@@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.
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
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.
As some have mentioned in the comments, game sharing makes a compelling argument for digital purchasing. My wife and I co-op everything from Baldur's Gate to Tiny Tina with one digital purchase. Dragon's Age will probably be a day one purchase that we will both be playing at the same time.
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.
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.
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.
@@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
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
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.
I want to point out that nearly 90% of all physical games dont need a update for the game fully work offline with a unregistered account... I've covered well over 300 games on PS4, PS5 and Switch... And I almost never came across a physical game needing me to download or connect to the Internet for it to work... Hope this helps someone picks between physical or digital.
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.
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
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...
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.
@@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.
Physical wins hands down. When i decide im done with a game i can sell it and ill get a decent amount back because i keep everything in perfect condition
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.
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.
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.
One thing you can do with Physical games over Digital, is to SELL them to recoup some of the costs. If you could sell your digital games just like physical, I would be all for it.
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.
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.
It's way more complicated than that. First off, physical media was a thing when games was 2K to 1 gig in size. You didn't have that much to deal with, and it was easier to get it right. Today games are often as big as 60-100 GB and it's far more difficult to correct things. Not only that, but having a collection of 100 discs may not be as fun as just clicking on the game and off you go.
Why do people make this sound so awful you grab the case put the disc in done when your finished put the disc back in the case and back where you got it from it’s not difficult. Plus games were bigger than 2gb. Games on the PS2 could get as big as 4gb and they used a single layer DVD disc. On the PS3 games got as big as 40gb roughly on a dual layer Blu Ray and games today come on 100gb Blu Rays so discs are not the problem the reason you have updates is the developers trying to patch the games.
I really hate the all digital push from Xbox. WalMart and Target no longer restock physical Xbox games and are selling through whatever they have left before they completely remove the Xbox section from their electronics departments.
The day we decided "leasing" our content via netflix, digital only services like steam etc, no more pcs with disc drives or any form of external media we interact with regularly, is the day we decided to stop becoming the consumers, and became the product.
If you aren't picky about where you shop, you can sometimes find amazing deals on physical games, especially at Walmart. For instance, my local Walmart (and a bunch of others around the US from what I've heard) put deep discounts on a bunch of games a couple months ago. I ended up picking up a few brand new PS4, PS5, and Xbox One / Series X games that I wanted to try (Saints Row reboot, NFS Unbound, The Callisto Protocol, Anno 1800, and a few more), but didn't want to invest a bunch of money in for only $5 each. Also a few years ago I picked up a copy of Pillars of Eternity 2 for PC at Walmart for $10 when it was still selling for $40 on Steam. Yes, the Walmart copy was just a Steam code in a box, but still, I saved $30 on a game I was planning to buy anyway.
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.
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
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.
@@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 conclusion of the video is 100% right: Flexibility is the cost you pay for saving the money on an all digital version; the lack of a disk drive version of the Series S is *the* reason I don't have a current Xbox.
I got I think 6 physical games for my Switch and about 50 digital games. A large majority of the digital ones were free or bought on sale for about a dollar, like old Doom and Castlevania games. This is something you can't really do with physical. On the other hand, owning physical copies of my favorite games feels really nice, helps a lot with storage, and I think having access to patch 1.0 is a benefit. Gives you options to get up to shenanigans.
You break even over 2-3 COD games. Xbox is still asking $40 bucks for BLOPS 1!!! Even Game Stop sales it for $12. Plus, I can sale the game if it sucks. Only Steam gives you 2 weeks.
@@SleepiVEVO Black Ops 3, Black Ops 4, Cold War, Infinite Warfare, MW Remastered and WW2 are all still $59.99. I got Black Ops 3 and COD WW2 at GameStop for $24.99 each.
You forgot one of the most important features of digital games. " Game sharing" you get two licenses with the purchase of one digital game. All I have to do is buy one digital game and my buddy can also play my copy of my digital game at the same time.I do. You can't do that with a physical copy
Or you can buy some game on PC, and play them on Xbox. Pretty niche case, but handy for me when I was house sitting and only had access to a console not my PC.
Or you can just buy physical and not have to worry about how many licenses you have to share lol. Can’t play at the same time but the game can be resold many times.
@Me-eb3wv yes!.. if you have a friend or a child with another xbox simply put your account on their Xbox and make their xbox as your "HOME XBOX" your friend warrior child.We'll have full access of your library with the dlc they won't need to pay for game pass if you pay for it. And both of you guys can play your libraries on two different xboxs at the same time. That's called "game share"
Does this mean that we're getting a physical transferable license to Floatplane? Or whatever content you're selling. That way, the ltt community can transfer access to YOUR content amongst themselves, without including you in the transaction! That'd be good for your ongoing production of content, right?
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!
