does actually seem the consumers are waking up to this sort of trash and there's even been some minor legal advancements in the area. Right now the big thing is the woke backlash (which is well deserved). But if we're lucky, the next big backlash will be against the fact that we're paying AAA prices to rent games at this point.
Just playing some Devi's Advocate.
1) If you trust them, and I've had people I thought I could trust, let them borrow things and never get them back or get them back damaged.
2) Yeah, but for how much? Is it worth the time, effort, and money to ship games you have to take individual pictures of? I guess it's something, but is it worth spending $10 in gas and $5 in shipping to make $5 or less? It really depends on the game and how rare it is.
3) Cheaper than sold. If the person is looking for a marginal profit or an older game, there are plenty of copies of so it's really cheap or a bad game no one wants.
4) That's really the best argument; I can't think of any Devil's Advocate argument for it.
5) Keyword entire, there will always be something about the current era of internet access that is less of a factor when you go backwards.
6) That's not true, at least not since I tried doing it with an open game. If the game was open, they didn't accept it. I'd have to try and sell it for used. Maybe some of these used games you're talking about.
7) Yeah, that's true, I have some old PC games on disk, and even if I get an external disk drive, they don't work. I'm sure there is a way, but I couldn't be bothered just for nostalgia. But my PS5 plays all my PS4 games. I think the current Xbox can play the 1st Xbox games.
Look, I'm not looking for an argument; I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. IMO, there's nothing wrong with your position. I just think people use that as a justification to own a collection rather than an actual reason to.
@@LarryJ602 7. The current XBOX can't play all 1st Xbox games, it'll use your disc as a license and download the port (if it exists) from the store. Similar thing for 360 games, but there it's because the 360 used a PowerPC architecture. M$ has a list of the games on its site.
Don't forget you were talking originally about Xbox where you can buy games at a cheap price from cdkeys g2a ect, where as on PS you don't buy a code you purchase a PSN acct
I always buy, sell, and trade my physical games, yes it's time consuming but as a college student who is saving up money it is worth it. I am able to play newly released games without having to spend so much money. I could buy a $70 game and sell it afterwards for $40+ on the marketplace depending on how much time has passed since its release, so technically I only spent $20-$30 for new games. Not to mention trading which is a 1:1 or 1:2 swap if I want to get older games for my new one without having to spend any money. Then I use those newly acquired games to find and trade to other games and the cycle repeats, its also fun having to talk to other fellow gamers in the community when I'm meeting them for a deal.
And physical games are just cooler
We went a loooooong way from 1 of your friends having a copy of Mario Kart DS and everyone else playing along through Download Play vs the crap they are pulling nowadays...
All multiplayer games used to come with a LAN mode or private servers. I'm so tired of being physically with friends and needing to play through online servers anyway. Not to mention those multiplayer modes will disappear along with the servers.
Steam Play Together is a *biiiit* like DS download play
The problem is potentially getting locked out of the games you purchase, on hardware you purchase. I don't think it's about physical or digital, it's about having control over your own property.
... You must have missed the part about day one patches in the video where he addresses the problem with your particular argument. When the servers go so do the patches that make the files on disk usable.
Exactly. I currently can't access any digital games on my PS3 with a broken wi-fi chip. I need to update firmware on it to access PSN, but I can't because the broken chip sends it into a loop during update. My only options are to wait till custom firmware gets updated, or to replace the chip, which is soldered on.
Meanwhile, I can play all of my physical games without any problems at all.
yeah, or getting mass reported by some offended teenager in cod & thus getting your account banned and loosing all your digital games
@@user-cz6us7ok2jdamm
I genuinely thought that for the ps3 (or any play station console in general) your downloaded digital games were saved locally so even if you didn’t have wifi, you could still play single player offline
Next you’ll be renting the devices which will brick if you don’t keep paying.
Saving 50 on no drive won’t even get you a new release digital AAA title, so it’s not worth it at all, take it from someone who only managed to get a hold of a digital ps5 when there was a supply shortage during the initial release and been kicking myself ever since.
The only feasible argument for digital only currently is PC due to more frequent discounts, and key sites to help getting a games cheaper.
"You will own nothing and you will be happy"
Piracy for the win as always.
Buy to support devs, pirate to keep things forever!
if buying isn't owning, pirating isn't theft.
Honestly at this point I'd rather mail $60 USD in cash to Larian Studios HQ and pirate BG3 rather than buy it, they get more money, I get the exact same product.
@@nVinter BG3 is 100% DRM free, so you can just buy it and make a backup copy.
this is how piracy should be practiced. supporting the developers of the game that you will be able to keep forever!!
i pirate only if i cant get games through official means. if the dev doesnt get paid, why should i pay in the fist place
As a PC gamer, welcome y'all
Yea... this whole video is pushing me to a pc...
Indeed.
The only good actors in the PC space are gog and steam but in all honesty PC gaming has been all digital for way longer than consoles
Console and PC, here.
This is the only correct answer here. Consoles are slowly but surely killing themselves.
The only reason I was considering a console was as a bluray player that could also run couch games when friends are over
Yes unless you have a bluray player you cannot play video games anymore on the couch. I heard of that.
If its primarily a blu ray player to you, then you can probably just buy an xbox one or ps4 for like 50 bucks on facebook market. No need to look at hot newness. Just buy a used, old beater system and they do the same things mostly.
honestly just get an xbox one x then cause it has a 4k bluray player and its basically on par with the series s
Then you want a Xbox One X, cheap right now
@diogopadrao4118 Let me rephrase: The only reason I consider buying a console instead of just playing on PC only, is because a console could play my Blu-ray movies on my TV.
It would also have the added benefit of being able to play multiplayer games with friends in the living room without much hassle, instead of having to run cables or set up a second PC for that.
I will not buy a console to play games only, especially if I have to buy all of them in an online store I would not otherwise use.
So you are saying that even if I keep my console offline, there may come a day when I can't play any of my digital games? I'm confused. How would they stop you from playing digital games if you are updated and not connected?
