Data analytics firm New Zoo has revealed in a newly published report that 72% of video games sold on consoles during 2022 were digital, while boxed video games accounted for 28%. Nintendo doesn’t generally provide digital sales for its first party games, so if they weren’t included within this report as I suspect, then digital video games sales would have been even higher than the figure provided. Digital is the clearly the most convenient way for most people to acquired their games and sometimes the cheapest due to both sales and promotions, though you can generally get boxed games such as new releases etc cheaper if you shop around various retailers such as Amazon and other gaming retailers.
72% of console games sold in 2022 were digital vs 28% physical
Yet physical games lose value faster than digital
The good thing about physical is that you can resell it if you no longer want it, you can’t do the same for digital.
Not now but some digital storefronts already allow you to do that within a short time frame. It’s only a matter of time when you can resell your license whenever you want. Physical media is kind of it’s last legs.
I say another 20 years they probably won’t be around.
Less than that I reckon: 5-10. Houses are getting smaller and more expensive and digital storage cheaper. I paid £38 for 512GB micro SD card for my Switch June 2023: More than enough for all the games I’m ever going to have for the system.
Then there’s the convenience of being able to swap between games and not have to swap cards; can’t be underestimated. I have 2 Switches. One for myself and one for my kids. I put my console in flight mode and they can play all the digital games at the same.
Tbh, until I had kidsI would have gone with physical copies everytime. Yo can hjy 2nd hand, you can resell. Then my 3yr old put 4 carts in the PCMIA slot on my tv thinking that’s were they went. I was able to retrieve 2 games, but Pikmin 3 and Zelda Skyward Sword are lost forever.
But do they count used games sold? Probably not
But do they count used games sales? Probably not
Have you ever resold a digital game?
Digital makes sense from a convenience, space (in your house), and ecological perspective. It’s a disadvantage in terms of being able to share your games, trade-in, and not being reliant on the survival of your specific console to play your games (if the eShop were ever to disappear). However, what I’m realising as time goes on is that the former benefits are just more important than the latter. You know, if I lose access to my ability to play Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch in 20 years time, then a) I’ll have tens or even hundreds other games to play and b) there will probably be the ability to buy Odyssey on a more current (in 20 years) console if I’m really desperate to play specifically Odyssey, and I’d have probably already bought that version anyway for convenience reasons.
Digital > Physical for me, and it’s clear that that’s the way we’re moving. For the time being though, I think physical is still worthwhile as an option especially as not everyone has access to internet that is good enough to be downloading 100 GB games on the regular.
Title seems a bit misleading here. The report states that digital REVENUE is 72%, which would include DLC, battle passes, microtransactions, etc. This is not the same thing as actual digital vs physical game sales.
True however that still doesn’t bode well for physical no matter how you spin it. Physical is on its way out in the next 15-20 years
If physical was on its way out it would have already disappeared just like nintendo handhelds were going to because of phones and tabs
Not necessarily. We have to accept the fact that physical is going to be gone no matter what.
In U.K. physical games getting harder to come by with the major supermarkets no longer selling physical media, it’s a question of how long not if specialists like GAME can hold out, once the smaller competitors are gone can be sure Amazon will sell at full price
I actually have more Digital games on my Switch than Physical games, prefer the ability to take multiple games with me on the go without having the change in and out games, plus, I don’t mind spending the extra cash to get an expanded storage via SD Card or External SSD
So, my question about this is when everything goes fully digital what customers will lose in the long run. Like I’m worried it will go from everything being digital to you pay this fee and stream everything 40 to 50 years later
I’ve been playing physical disc/cartridge based games ever since I bought an Atari 2600 in 1989. I may be old, but I see digital games as a far riskier option than physical games.
You can buy used physical games at half the price from online stores such as Amazon and eBay. So, there is no advantage of digital games over physical games from price perspectives. In fact, you lose out as you can’t rent, share, or sell digital games.
Secondly, you can’t play your digital games if your account gets banned for whatever reason.
Some people on Reddit have reported getting banned for just reporting other users for using racial slurs.
The moment physical discs are phased out, the moment I will stop playing video games.
My PS account got hacked, and hackers purchased games with my credit card. After I got a refund for those illegal purchases, my account was swiftly banned and ALL my digital games got locked out.
How does it make sense to lock games that had been purchased YEARS before I got hacked and had nothing to do with the hack whatsoever. Physical copies are objectively better on that aspect, since I cannot be prevented from doing playing a game I paid for.