As a PC gamer, don't let physical games die on console! I'm a disenfranchised PC gamer from that 00's "I like how games newer than 9 years old are modable, Triple A FPS games let you run your own server and It's only a matter of time when PC games get released on Blu-Ray without online activation just like they are on the PS3 and I hate Steam" perspective. (I really hate how the newest game that has ambitious mods like new questlines, land masses and total conversions is fallout 4 and it came out 9 years ago) You're giving up the ability to legally purchase old delisted games and cheap fun games. If you like Sports games, they're very annual, but used copies are dirt cheap meaning you could turn a $2 game that is discontinued and delisted into 1,000 Gamer Score. I know a lot on PC don't care about achievements, but I'm sure a lot of console gamers didn't care about KB&M until they tried it out. A lot of times people will fanboy and shit on features they don't have like "It's 2024, why does the Xbox Controller use AA Batteries?!" Because they're universal and easily swappable and have a standard design, just get rechargeable AAs and if you can't wait to charge them, just go to the dollar store to get it going now. Also have fun trusting the made in china replacement Playstation Lithium Packs. Since Bespoke form factors are niche, there's less quality control scrutiny.
It's too late bro the game file sizes are getting bigger and the digital sales, with all the content bundled together, after so long eventually become cheaper. We won't see the return of physical media for PC until our lord and savior Gabe takes his journey to save another universe and steam starts preventing users from downloading games with expired licenses in their libraries like how Sony and Rockstar did with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Vice City on PS4 when the definitive editions released.
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.
For Xbox specifically, the ability to chuck Xbox 360 discs in and play has brought me so many hours of fun... particularly for games I missed, such as a bunch of CoD games I could grab on eBay for $AU15 that don't drop below double that on the digital store.
I am so pleased about the conclusion of this video because it is exactly the same conclusion I came to when buying my previous console. The inclusion of a disk drive on the console isn’t about always getting the physical game, it’s about the freedom to get the physical game if I want to. For me, the $50 extra is worth it , if it means I get to retain my ability to choose.
You guys might want to get soundbites of all your presenters saying the numbers 0 - 19, (2 - 9)0, and hundred/thousand so that corrections aren't so jarring.
I agree.. But the reason they do that is because one of the editors found it funny since it sounded like those tiktok voices that read to you.. He mentioned it on the WAN show when they started doing it
Optical Drives are not going away. Corporations would want it to happen really badly, bud it is not gonna happen. Blyray for example up to this day offers superior quality vs streaming services. Also, fun fact: Blu-ray actually had a successor - The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) which could have like 100 GB - 6 TB of data capacity. The reason why it did not happened is that Blu-ray in general was very anti-consumer. It was secured too hard and while it was very good for games & maybe movies - it was not good for costumer use (burning discs etc).
I bought a 360 slim three years before the Xbone launched. I bought about a hundred great games for 10 bucks each, a few rare ones were a bit more expensive than that. I can plug in that console and play any of them. Yet if I buy an all digital Xbox now, I won't be able to put in those disks to make use of the backwards compatibility or upscaling. I feel like, that point was not addressed here. You can buy hordes of cheap and still amazing 360/xboxone or Ps4 games on the cheap for your disk drive PS5 or disk drive series x. MS and Sony don't want you to do that since they won't make a cent out of the resale. They want you to have all digital so they can remove older amazing games and make a profit out of every sale, and also to force you to play only newer games.
One major bonus about digital that you left out is the ability to game share. I’ve only had to buy a game once digitally for both me and my spouse to play together on separate systems. That’s a 50% savings over the life of our consoles.
Physical isn’t about money savings, it’s about having something in your shelf. Taking it out, looking at the cover art. Appreciating a tangible item. Sure, having a manual made it a lot more fun and valuable, but maybe that will happen again in the future? Everything is digital, but for a premium you can buy a physical version with extras like posters, color manual, soundtracks etc. Kind of like vinyl is today.
I'm sorry it feels like you missed a topic on this. Storage. While some games force you to download the game to the console. Most don't. Which means precious space on your limited hard drive isn't being eaten up by games when it could be going to saves. Some games are roughly 100GB of space. Even if you expanded the Hard drive of your Console with 2TB. That's still what 20 games not counting saves that could take up a whole lot more space. Meaning your constantly juggling what games you keep on your console.
Plus Internet not everyone has fast internet so it’s more acceptable to some to have most of the game download off the disc and then you just gotta wait on the updates to download then waiting on the entire game and the updates to download using your slow internet.
I think you got it wrong, it's the opposite. Most games are fully installed on the SSD, so the space is getting blocked no matter if it's digital or disc. The disc drives are simply too slow now compared to the SSDs in the console to allow playback from the disc.
@@YT_timekiller001 no you missed what I’m saying nothing is played off the disc not since the PS3 , 360 days the disc downloads to the console. What I was saying some like physical because there internet is slow and downloading off the disc is faster. Then all they gotta do is wait for the updates to download then having to wait for an entire game plus the updates using there slow internet.