@@bradb2a89 Yes. Lik Hp, the latest update wil not allow u to play old games if the game developer decided not to continue work with the company that provide the OS system.
1:10 - "eleven and a half" - LIES! It's more like "Almost 12 min"!
Skip the intro and sponsors and you get 11:30 ;)
I just can’t get over the lack of true ownership with digital media. When you buy a physical copy it’s YOURS, until you decide you no longer want to own it anymore and decide to sell it, give it away, etc. Sure, digital media is convenient but we’re trading actual ownership and a future with whatever physical media we’ve purchased for convenience. It’s just not worth the trade off.
Technically, we don't own physical media either. We only own the physical discs. The media is sold under license. If we're caught breaching that license, such as making illegal copies, the copyright holder can sue us.
As jubly already said, you don't own physical media, the disc yes, but the data (software) on it is the exact same licensing as digitial. Which also means as much as: If a company that uses revocable licensing decides to terminate a license you got a nice coaster that you either never use, or you're using it which ends up legally being the same as using a pirated version (with the obvious exception that the pirated version got all fixes whereas the disc doesn't).
I value the additional comments here as the licensing aspect is true in a technical, legal sense, but it’s not really the point here. I understand the need to flex on technicalities but what’s actually more important here: The technicality of licensing or ownership? I still have many of my PS2 and 360 games. Some of which have never seen a digital release, some of which have been released digitally and then removed from the online stores, etc. I can still play those games that I physically own even though they’re no longer accessible. This extends far beyond the scope of gaming, too. The bigger issue here is allowing consumers the right to purchase something and then continue using it, or to use it as they see fit, irrespective of licensing. My take is that it’s a fundamentally flawed system and that it needs to change. Again, I genuinely appreciate both of your comments, and neither of you are wrong, but they aren’t addressing the broader issue, or how wrong it is that we’ve all, for the most part, just normalised it to the point of it being standard practice.
The issue is that physical media is slowly but surely becoming the same as the digital version (in regards to ownership) due to companies pushing for online only/live service models with DRM. Even if you have a physical copy of the game, they are starting to lock people out of games via login verification or mandatory updates.
The fact that we can "buy" a physical copy only for there to be a code in the box is alarming.
You really only own the physical disc itself, the data on it is another story
You could have the $50 on a single game. Older CoDs are still $60 on the digital store, while you can find them in bargain bins for $5-10 often at stores. My neighbor bought a Series S at launch despite me telling him to get the X(or PS5 but he wanted Xbox) to save some money, then quickly realized all the games he wanted were still full priced on digital. He never plays online games and likes playing older shooting campaigns like CoD or Gears, etc. He also really likes the 360 era games. So, within just a month or so, he had realized the games he wanted were all still either full priced or 3-4x what they were physically and went and bought a Series X and told me I had been right.
I don't know how you get 50$ on a single game, when steam usually has very steep discounts on old games. I checked the last cod I played, cod 4: modern warfare. Normally 19€, but nearly half the time it's 50% so 9€. You can't save 50$ on a 10$ game.
@@ruukinen because he is on Console,,, so not able to use steam.
I regularly see multiple year old games on PsStore for upwards of £40 and just laugh because I picked the same game up from a local supermarket for £20 or less in most cases.
I once saw a game that was in a local game shop for £10 but it was in the Ps lineup at £59,99. So totally possible.
@@BWA85 Yeah, the vendor locked stores do be a bit ridiculous.
I picked up Fallout New Vegas woth all DLC from a bargain bin for the 360. Still have that game and can play on my Xbox series x because I own it physically.
@@ruukinen So do G2A , Kinguin, CDKeys etc.. P.S i'm not getting paid to advertise these companies.😃
It's always better to have options. When you have a disc drive console, you can always go both ways and win. If you only go Digital - you lose too much.
Something else that also doesn’t help the situation is that the $50 difference is only when comparing the MSRP of the two SKUs. The regular Series X with a disc drive was literally on sale for $50 less than the MSRP for the All-Digital Series X when Microsoft announced the latter, and that’s not factoring in how much lower certified refurbished units have gone for. With the All-Digital Series X only just coming out, it’s going to take a while for it to go on sale, while the regular Series X is likely going to be back at its lowest sale price of $399 during the holiday season, making the All-Digital Series X an even worse value than y’all pointed out.
If this is all sounding familiar, it’s because the exact same thing happened with the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition. The MSRP was also $50 lower than a regular Xbox One S, but you could frequently find the regular One S on sale for lower than the All-Digital Edition, which ended up making it a terrible value. Microsoft seems to have learned nothing from that.
"Microsoft seems to have learned nothing"
in other news, the sun rose this morning.
I picked up a series x for $350 last year brand new at best buy. The Series X digital should just be $350 or $400. They should've got rid of the Series S model and kept the Digital Series X to take it's place.
@@b4rs629 Since it's technically better, and fill the same role
Older model is cheaper than the newest model? That's been happening for years now😂
The Xbox One SAD also suffered from just not having a place in the lineup. It came way too late to be meaningful, and didn't offer any real incentives over any of the other Xbox One consoles. Most people who would purchase a One console at that point would either pick a One S or a One X, and the others would just wait the year (or two?) until the Series came out That, and it came at a time when nobody wanted it or expected it. So it seemed more like a last ditch money grab before releasing the next-gen consoles
The Series and PS5 consoles made it work because both manufacturers got in on it and released a digital and disc version at the same time. For Xbox in particular, size and price were major draws of the S for the people who don't feel they need the raw power of the X
I think that the best middle-ground is in form of GOG that allows you to download offline installers. So, technically, you can buy digital games, but make a local offline backup on external drive & own digital stuff pretty much permanently, without the risk of losing access to stuff you paid for. As for "phisical" - there is one important thing that was not mentioned - collecting. If you own a bunch of old games & keep them in relativity good shape, those over the years wil actually go up in value to the point where they can be worth way more than when they were brand new.
I'm always baffled by the fact in these discussions the obvious best choice (GOG) is routinely ignored...
Yes Gog games are very cheap but a big majority of games are not on GOG (nier automata and yakuza 0 for exemple the last 2 games i had play)
@@HairoxxFRMaybe we need a "Not on Gog, not worth my money" movement? #NotOnGog or something like it lol
@@Beregorn88 Because a lot of big titles skip GOG entirely or are only released on GOG years after their initial release.
@@Reahreic I think a better time investment is focusing on the legal aspect of digital ownership rights, as the EU is currently doing.
This will probably be buried in the comments, but here goes some constructive criticism: when there's a lot of data on screen one table after the other, the videoediting and narration are just too fast. If possible in these cases slow down the narration, and leave lomger cuts, or take your time and pick out a few examples and talk about them, to leave time for the viewer to check the data they are interested in. The way it is now is fatiguing.
A usually silent but avid watcher.
you can always stop the video , ya know
@@Myrtanae Taking things more slowly would also benefit the channel since they'd get more watch time so it's really a win-win.
@@wilko2 there is a reason it’s roughly around 10 minutes.
The watch time metrics between a 10min video and 20 min video is quite different.
It’s better to have most users watch 90% of the video at 10 minutes than only 50% of the video at 20 minutes.
It’s a balance.
@wilko2 thats now how this works and you know it
I'd agree with Myrtanae (Partially). I, personally, am not as interested in delving far into the fine details of the information. Viewing it at a glance is all I need, and I'd personally find it less interesting if they spent a lot of time on the fine details. If I were the minority, I'd say have at it, but I expect most people also only need to glance at it as well.
Edit: Although, now that I think about it, simply keeping the tables up for longer where they can wouldn't be a problem for me. I think that'd be a benefit.
Where did you got the PS and XBOX figures from ?
Another pro for physical: it makes you slow down a little. Slowing down is actually very beneficial for mental health, and having to go buy a game, then having to wait more for installation makes you slow down. I know, spoken like a 60 smtg, but actually I'm 30. I'm just sick of our already ultrafast and still accelerating society 😅
Its sad isn't it? The accelerating society... By not buying a physical copy some of the time youre not even interacting with a human being. Society just keeps going towards soulless automation. Saving cost at every corner. Games being digital... New cheap mobile broadband subscriptions because the customer service is a bot or service spreadsheet...
I'm 42 and time is precious. So digital all the way... Think of all the time wasted a year opening and shutting cases alone.
I interact with plenty of people, I certainly don't have time to talk to the Gamestop kid who says
"Hi, cheers, thanks man, see you later". 😂
Growing up with an Atari 8bit where loading a game off tape took on average 15 minutes, while I don't miss it I think it had its merits, like you could do stuff while the game loads, and you appreciated the game more (even if it was kinda crap) because you've waited this long you might as well try to make the best of it lol. Times sure have sped up over the past 40 years.
@@abadenoughdude300 😂 And the ZX spectrum with added noise to go with the lines. Mine had similar loading times.
Plus ejecting discs, putting it back in its case, finding the next case, opening that case, putting that disc in, and waiting for the console to read the disc
1:44 no bonus text?😢
Bonus text went all digital
They are trying to save money....
Text went ghost mode
Second time now! 😢
😂 was omw to repeat what's been said
One major point AGAINST the digital only side that wasn't represented in this video, is that in some countries there are still monthly download caps on your internet connection.
Several ISPs in Belgium have a monthly cap, and some offer no expandable bandwidth packs (free nor paid). If you cross the monthly limit you're on basically 56K speed for the remainder of the month. Good luck downloading your library or even gaming on that.
In Belgium? Only with the very first subscription tier then, I haven’t had nor seen a cap in over 10 years at least and I’m born and raised Belgian 😅
@@jean-philipperottiers614 talk to somebody forced to use f.e. Cable from Telenet. They still have "fair use" unlimited for the bigger contracts, but they have very real limits - that "fair use" is limited to 750GB! With no option to unlock your connection if you accidentally cross it or have to cross it.
My parents are in the US, in a quickly growing suburban area. They just switched off of their old ISP which had a 1 TB cap per month. New ISP has no caps, better speeds, and lower cost. Lots of places in the US have ISP monopolies with caps
Unless you pay 10€ month with the worst operator in the country (scarlet) there's not really caps anymore in Belgium, at least on the walloon side where Proximus, Voo and Mobile viking are the most prevalent and none of them have downloads limits.
@@sonsy8762 Walloons don't have Telenet?
The savings is in the used market, i basically get games for $15-$20 used for Xbox.
There are games on the MS store that cost 50+ bucks, that I've seen for 5 bucks and or less in worse condition in stores or on eBay.
@@CaptainNamikaze probably because its on Game Pass, or it has been discounted somewhere before.
@@CaptainNamikaze that's exactly what I was gonna say. There's no way digital is better. Imo
MS store rarely ever has game sales if at all just like Nintendo and the mobile app stores because they're filthy scammers.
Most of those games can be bought on a key site, similar to PC games, and use a VPN to add it to your library. It's an extremely common way for PC and Xbox gamers to save money.
Most likely will be the same price on steam, I mean cod games on steam are still 60$ and the key sites only give accounts with the game. Not to mention Activision doesn't let you game share their games
One thing people don't realize with a potential digital only entertainment industry is that there is nothing to stop them from making it worse.
$15 for 24hr rental.
or
$70 for a 24hr rental
Sounds impossible, but the number of people who would care will get smaller & smaller every year.
Gaming companies have proven it's about making the most money well, giving the least effort.
Digital gaming was announced. People assumed that meant cheaper launch prices. Greed proved that wrong.
Digital entertainment will only get worse as time goes on & people accept a digital only entertainment industry.
If it gets to that point I'd just find a new hobby.
Tbh u are not exactly wrong and I would not be surprise if this is the direction of console gaming. Rent to play. Profitability over owning a game forever
"nothing stopping them from making it worse"
Is supply and demand not a thing anymore? This isn't health care. People don't have to buy video games no matter the cost.