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)
This was incredibly well written. It might also be a good idea to look more closely at gaming subscription programs, including Nintendo and Apple, and examine how has their value changed over time. Lot of them had their price go up while also losing a notable number of titles from their library. Some of them have barely any new games being added. So on one hand someone who just got a new system and wants to play whatever may find it compelling, but on the other someone who has played those games may find themselves overspending just to keep playing one or two games. There are certain not often talked about issues, such as instances where it isn’t possible to carry over save data from the subscription version to the full retail one (effectively holding your save data ransom to keep you subscribed), and some developers not being happy about the service for one reason or another (Apple Arcade had a pretty nasty controversy recently).
Well, for Xbox, you still need to download your physical games as if they were digital, so you might as well go digital, especially if you plan on buying big storage games.
Not all physical games are like that though. Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Editon on Xbox Series X comes with 3 Blu-Ray discs. On those discs contains the base game, patch 2.0, and the Phantom Liberty DLC. You don't need an internet connection to play it. Well except for that one time internet connection you need to setup your Xbox Series X for the very first time but I digress.
my internet is very slow, and i like being able to buy xbox one/ps4 games for like $3 when they still cost $40 in store. I bought anthem for $3, killzone shadow-fall for $4. online those 2 games would have cost me $50
Lol it's funny people think buying a disc means you own it for life. All MS has to do is brick the device/software in one form or another and BAM.. Discs will no longer work on consoles...
If you have an Xbox or PS console from the past 2 generations all you have to do is set the console as your primary device and disc games will work offline, though Xbox I believe some games need to be booted online at least once before working offline. Even if the game doesn't work you could still sell the disc which you can't do with a digital library (legally at least), no publisher is going to physically remove that disc from your possession which is a possibility for any digital game with DRM.
The absolute worst thing about this generation of gaming is the lack of support for physical CDs. I know Linus has a big chode for "Oh just get big hard drivers. big SSD." but now a days, games can just be taken off of store pages. hell, Steam has to tell people you don't own games you just license them. So I guess you better download games and just never uninstall them.
I don't play multiplayer games, so even if Steam or Nintendo takes down a game I bought I don't care because I can just pirate it somewhere and be at peace because I supported the developer.
Console manufacturers are trying to gaslight us into thinking digital is better. For the longest time here in the UK games were £40 standard, then the store versions were £60, so when you broke it all down digital's only uplift was convenience, now it's just a dang plague
I am a patient gamer who usually waits for a sale where you get all the bug fixes and DLC on the cheap. But sometimes a game comes out I am keen to play straight away. This is when I buy the cheaper disc from a department store and sell it once you are finished. You can usually get most of your money back selling the disc and by the time you want to play it again the digital version is earther cheap or free with a PSN subscription.
I wanted a white Series X. I have a black one. The white is more appealing especially since I'm a Star Wars nerd and it looks like a stormtrooper. However the lack of a disc drive makes this a scam 100%.
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.
How would you know how many games every person has. Saying things like: 29 games is more then what people would buy in the console lifecycle. Is unfounded and deceitful to forward the narative.
you missed a point, the disc drive it's also needed for the excellent and seamless xbox retro compatibility, you can play enhanced older generation games for pennies
I still have ptsd from my childhood of disc games getting scratched and becoming unplayable and I was pretty careful with mine, not sure if they’re better built nowadays. Also, having all your games in one place is hugely convenient, clearing a space in your living room to store 67 games would be a pain. Having to get up and switch discs every time you want to change what game you’re playing is also a pain once you’re used to digital.
If you don't care about keeping the games, physical copies are much, much cheaper than digital, because you can just sell or swap the game after you finish it. When I first bought a console a couple years ago, I was amazed that I could finish like 10 new games at the total cost of just one or two games. I would have to wait years for all those games to go on sale to break even if I wanted to buy them digitally, even on the PC where digital games are usually cheaper. Not to mention there are games that never go on huge sales, so buying a disc and selling it after will be significantly cheaper
To me, as someone who already owns a lot of digital games on PC, a console only makes sense because of the physical media and the longevity that provides. I still use my 3DS long after the servers were shutdown due to my physical games, and I intend to do the same with my Switch years from now. It's what makes consoles unique from the PC, and if that ever stops being the case then I'd just emulate the few console games I want to play.
Here's my counter, there's a ton of casual people like myself who don't actually game too much and just get the gamepass with the series s while not owning any games. I can just keep up with the modern titles and use online services for a 'decent' price and get all the entertainment I need from the xbox, plus the games still run perfectly fine.
Finally, a GOOD and DESCRIPTIVE title 😂😂🙏🙏 Edit: The current DeArrow summited title is a bit better: "The True Cost of Digital Games VS Physical Games in Response to Disc-less Consoles"
Being patient to buy a recent release not only will save you money, but will avoid the frustration of being a "beta tester" to deal with all of the unfixed bugs in that game. For most AAA games, 4 to 6 months after release should have all of the critical bugs fixed in its updates.
One down side to some physical copies the devs don’t put a lot of the game on cd or cart and it just a glorified physical disc license to play the game and you still end downloading the game anyway
The biggest difference between physical vs digital is the eventual removal and / or change of the game by the developer. Pay for digital and run the risk of it being removed, or losing your internet due to constant and ever increasing outages vs keeping the original game, not having to constantly worry about it being removed or changed without warning or reducing the availability of the game.