@oliverfern8039 What people should do vs. what not to do is a moot point.
People will always make bad decisions.
@@kritikalgamer that's not what supply and demand is. What *you* think the value of a game is is a moot point. The value of a game is only as much as people are willing to pay for it.
Great investigation and advice, but once you get outside NA, the physical argument just wins so hard. At launch prices, I can save £20-£30 per game, which is insane to me. Average about £45 physical to £70 digital and I usually get the game a day earlier than the release date!
Literally, PSN still selling rachet and clank at full price almost yet cex selling it at £20-30 😂😂
@PyraCloud argos always sell new games like £10-15 cheaper too, and amazon sometimes
Living in a 3rd world country, yep this is the case.
I can literally get the same game for at least $40 less if I buy them physical instead of digital, and that's without factoring in sales and clearance.
Although one point in digitals favor is steam's regional pricing. When used by the developers, it actually is really great.
I PREORDERED mario party jamboree from currys for £37.50
Australia is the same as UK. PSN typically is $109 at launch and I can easily get it physical for $30-40 cheaper day one. And if I don’t need to play it day one I can get it second hand for even cheaper!
I'm Nintendo only. Nothing can replace a game that comes in fully functional. Yes it has patches, but the base fame is still really good and playable. Plus you save space. I don't have a 1 TB sd card.
Second hand games is where physical media wins , You can get used second hand AAA games for $5 if you wait long enough. and you cant sell a used digital game. It is a license once you are done it will sit in you library.
I might not be a normal consumer, but I would never sell a game I enjoyed playing. Just like people have shelves of physical collections, I enjoy seeing all of the games I digitally own, all immediately available from a single button press, no faffing about with discs required. Not to mention, a massive digital collection can exist on just one console, whereas a physical collection will require exponentially more storage space. I prefer to pay for convenience, not wasting my time removing and inserting discs that are just installing themselves to the internal drive anyways, so what's the point?
First of all, yes you can sell your account with the digital games in them. Not legally, but technically the license on the discs nowadays is the same anyway so selling that license is equally "illegal". You could just also use a computer instead and get those AAA games on sale from steam.
You can also wait for Steam having -90% sales
@@kryzethxdo you live in a shoe box??
If you can't store video games on a shelf then your home must be tiny.
@@bubba842 LOL Do you even own more than 10 games? How large is your gaming shelf then?
If I had to store every single game I owned digitally on a shelf, it would probably take up an entire wall from top to bottom of nothing but shelves.
To start with, I own 6 unique kinds of consoles with digital games on then, from WiiU, 360, PS3, Series X, PS5, and Switch. Even with just the physical games I was forced to buy for these consoles (due to delistings from digital stores), I already needed 2 rows of shelves, which was annoying to store. My digital collection on each console ranges from at least 20 to over 100 (with only a couple of repeats for deluxe/enhanced editions).
Imagining the logistical nightmare of having each and every one of those games on a shelf, and having to manually load every single game whenever I wanted to play something else sounds simply awful.
A bit confused where the physical price of Baldurs Gate 3 is set at 129.99 @ 9:47 . Is that Canadian? Cause the highest price was for the deluxe which was $79.99 for the PS5. The next highest was the collectors edition at $270
@@RogueTides probably canadian
I have the deluxe version and I’m in Canada.. in the end it cost me $160 Canadian… it’s $79.99 USD which is like $95 and then it’s I think $30USD shipping.. the shipping was killer but that seemed to be the standard rate… then of course add tax depending where you are (here sales tax is 13%)
Good conclusion. Also should mention, that the disc drive also gives you a 4k bluray player while getting a separate player would cost way more than $50.
True but how many people are using their Xbox as a Blu Ray player
@mobrocket
No idea. I have PS5 and Series X and play blurays all the time, though. Would be interested to know what percentage of ps5 or Xbox owners use them to play movie discs.
@@B_Ahmed1234
I feel like most people by 2024 are digital only for movies or own a Blu-ray player of some type
Granted I think Xbox is a dead console line, and MSFT is going to make Xbox a service / publisher only soon
@@B_Ahmed1234 I'd guess it's around 5%, I only know like one other person besides me that still buys and uses blu-rays but I bought an Xbox One X specifically for the 4k Blu-ray support and now use my PS5 for them. I wouldn't buy a fully digital console simply because I have tons of DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-rays (and physical games) that I would hate to lose access to them. I could always just buy a BD player for my PC and rip them all, but that's super time consuming and I'd rather just put them in the console and have them play nice and have the menu/special features all in one nice UI, and being able to have something to watch/play if the internet goes down is very valuable to me.
@mobrocket
Probably true. Even I usually get games and watch movies digitally. I get games on disc if there is a good sale, and movie discs if it's a movie I think is worth having in higher quality.
Physical always wins for me. Can't buy an over priced new release game on digital play it through then sell 2 weeks later for only a few bucks less than you bought it for like with physical.
This as Linus said is REALLY complicated. Something he didn't mention is how even when buying disc games some of those still need a download to work, so if they shut down the servers your disk is pretty much nothing but a key that opens nothing.
this is especially why you shouldn’t buy an xbox to begin with
This was already mentioned.
He literally did mention that.
He sadly did mention it, but it's only the case for a minority of the games out there.
@@TheJuniorgonzales Its true about Xbox games, but PS5 and Switch games work without any day one patches or other activation stuff
Thats why i still use my xbox 360 till now !, u can find game disks for 2.50$!
older generation consoles are great today cause they don’t rely on online connectivity
True @@Sharan25
Ironically, my 360E is more in use than my Series X. I'd call that one a waste of 500 bucks because the games still look better on my PC if the port isn't mangled and I am a long way from having played all the 360 games I own, even. It's a goddamn shame they took down the 360 store.
@@CaptainNamikazeJailbreak it, if they don't want your money then that's their problem
and you can play zero of the new games on it, what a deal.
All big companies should get the Intel and Ubisoft treatment.