Just don’t buy any discless stuff! It’s not that I dislike streaming or digital games, BUT I want to choose how I buy my games! I still like to trade or buy used, saves a lot of money. I’ve made back the 100 bucks for my disc drive a long time ago.
One thing that isn't mentioned, the disk drive also allows for playing Blu-Rays/DVDs where all of the same logic of money savings applies. I have two shops within walking distance that do buy/sell/trade of movies, TV shows, games, and records and have saved so much money by buying/selling used (especially with the crazy prices of streaming services these days). Even if I only get $5 back when selling a game I bought for full price at launch, that still saves me $5 off the next game I want to buy which adds up to huge savings if you use the logic in this video.
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
As always... something that almost everyone in tech overlook in these comparisons is that at no point didn't include additional cost like more drives for the games, if one person want to build a digital library and considering some of the most played are using almost 100 GB per game, the all digital mode is a way worse perspective.
Don't forget that as games get bigger and bigger they will no longer fit on discs, not even multiple. Even now some discs just have the licence on them, so you still need an internet connection and the company's willingness to keep the download servers running. And on top of that, they could also just bake-in a function that requires online authentication for physical copies, even for those that are actually on the disc.
Ngl, when i found out about the fact that what i buy arent games per se, but the licences for them, all games suddenly lost half of their value to me. Even games have been corrupted by this stupid world smh
Companies used to compete by providing a better product or service than their competitors, now they compete by seeing who can screw the customer harder.
I get the argument for physical media, but as someone who moves to different countries all the time, the thought of carrying a bunch of discs all around the world is a major turn-off for me.
I bought the Silent Hill 2 Remake at launch with store credit I had, beat it then sold it for more than the actual money I paid for it. That pretty much evened out the cost of a disc drive with one game and it adds up to a lot more than that over the length of a generation. Even if you are mostly digital (I do buy digital games too, especially multiplayer games that I'll want to keep and boot up quickly) having the disc drive is too valuable to give up on with the current console marketplaces infrastructures. You only need to run into 1-2 older games a generation that are a bargain bin price physically but aren't on sale on the PS/Xbox store to regret not having it.
I work for a video game museum that focuses on playable game preservation. I care a lot about game preservation, but I have to say I prefer digital games for my personal leisure. I eventually donate all of my physical media to the museum, both for the museum's benefit and for that sweet, sweet tax deduction. The only people who I could see wanting physical libraries these days are collectors, and people who share a lot of games. I'm a collector, but I prefer jail breaking my consoles and then ripping the physical discs/carts and then playing the backups.
The simple truth of the matter is that I used to buy discs, but I simply found digital easier and more convenient and got rid of my discs. Sure, those games may become inaccessible later (there are some that already have), but there are always other games and in reality I hadn't touched any of my discs in years. The same is now starting to happen with me for DVD and Blu-ray and I have culled those to a shelf.
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.
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
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.
"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.
As some have mentioned in the comments, game sharing makes a compelling argument for digital purchasing. My wife and I co-op everything from Baldur's Gate to Tiny Tina with one digital purchase. Dragon's Age will probably be a day one purchase that we will both be playing at the same time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I want to point out that nearly 90% of all physical games dont need a update for the game fully work offline with a unregistered account... I've covered well over 300 games on PS4, PS5 and Switch... And I almost never came across a physical game needing me to download or connect to the Internet for it to work... Hope this helps someone picks between physical or digital.
Fortnite?
Cyberpunk 2077 has entered the chat.
Still claim it works without updates?
@@boomer150 doesn't every disk have those patches already on it?
@@mobrocket fortnight is free.
@@boomer150 90%? So there is still a 10%
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 $50 lower than a regular Xbox One S, but you could frequently find the regular One S on sale for lower than the All-Digital Edition, which ended up making it a terrible value. Microsoft seems to have learned nothing from that.
"Microsoft seems to have learned nothing"
in other news, the sun rose this morning.
All big companies should get the Intel and Ubisoft treatment.
They already are. It's just that because their pocket book is so big it's happening slower so they have more time to course correct.(Edit - ... Or burn more money doing the same thing.)
Why because they built a business and poor people find it trendy to hate big tech ... If they all crash u know the stock market will crash ... And u know what happens to ur dear money and the job u working after it crash 🥱... U people don't know how the world works
poor people hating big tech ... u do know their money is the reason you re living that comfortable life right and if they go down today are you ready to become homeless ...
@@TruthHurts1519 These bots are getting out of hand...
A new ps5 game will cost around 80 dollars new in digital, wait 1 month and buy a second hand disc for half the price and there is the disc drive paid for
1:44 no bonus text?😢
Bonus text went all digital
They are trying to save money....
Text went ghost mode
We went a loooooong way from 1 of your friends having a copy of Mario Kart DS and everyone else playing along through Download Play vs the crap they are pulling nowadays...
On 5:40 You missed a big big opportunity to add soundtrack that vsauce used
Thats why i still use my xbox 360 till now !, u can find game disks for 2.50$!