They already are. It's just that because their pocket book is so big it's happening slower so they have more time to course correct.(Edit - ... Or burn more money doing the same thing.)
Why because they built a business and poor people find it trendy to hate big tech ... If they all crash u know the stock market will crash ... And u know what happens to ur dear money and the job u working after it crash 🥱... U people don't know how the world works
poor people hating big tech ... u do know their money is the reason you re living that comfortable life right and if they go down today are you ready to become homeless ...
@@TruthHurts1519 These bots are getting out of hand...
@@TruthHurts1519 thanks mister big tech
I love that every time you guys ADR in a correction on screen rather than a pop-up and think of Steve.
A new ps5 game will cost around 80 dollars new in digital, wait 1 month and buy a second hand disc for half the price and there is the disc drive paid for
Or use CDKeys. You can pick up AAA games for like 10% of the retail price most of the time.
This, and to add to that bonus: easily expandable cheap storage (bog standard M.2 2280 Gen4 SSD). Something the current-gen xboxes don't do either (with their horribly overpriced proprietary storage card thingies). Can't replace the internal SSD (a mostly standard M.2 2230 SSD) either as it has both a model whitelist and is tied to the specific console via the SSDs serial number. It's basically designed from the ground up to screw you over and milk money out of you
@@KnaeckebrotsaegeI mean, the PS5 isn’t better in the regard of internal storage, it’s literally soldered to the board.
At least there is some trickery involved in replacing the Xbox SSD rather than desoldering and resoldering the PS5 SSD.
As someone with kids, ease of Physical is a no brainer. I do own 2 copies of a lot of games, but there are plenty of games I can just wait until they've played through and save $40-60. The "Primary Console" thing is nice, but I don't think there is way to get around owning multiple consoles (even within the same household). Like if my son is done with a digital game, he can't make my console the primary, because then it locks him out of other games on his console.
Also like you mentioned, the ability to SELL a game is HUGE. I sell games a few times a year and it typically covers my next round of purchasing. I only keep games I know I'll come back to. Especially since during a console generation, games don't go up in value. It's like selling a stock you know will only go down. If you think you'll play it again, you can just rebuy it when you want to play it or near the end of a console lifecycle.
0:15 Did anyone else notice those names are incorrect?
@@TheGamer99PlayzYT Me. Because I wanted to finally find out the origin of this meme and couldn't find the names when I googled them 😂
@Beckenpower yeah the name is supposed to be Robert B. Weide
me a pc gamer who hasn't had the option of a physical in years. "yeah"
Linus has mentioned it in the video: there are pirates who will preserve the game for all eternity once the game servers of that game go offline.
as long as publishers don't agressively attack pirtate platforms that host these copies, which is another gotcha.
nintendo has been relentless against emulation sites.
I love the new steam family move. I can play on my account and my 2 kids can play concurrently on their own account using my games. So sweet.
A family that games together, stay together
agreed honestly, super sweet.
My physical games were an asset. When I moved to the USA I sold my game collections for a few thousand dollars and it helped me get a start in a new country. Can't do that with digital
I’ve had to do the same in the past, and it’s a big reason to why I prefer physical products. The only way I’ll go fully digital, is if I’m literally forced to because discs/disc drives don’t exist anymore. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that happens on both consoles on the next generation. Hopefully gamers fight back and force their hand though.
@@Quizack nah, they will lose so much customers if they did this. And more likely push more people to PC.
Because even if phisical is dead on PC, with Steam games that you purchased 20 year ago, you can still play them on your upgraded PC now, that stands for gog also. And that PC games are cheaper on PC is just an icing on the cake.
Of course you can do that with digital.. All you have to do is change the email associated with the xbox account.. And then sell it all.
@ that doesn't work dude. What if somebody doesn't want a game? They're expected to pay for it anyway. It doesn't work that way
@@Quizack we're going digital only in the next 10 years mark my words
If games go to all digital only, i will buy a console day 1, keep it in the box untill it is hacked and never buy a digital game on it.
based
Or you could not reward them for their bad decisions by not giving them your money…
Basically how people have been doing work Playstation and Nintendo consoles.
@@JPEight Them going break even, of slight profit doesnt matter.
@@JPEightAs opposed to what? Go PC? Digital only as well. But whereas a digital console is seen as bad by some, PC gamers are fine with ditching physical.
As of dec 3, 2024, the digital series x is $100 cheaper than the disk version I’d say it’s pretty worth it if you haven’t played physical games in a long time and don’t really care for disks.
Regardless, for those who like disks because “you own it”. It’s almost the same as digital. You just paid for the license to download it from the same store as a digital player. That’s why you have to download after you put in the disk instead of instantly playing it. When those servers shut down it won’t matter if you have digital or disk .
So disk aren’t the best way to “preserve” games.
Loving David as a writer the past few videos he’s done. Would like to see him more on screen too, he’s got good chemistry with hosts since behind the camera. The fixing broken handhelds vid is still one of my faves haha
ya, david is for sure one of the best up and coming LTT personalities
The PS fanboy writes an anti-XB vid. Crazy!
8:55 You can't absolutely justify this claim, since you could buy say, the latest C.O.D., but want to play MMO. You will STILL need to subscribe to PS+, even though you have the physical disc.
The option to pass on one's possessions to another with no barriers is one of the quintessential freedoms of being a free human being.
*The government* : "sorry we are going to have to steal some of that, we call it estate tax"
* red-tailed hawk sound intensifying *
@@sabataexe101 you will own nothing and you will be happy
Was*
Coming from someone that grew up with computers, seeing them grow. Having owned a Super PET, Commodore Vic 20 and Amiga before building my own computers later on.
I'll take physical media any day of the week over media that I'm supposedly buying, but don't actually own.
F*** that!
anyone remember when the XB One S digital was referred to as the "SAD edition", and nobody wanted that one.