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.
I'M GONNA SAY IT
SAY IT
OPTICAL MEDIA BAD!!!
HE'S GONNA SAY IT ‼️‼️‼️‼️
0:27
hi
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.
Physical wins hands down. When i decide im done with a game i can sell it and ill get a decent amount back because i keep everything in perfect condition
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.
@@reahreic7698 I think a better time investment is focusing on the legal aspect of digital ownership rights, as the EU is currently doing.
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.
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
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.
One thing you can do with Physical games over Digital, is to SELL them to recoup some of the costs.
If you could sell your digital games just like physical, I would be all for it.
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 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
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.
It's way more complicated than that. First off, physical media was a thing when games was 2K to 1 gig in size. You didn't have that much to deal with, and it was easier to get it right. Today games are often as big as 60-100 GB and it's far more difficult to correct things. Not only that, but having a collection of 100 discs may not be as fun as just clicking on the game and off you go.
Why do people make this sound so awful you grab the case put the disc in done when your finished put the disc back in the case and back where you got it from it’s not difficult. Plus games were bigger than 2gb. Games on the PS2 could get as big as 4gb and they used a single layer DVD disc. On the PS3 games got as big as 40gb roughly on a dual layer Blu Ray and games today come on 100gb Blu Rays so discs are not the problem the reason you have updates is the developers trying to patch the games.
I really hate the all digital push from Xbox. WalMart and Target no longer restock physical Xbox games and are selling through whatever they have left before they completely remove the Xbox section from their electronics departments.
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*
1:07 "eleven and a half" It's closer to 12 tho 🤯
@@Jouniii roughly 30 seconds is spent on the intro and sponsor. So the real content is 11.5min
@@l3nwood201 no worry darling
Canadians definitely measure 1/2 differently than Americans. 11:58 is 12 minutes to most Americans.
Saw that too 😂
I don’t get it
I think they're excluding the intro/outro in that count but even I know what you're doing is needlessly nit picking.
They were being funny to be technical it’s not 12 minutes either it’s 11 minutes and 58 seconds lol
@@SomeTheorist9090 it was the first thing I thought when he said it!
The day we decided "leasing" our content via netflix, digital only services like steam etc, no more pcs with disc drives or any form of external media we interact with regularly, is the day we decided to stop becoming the consumers, and became the product.
If you aren't picky about where you shop, you can sometimes find amazing deals on physical games, especially at Walmart. For instance, my local Walmart (and a bunch of others around the US from what I've heard) put deep discounts on a bunch of games a couple months ago. I ended up picking up a few brand new PS4, PS5, and Xbox One / Series X games that I wanted to try (Saints Row reboot, NFS Unbound, The Callisto Protocol, Anno 1800, and a few more), but didn't want to invest a bunch of money in for only $5 each.
Also a few years ago I picked up a copy of Pillars of Eternity 2 for PC at Walmart for $10 when it was still selling for $40 on Steam. Yes, the Walmart copy was just a Steam code in a box, but still, I saved $30 on a game I was planning to buy anyway.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
I've used family sharing on Steam for a few years, joined the beta and it's was fantastic. So happy Valve kept it in the the new Steam update.
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.
*Imagine buying a digital only console* 💀
All my current gen consoles are digital versions. I don't want to buy the two or three games that I will end up playing on a physical medium.
@blax722 *Atleast with discs you can resell them and trade them in once played. You never truly "own" digital games.*
The conclusion of the video is 100% right: Flexibility is the cost you pay for saving the money on an all digital version; the lack of a disk drive version of the Series S is *the* reason I don't have a current Xbox.
I got I think 6 physical games for my Switch and about 50 digital games. A large majority of the digital ones were free or bought on sale for about a dollar, like old Doom and Castlevania games. This is something you can't really do with physical.
On the other hand, owning physical copies of my favorite games feels really nice, helps a lot with storage, and I think having access to patch 1.0 is a benefit. Gives you options to get up to shenanigans.
You break even over 2-3 COD games. Xbox is still asking $40 bucks for BLOPS 1!!! Even Game Stop sales it for $12. Plus, I can sale the game if it sucks. Only Steam gives you 2 weeks.
Charging full price for a fourteen-year-old game and its DLC should actually be a crime
@@SleepiVEVO Black Ops 3, Black Ops 4, Cold War, Infinite Warfare, MW Remastered and WW2 are all still $59.99. I got Black Ops 3 and COD WW2 at GameStop for $24.99 each.
People still play cod?
You forgot one of the most important features of digital games. " Game sharing" you get two licenses with the purchase of one digital game. All I have to do is buy one digital game and my buddy can also play my copy of my digital game at the same time.I do. You can't do that with a physical copy
Or you can buy some game on PC, and play them on Xbox. Pretty niche case, but handy for me when I was house sitting and only had access to a console not my PC.
Or you can just buy physical and not have to worry about how many licenses you have to share lol. Can’t play at the same time but the game can be resold many times.