The digital only consoles are one trick ponies, whereas the disc version gives you the flexibility of disc & digital whichever you choose - plus I think it's often not mentioned for some reason, but you also get a player for CDs, DVDs, and BDs enabling you to listen to music or watch TV shows or movies all without the "you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy" continual money grab subscriptions. Never trade ownership for convenience
On 5:40 You missed a big big opportunity to add soundtrack that vsauce used
5:27 Waifu Simulator 26, a true classic
I think you forgot to add in corporate greed into the mix and when they get you locked into the digital platform they can start charging whatever they want even though they're saving money by not printing discs and still charging you the same exact price right now
The fact that physical games are cheaper than digital is mind boggling, considering that you need to spend money on producing disks, shipping them and actually running a physical store to sell them!
It's all part of the con.
That's why they want you to go digital.
All they do is send a bunch of 1s and 0s down a broadband line a charge you the same price as a physical product that
1. Has a disc, case and artwork.
2. Has to be shipped.
3. 3rd party has to make a profit on the game.
Chances are, Walmart and Best Buy probably buy a $80 game for $60 from the distributer.
Then why does the same company charge you $80 if it's digital?
I'M GONNA SAY IT
SAY IT
OPTICAL MEDIA BAD!!!
HE'S GONNA SAY IT ‼️‼️‼️‼️
0:27
hi
Physical on console; digital on PC. That's the only way I feel secure in being able to access the content that I want to play at any time.
That's how it should be no matter what
Same here. + not have to worry about eshop closing when a new console comes out lol.
I'm doing the same!
Bring back Physical for PC as well for single player games
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena It seems like because PCs didn't have sophisticated copy protection built-in, publishers had all sorts of moronic ones that broke many physical PC releases, so no, don't bring that back.
Also one major thing to consider: if the host of the network goes down (like Sony), your games are vanished. For physical, you still can play them.
One thing that you might want to take into consideration is game renting. From where I am (Mumbai, India) this is a fairly common practice among "power users/ power gamers?" You rent a game for a nominal fee for a week or 2 and then send it back. It's opposite of building up a library to play games as many times as you want, it's great for single player games. I've personally rented games like black myth wukong, miles morales, ghost of tsushima. each for about 299 INR 2 weeks ~ roughly 5 CAD
I binge played all those titles, completed to 100% (achievement hunting, collectibles, etc) now that there's nothing new the game can offer me it's with someone else who's experiencing the game. And I got to do all this for $5 (per title)
Rental markets used to be massive in North America, but for a bunch of reason they all died. A lot of the move to extracting money via microtransactions is due to the death of that assured return market.
50 dollars isn't even the price of a game these days.
$50 is a joke … this console should have been released 4 years earlier.
i got my ps5 for $400 with disk drive
50 bucks total of price difference in digital vs physical games. so a game gets like a dollar or two cheaper on digital from the games he mentioned
Exactly, if your friend gifts you their old disk, you're already made up for the price difference and have an extra blu-ray player.
No disk is a scam.
@@darkspyro1991 But like Linus said at the end which is common sense. All the perks for a digital only console, applies to the disc
The only benefit is that $50 less upfront that you need to recoup over 8 years
if you wait a 2 weeks to month, you can get a game for $20-30 less used and thats when it would've got some of the patches to fix major issues
You can do that for multiple games a year
Having physical discs to eventually sell as an "extra" when selling the console is what keeps me from going all digital.
If only games that actually release an Ultimate Edition on an actual physical disc was more common place.
@@dindunuphenwong like when the collector's edition of sonic mania came out with a ton of cool physical stuff... and a download code.
@@gregorymirabella1423 Or the Mass Effect Trilogy or Mortal Kombat XL & 11 Ultimate... Witcher 3. It's possible but most like Activision don't because of greed.
The only reason I kept buying consoles for all these years is because of physical medias, something that Steam killed on PC a long time ago. But if consoles are going to get rid of it as well, what is left? I guess the hardware is cheaper and Nintendo is still making good exclusives.
When a physical release, with disc / packaging / artwork / etc is cheaper at release than a digital file on a server… it’s hard to promote digital sales.
Here in the UK most Mario/Zelda games drop to £32 on preorders physically, but are still £49 digitally.
Man seeing you complaining make me laugh , PC didn't have physical shit for years and its market is getting bigger and bigger ( and don't come with in PC there are other stores , cuz 90% of PC sales are on steam ) , physical is dead just accept it
When buying brand new PS5 games it is often £10 - £15 cheaper to buy the physical copy on Amazon compared to PSN. At that price you would recover the extra cost in only 4-5 games, which depending on how many games you buy would be less than a year.
can get lower than that. you get rdr2 for literally $20 brand new while in the digital market still charges you $70
But you can also buy games of websites like G2A that will have it at sale prices year round.
@@WhyitJellyDonut You are not likely to get sale prices on release day. Sales are great if you are willing to wait for a game. If you want it day 1 them digital is normally more expensive.
Also with PSN you cant buy a game for someone, you can only buy it for your own account so if you want to give someone a game as a present you cant. There is no reason for this.
the ones who say physical discs cant hold enough are liars, game discs can scale upwards if needed some discs can hit 100gbs. costly yes but if done at scale then the costs go way down.
Physical will always have the final say and i prefer owning a disc even if they screwed you out of a plug and play game because atleast you have some leverage for pirating a game if you own the disc.
While the death of discs is dumb (especially on consoles, they should always have a drive for DVDs/Blu-ray alone):
No, you don't have any leverage for pirating with a disc - the only thing you own is the disc itself, all data on it (so the software) obeys the same licensing as digital.
I only buy discs if they go on massive sales in a nearby store (so them being cheaper than a steam sale), otherwise they're just a waste of space for me personally.
@@Unknown_Genius though in the US you do not have the legal right to pirate, morally if you own the game or dvd or software allready you in some countries including france CAN pirate the item as long as you own a copy of it somehow.
Though i do doubt it will ever make it to america i could care less and will not feel bad pirating a game or software/movie i already own.