That’s a thing?
I genuinely never knew about that
Sounds fake
@Me-eb3wv yes!.. if you have a friend or a child with another xbox simply put your account on their Xbox and make their xbox as your "HOME XBOX" your friend warrior child.We'll have full access of your library with the dlc they won't need to pay for game pass if you pay for it. And both of you guys can play your libraries on two different xboxs at the same time. That's called "game share"
I wouldn't own a diskless console.
Does this mean that we're getting a physical transferable license to Floatplane? Or whatever content you're selling.
That way, the ltt community can transfer access to YOUR content amongst themselves, without including you in the transaction!
That'd be good for your ongoing production of content, right?
This was an awfully strange video with the sudden juxtapositions between Linus and an AI voice suddenly going "37 dollars"
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!
As a PC gamer, don't let physical games die on console!
I'm a disenfranchised PC gamer from that 00's "I like how games newer than 9 years old are modable, Triple A FPS games let you run your own server and It's only a matter of time when PC games get released on Blu-Ray without online activation just like they are on the PS3 and I hate Steam" perspective. (I really hate how the newest game that has ambitious mods like new questlines, land masses and total conversions is fallout 4 and it came out 9 years ago) You're giving up the ability to legally purchase old delisted games and cheap fun games. If you like Sports games, they're very annual, but used copies are dirt cheap meaning you could turn a $2 game that is discontinued and delisted into 1,000 Gamer Score. I know a lot on PC don't care about achievements, but I'm sure a lot of console gamers didn't care about KB&M until they tried it out. A lot of times people will fanboy and shit on features they don't have like "It's 2024, why does the Xbox Controller use AA Batteries?!" Because they're universal and easily swappable and have a standard design, just get rechargeable AAs and if you can't wait to charge them, just go to the dollar store to get it going now. Also have fun trusting the made in china replacement Playstation Lithium Packs. Since Bespoke form factors are niche, there's less quality control scrutiny.
It's too late bro the game file sizes are getting bigger and the digital sales, with all the content bundled together, after so long eventually become cheaper. We won't see the return of physical media for PC until our lord and savior Gabe takes his journey to save another universe and steam starts preventing users from downloading games with expired licenses in their libraries like how Sony and Rockstar did with Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Vice City on PS4 when the definitive editions released.
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.
For Xbox specifically, the ability to chuck Xbox 360 discs in and play has brought me so many hours of fun... particularly for games I missed, such as a bunch of CoD games I could grab on eBay for $AU15 that don't drop below double that on the digital store.
I am so pleased about the conclusion of this video because it is exactly the same conclusion I came to when buying my previous console. The inclusion of a disk drive on the console isn’t about always getting the physical game, it’s about the freedom to get the physical game if I want to. For me, the $50 extra is worth it , if it means I get to retain my ability to choose.
You guys might want to get soundbites of all your presenters saying the numbers 0 - 19, (2 - 9)0, and hundred/thousand so that corrections aren't so jarring.
I agree.. But the reason they do that is because one of the editors found it funny since it sounded like those tiktok voices that read to you.. He mentioned it on the WAN show when they started doing it
Optical Drives are not going away. Corporations would want it to happen really badly, bud it is not gonna happen. Blyray for example up to this day offers superior quality vs streaming services. Also, fun fact: Blu-ray actually had a successor - The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) which could have like 100 GB - 6 TB of data capacity. The reason why it did not happened is that Blu-ray in general was very anti-consumer. It was secured too hard and while it was very good for games & maybe movies - it was not good for costumer use (burning discs etc).
Hi, I have an original xbox.
I have every generation of Xbox. The series s is the only one that is unplugged and stored away.
I bought a 360 slim three years before the Xbone launched. I bought about a hundred great games for 10 bucks each, a few rare ones were a bit more expensive than that. I can plug in that console and play any of them. Yet if I buy an all digital Xbox now, I won't be able to put in those disks to make use of the backwards compatibility or upscaling. I feel like, that point was not addressed here. You can buy hordes of cheap and still amazing 360/xboxone or Ps4 games on the cheap for your disk drive PS5 or disk drive series x. MS and Sony don't want you to do that since they won't make a cent out of the resale. They want you to have all digital so they can remove older amazing games and make a profit out of every sale, and also to force you to play only newer games.
One major bonus about digital that you left out is the ability to game share. I’ve only had to buy a game once digitally for both me and my spouse to play together on separate systems. That’s a 50% savings over the life of our consoles.
Physical isn’t about money savings, it’s about having something in your shelf. Taking it out, looking at the cover art. Appreciating a tangible item.
Sure, having a manual made it a lot more fun and valuable, but maybe that will happen again in the future? Everything is digital, but for a premium you can buy a physical version with extras like posters, color manual, soundtracks etc. Kind of like vinyl is today.
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.
I'm sorry it feels like you missed a topic on this. Storage. While some games force you to download the game to the console. Most don't. Which means precious space on your limited hard drive isn't being eaten up by games when it could be going to saves. Some games are roughly 100GB of space. Even if you expanded the Hard drive of your Console with 2TB. That's still what 20 games not counting saves that could take up a whole lot more space. Meaning your constantly juggling what games you keep on your console.
Plus Internet not everyone has fast internet so it’s more acceptable to some to have most of the game download off the disc and then you just gotta wait on the updates to download then waiting on the entire game and the updates to download using your slow internet.
I think you got it wrong, it's the opposite. Most games are fully installed on the SSD, so the space is getting blocked no matter if it's digital or disc. The disc drives are simply too slow now compared to the SSDs in the console to allow playback from the disc.
@@YT_timekiller001 no you missed what I’m saying nothing is played off the disc not since the PS3 , 360 days the disc downloads to the console. What I was saying some like physical because there internet is slow and downloading off the disc is faster. Then all they gotta do is wait for the updates to download then having to wait for an entire game plus the updates using there slow internet.
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)
This was incredibly well written. It might also be a good idea to look more closely at gaming subscription programs, including Nintendo and Apple, and examine how has their value changed over time. Lot of them had their price go up while also losing a notable number of titles from their library. Some of them have barely any new games being added. So on one hand someone who just got a new system and wants to play whatever may find it compelling, but on the other someone who has played those games may find themselves overspending just to keep playing one or two games. There are certain not often talked about issues, such as instances where it isn’t possible to carry over save data from the subscription version to the full retail one (effectively holding your save data ransom to keep you subscribed), and some developers not being happy about the service for one reason or another (Apple Arcade had a pretty nasty controversy recently).
Well, for Xbox, you still need to download your physical games as if they were digital, so you might as well go digital, especially if you plan on buying big storage games.
Not everyone know or listen this comment. Most people here think digital dumb.
or you might just buy ps5
Not all physical games are like that though. Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Editon on Xbox Series X comes with 3 Blu-Ray discs. On those discs contains the base game, patch 2.0, and the Phantom Liberty DLC. You don't need an internet connection to play it. Well except for that one time internet connection you need to setup your Xbox Series X for the very first time but I digress.
my internet is very slow, and i like being able to buy xbox one/ps4 games for like $3 when they still cost $40 in store. I bought anthem for $3, killzone shadow-fall for $4. online those 2 games would have cost me $50
Lol it's funny people think buying a disc means you own it for life. All MS has to do is brick the device/software in one form or another and BAM.. Discs will no longer work on consoles...
That would only work if consoles remain online after their natural lifespan.
If you have an Xbox or PS console from the past 2 generations all you have to do is set the console as your primary device and disc games will work offline, though Xbox I believe some games need to be booted online at least once before working offline. Even if the game doesn't work you could still sell the disc which you can't do with a digital library (legally at least), no publisher is going to physically remove that disc from your possession which is a possibility for any digital game with DRM.
The absolute worst thing about this generation of gaming is the lack of support for physical CDs. I know Linus has a big chode for "Oh just get big hard drivers. big SSD." but now a days, games can just be taken off of store pages. hell, Steam has to tell people you don't own games you just license them. So I guess you better download games and just never uninstall them.
I don't play multiplayer games, so even if Steam or Nintendo takes down a game I bought I don't care because I can just pirate it somewhere and be at peace because I supported the developer.
Pirating is the only real game preservation, no company is ever going to do it.
@@WhyitJellyDonut You can't emulate a PS5 or Xbox Series game you pirate. There's no PS5 emulator.
And also, who tf pirates games anymore?
When you don't have the console u pirate instead of finding the console+game
Console manufacturers are trying to gaslight us into thinking digital is better.
For the longest time here in the UK games were £40 standard, then the store versions were £60, so when you broke it all down digital's only uplift was convenience, now it's just a dang plague
I am a patient gamer who usually waits for a sale where you get all the bug fixes and DLC on the cheap. But sometimes a game comes out I am keen to play straight away. This is when I buy the cheaper disc from a department store and sell it once you are finished. You can usually get most of your money back selling the disc and by the time you want to play it again the digital version is earther cheap or free with a PSN subscription.
Hi
ALSO don't forget you can always lose, scratch or even brake the CD
Yes but you could also lose your whole drive to corruption or error with every game on it when the servers are pulled. I know which I'd prefer..
it's easier to drop your console and damage its disk than to drop a CD lmao
Brake the cd? A cd doesn't have brakes, its not a car.
you can also break the storage drive. that's not a valid point.
I wanted a white Series X. I have a black one. The white is more appealing especially since I'm a Star Wars nerd and it looks like a stormtrooper. However the lack of a disc drive makes this a scam 100%.
The funniest thing is. The down side of used physical games is a beat up case.
Meanwhile digital games have no case at all.
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.
How would you know how many games every person has. Saying things like: 29 games is more then what people would buy in the console lifecycle. Is unfounded and deceitful to forward the narative.
you missed a point, the disc drive it's also needed for the excellent and seamless xbox retro compatibility, you can play enhanced older generation games for pennies
I still have ptsd from my childhood of disc games getting scratched and becoming unplayable and I was pretty careful with mine, not sure if they’re better built nowadays.