PC games i just get through steam, otherwise i buy physical because i actually own physical copies. If i have to download a game like a modern console disc i will back it up to a seperate drive aswell for my own keeping and i have a storage in my house of hundreds of games, used to be about 1k but im downsizing to buy more of the games i will actually play instead of just collecting.
@@thedillon25100 Most countries that claim so are only allowed to do a backup copy of the disc content, it doesn't change the licensing tho.
Not familiar with france itself, but alot of people claim the same in germany, yet it's wrong and piracy will be prosecuted regardless of having a disc or if they bought it somewhere else.
(Not that it's gonna stop people from doing it to avoid e.g. always on DRM on singleplayer only games, which is morally correct imo as there's no excuse to demand being online to start up games, especially if they're offline only and even more so if it's a re-release of older games that didn't require it previously).
@@Unknown_Genius France if you have a copy of a program or game physically or have proof of purchase inside France you cannot be prosecuted for obtaining illegal copies as long as you have purchased it once
Just out of interest do you guys consider things like g2a or cdkeys for the pricing? I save a stupid amount of money with cdkeys like £60 on microsft store vs £30 on cdkeys, which physical really cant compete with.
As a PC gamer I haven’t had a physical copy of a game in over a decade
Fair enough. But you can purchase physical copy whenever you want to, you can pirate games if you want to, you can share pirated games to your friends, share your steam account and games.
These digital only consoles won't allow anything like that ever. I like collecting physical copies of games cause some of them have really great packaging, custom manuals and what not. Digital games feel lifeless and bland.
@ I haven’t seen a physical pc copy for a new game in years. So can’t really purchase something that doesn’t exist.
Sure but we aren't restricted to Steam or any store, we can do whatever we want. I only got Steam in 2020, pretty late for someone who mostly plays on PC. You'd be forced to only buy from the MS store or use game pass and their sales are not great, at least around here I never seen a game reduced in price by more than 10. I've bought all the consoles over the years because I enjoyed them but I can tell you this generation is the last one for me outside of maybe Nintendo, if there's an exclusive I really want and it won't run on the current Switch.
@@WorldRaceMVG The most recent physical PC game I've seen was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. It comes with 10 discs. 😂
@@EngineeredFemaleyou literally can share your ps plus account and entire digital game library with one other console on playstation.
intro sequence doesn't have quirky text :(((
It's a metaphor for the disc drive!
You worded this issue very well.
I hope people take the issue seriously. On PC, you can pick up AAA games for less than £10 every sale. On Playstation and Xbox, that just simply isn't the case.
It seems like they've kind of fixed the sale prices for most games across Steam & consoles. The main difference is you can buy Steam keys from third party stores and get a few more dollars off usually.
Ya if this video was strictly about xbox... I feel physical would've easily been the no-brainer.
Can someone please explain this to me... As i have not tested it yet... But does downloading a digital game vs installing the physical game (same game of course) take the same amount of space?? Or is there a win for physical media, as in there is less storage space being added to the console?? Please someone!!
Why is a video about an XBox talking about PSN and PS+ and no mention of GamePass. If you don't get GamePass for an XBox you're doing it wrong.
Gamepass is a scam now.
Is $250 a year + tax. Buying used games and cheap digital games still outclasses that. Had he been open about it, ms would be pissed. That's why he used psn
@easyygo3008 I don't know anyone paying full price.
Why so I can play games that 90 precent of I already played and the other 10 precent I don't care about and the random new Game every six months.
I have an Xbox Series X and Game Pass. I've been on Xbox Live Gold since '07 and Game Pass since day one.
I often go months playing a single game and sometimes, no game at all. Plus I own hundreds of games. All I'm saying is SOMETIMES, Game Pass isn't the best value.
@@chasejackson7248 If you played all of the games on gamepass ultimate + the constant stream of new releases coming in day 1 years ago you're either lying (for obvious reasons) or should get a life honestly.
Gamepass simply is the best value for money by far, especially since about everything is on a revocable license either way - gamestreaming on the go included with MS having one of the most stable streaming services for it available is just a massive bonus on top.
So it makes no sense to name PSN and PS+, it's inferior in server stability, features and content. The only proper comparison would be PS+ Premium, which honestly... is still better value than "buying" the games but way to overpriced given how much it lacks content & stability compared to gamepass - but honestly: From my experience "lack of proper functionality" is usually the name of the game for PS either way, I'm glad that I could get rid of that system when Sony finally started to realize that they have to stop making exclusives to be able to properly stay afloat and not get eaten up by Microsoft at some point.
I don't get it. This is about an xbox without a disc drive. Then the comparison is only done for PS5 digital and physical copies. And then in the end there is some talk about 'Game Pass' but only PSN Plus free games are actually discussed. I have an Xbox Series S and don't really miss the disc drive (I do miss some disk space though). For Xbox it's actually possible to sometimes get quite a good deal on digital games through online code resellers (I had a PS4 for which I could rarely find good value codes from resellers). Digital games also seem to get supported for a long time on Xbox as well. The main point for a diskless Xbox though is of course Game Pass. The Game Pass library can hardly be compared with the PSN Plus one. Game Pass actually gives me access to almost all games I want to play on day one. The next game I will buy will be probably GTA VI. These points make a diskless Xbox an easier sell to me than a diskless PS5.
Agreed, putting the PSN prices / catalog on an Xbox video makes no sense at all to me, it's like they never heard of the Gamepass or a Sony afficionado made the video script...
Also bitching about digital only when 90% if not more games on PC are bought on various digital stores since ages is pretty pointless too...
Who still has DVD drive when cases don't even have a 5 1/4 bay anymore, and buys their games in stores ?
That game pass requires a monthly subscription fee. That's no bargain.
@@Wolfcritic64 and the PSN plus whatever that they show in the video is free maybe ?
The gamepass is cheaper, has more games, gives you access to the EA pass + PC gamepass, and almost all the 1st party games are added in it day one, unlike the PSN where you still have to pay for 1st party...
And you have discounts on the games when you want to "buy to keep".
7:34 tbh the time has past where game from each console is preserved. Nowadays if it's on PC and doesn't have DRM, it will be preserved on PC. It's not 2000s anymore where you will have different regional versions as well as different version of the game when it comes to console. Today with internet, it changed that aspect
I went through literally all of this math and value analysis (on a very basic level) a few months ago before buying my ps5, and ultimately after reaching the same deadlocks you guys kept falling into, I decided on the disc version for one crucial reason, and it's that I would always rather cover my ass and have an extra feature rather than not.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES!!! I can borrow games free for xbone and PS5. Makes it such an easy choice not even including all the other factors involved. Ita like going to blockbuster to rent but its free real estate!
YES THIS!!!!
Libraries are amazing! They are 100% free, and you can just check the game out again if you want to re-visit it!
This is ESPECIALLY relevant when you are already factoring in the cost of Game Pass (and similar) for digital, where the offered games already rotate in and out at random!
I Stopped buying games online, Since single player is required to play with an internet connection 😂😂
My issue isn't the fact digital is an option, I buy tons of digital games, it's that these companies are trying to make it the only option
So they can dictate prices without any competition. We're all just blissfully unaware lobsters being slowly boiled right now.
@@Jalex0021 While that may be true I'd say it rather comes from digital being the most used method to buy games.
A cheaper digital only option is always nice, but it should never be the only option, for the fact alone that even digital only buyers may want a DVD/Blu-ray player to watch something they got around already every once in a while.
Since David is a walking contradiction when it comes to games and consoles, this video's inconclusiveness makes sense
7:38 GOG for the win!!!
Seriously, buy the disc version,
Sell 2-3 games you finished.
Difference covered.
Not true for everyone… i bought the disk version because it was the only one available. I put in a disk once because i borrowed RDR2 from a friend. The noise was so annoying for me I didn’t want to put it in again…
I also never came to a point where I would want to sell a game… i literally bought two games in the last three years. The rest was included with PS+…
9:12 , you guys should really emphasize the online play aspect. Especially for future videos like these.
If you buy a game for the sole purpose of online multiplayer, you will NEED a console subscription. While both Playstation and Xbox have made a subscription unnecessary for online play in f2p pay games like Overwatch, Fortnite, Apex Legends, CoD Warzone etc., there's a ton of games that have multiplayer mode like GTA5, CoD, Minecraft, and every major sports game (fifa, nba), that still require a subscription to play the game online. I wonder how many of the top games listed NEED a subscription just to have access to the entire game.
I never normally comment on Linus videos but there's so much missing here.
1: Game licenses digitally get pulled, perhaps for music reasons, whereas I can still get a phsyical disc.
2: Realistically, waiting for historic lows isn't true. If it's a new release, I'm not going to wait 3/6/12 months for it to end up on sale when the physical price begins to crash often 2 weeks after it's out.
3: Single player games. I'm personally a "one and done" kind of guy with those products, and prefer to move them on once I've finished everything I'm happy with. I then sell the game on for say, £30-40, and that covers half the cost of the next game that I purchase, which by the time I've done that is probably already less than the digital copy.
9:24 *Insert Helldivers 2 Here*
Ive been doing digitally only since 2013...
My biggest reason for doing so is game sharing on the Xbox, where you both can play the same game with the same license. This was a MONEY saver for my brother and I where we both just paid for 1 game and were able to play it together.
Not only that, since I paid for it, the games that had a PC release are games that I can now play on PC. Didnt need to buy a 2nd license.
I have more to add but Ive only watch 2/3rd of the video but wanted to comment now, edit later to remember my points as I go.
There's almost no point in having a disc drive for the XBox series anyway as far as gaming goes. Basically every game straight up requires updates to run in the first place. Xbox friends lost that war already. Removing the drive is probably a mercy at this point. Puts your hopes to the right level of acceptance. Playstation still seems to be generally OK on that front, but with their recent pivoting, I see that only as a matter of time. Both Playstation and Xbox are probably salivating at the opportunity to run like Steam, no more worries about physical versions so all their profits are theirs, they kill an entire after market, and can then push pricing however they see fit until the lifetime of the product. God I hate what the gaming industry has become.
There is genuinely one niche which is that some older games have an enhanced version on the newer series x console, like with Forza Horizon, and the only way to prove you have a license for that game if you don't already have a digital version of it on your account is to put a physical disc into the drive.
This is an incredibly small niche, other titles which run better on the newer console like Sonic Unleashed are sometimes still just available digitally; but it is at least one very small niche until emulation improves and the real preservationists can take over.
So in short, digital games can be taken away from you any time so you lose the game and the money you spent on it, you can't resell or trade digital games and you're stuck with whatever the price is on the storefront. With physical games you always own the game forever, you can trade the game and get money back in your account, you can buy used games cheaply and flip them for profit then use said profits to buy more games or consoles for free, you can trade the game back after completing it or if you didn't like it or you can resell on the marketplace for next to cost price after you complete it within a week or so thus effectively buying a new release game for a few dollars instead of $70+. You can find physical games in thrift stores for a few bucks but to buy that same game digitally they are still often almost full price even when they are decades old. Just look at Call of Duty.
You can't do this with PC games though which is why Linus was trying hard to paint digital in a positive light. If you're on PC, it's digital or nothing and your money is as good as lost.
2:50 Wouldn't you always buy the digital copy if it was cheaper, and the physical if it was cheaper?
He does mention this near the tail end of the video. Having the option to buy both physical and digital is the best choice.
At about the 06:15 mark Linus says EXACTLY why I've moved on from modern physical releases.
Your physical games, are not physical games. They are physical license keys to install a digital copy of the game that's actually finished.
The fact that console makers are pushing digital marketplace and diskless consoles should make it extremely obvious which one is better.
Exactly! They aren't doing this to help gamers, they are doing it for total control in order to help shareholders.
On the buying used-argument, you always forget mentioning that you also can sell them. Buy used, sell a week later for the same price or a little bit lower. It's always way cheaper for newish games