Also, having all your games in one place is hugely convenient, clearing a space in your living room to store 67 games would be a pain. Having to get up and switch discs every time you want to change what game you’re playing is also a pain once you’re used to digital.
If you don't care about keeping the games, physical copies are much, much cheaper than digital, because you can just sell or swap the game after you finish it. When I first bought a console a couple years ago, I was amazed that I could finish like 10 new games at the total cost of just one or two games. I would have to wait years for all those games to go on sale to break even if I wanted to buy them digitally, even on the PC where digital games are usually cheaper. Not to mention there are games that never go on huge sales, so buying a disc and selling it after will be significantly cheaper
Wait, can you plug in an external disk drive?
To me, as someone who already owns a lot of digital games on PC, a console only makes sense because of the physical media and the longevity that provides. I still use my 3DS long after the servers were shutdown due to my physical games, and I intend to do the same with my Switch years from now. It's what makes consoles unique from the PC, and if that ever stops being the case then I'd just emulate the few console games I want to play.
Here's my counter, there's a ton of casual people like myself who don't actually game too much and just get the gamepass with the series s while not owning any games. I can just keep up with the modern titles and use online services for a 'decent' price and get all the entertainment I need from the xbox, plus the games still run perfectly fine.
Finally, a GOOD and DESCRIPTIVE title 😂😂🙏🙏
Edit: The current DeArrow summited title is a bit better: "The True Cost of Digital Games VS Physical Games in Response to Disc-less Consoles"
Being patient to buy a recent release not only will save you money, but will avoid the frustration of being a "beta tester" to deal with all of the unfixed bugs in that game. For most AAA games, 4 to 6 months after release should have all of the critical bugs fixed in its updates.
One down side to some physical copies the devs don’t put a lot of the game on cd or cart and it just a glorified physical disc license to play the game and you still end downloading the game anyway
The biggest difference between physical vs digital is the eventual removal and / or change of the game by the developer. Pay for digital and run the risk of it being removed, or losing your internet due to constant and ever increasing outages vs keeping the original game, not having to constantly worry about it being removed or changed without warning or reducing the availability of the game.
Just don’t buy any discless stuff! It’s not that I dislike streaming or digital games, BUT I want to choose how I buy my games! I still like to trade or buy used, saves a lot of money. I’ve made back the 100 bucks for my disc drive a long time ago.
One thing that isn't mentioned, the disk drive also allows for playing Blu-Rays/DVDs where all of the same logic of money savings applies. I have two shops within walking distance that do buy/sell/trade of movies, TV shows, games, and records and have saved so much money by buying/selling used (especially with the crazy prices of streaming services these days). Even if I only get $5 back when selling a game I bought for full price at launch, that still saves me $5 off the next game I want to buy which adds up to huge savings if you use the logic in this video.
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
As always... something that almost everyone in tech overlook in these comparisons is that at no point didn't include additional cost like more drives for the games, if one person want to build a digital library and considering some of the most played are using almost 100 GB per game, the all digital mode is a way worse perspective.
Don't forget that as games get bigger and bigger they will no longer fit on discs, not even multiple. Even now some discs just have the licence on them, so you still need an internet connection and the company's willingness to keep the download servers running. And on top of that, they could also just bake-in a function that requires online authentication for physical copies, even for those that are actually on the disc.
Ngl, when i found out about the fact that what i buy arent games per se, but the licences for them, all games suddenly lost half of their value to me. Even games have been corrupted by this stupid world smh
Companies used to compete by providing a better product or service than their competitors, now they compete by seeing who can screw the customer harder.
I get the argument for physical media, but as someone who moves to different countries all the time, the thought of carrying a bunch of discs all around the world is a major turn-off for me.
I bought the Silent Hill 2 Remake at launch with store credit I had, beat it then sold it for more than the actual money I paid for it. That pretty much evened out the cost of a disc drive with one game and it adds up to a lot more than that over the length of a generation.
Even if you are mostly digital (I do buy digital games too, especially multiplayer games that I'll want to keep and boot up quickly) having the disc drive is too valuable to give up on with the current console marketplaces infrastructures. You only need to run into 1-2 older games a generation that are a bargain bin price physically but aren't on sale on the PS/Xbox store to regret not having it.
I work for a video game museum that focuses on playable game preservation. I care a lot about game preservation, but I have to say I prefer digital games for my personal leisure. I eventually donate all of my physical media to the museum, both for the museum's benefit and for that sweet, sweet tax deduction. The only people who I could see wanting physical libraries these days are collectors, and people who share a lot of games. I'm a collector, but I prefer jail breaking my consoles and then ripping the physical discs/carts and then playing the backups.
The simple truth of the matter is that I used to buy discs, but I simply found digital easier and more convenient and got rid of my discs. Sure, those games may become inaccessible later (there are some that already have), but there are always other games and in reality I hadn't touched any of my discs in years. The same is now starting to happen with me for DVD and Blu-ray and I have culled those to a shelf.