Is it cheaper to download a game vs. buying a physical copy?

[fg]

The reason why I am asking is because I played a home brew DVD into my PS4 and the label on said DVD was so flimsy that it got stuck into the DVD player and as a result it wont play DVDs and games.

I was thinking about taking the top off of my player and solving the issue but I am wondering if that’s worth it.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

eh... They start at the same price, they may go on sale more regularly but they generally don't reduce in price permanently.

also you then have to worry about if the storefront ever goes down or your account is banned or whatever you lose access to your games.

[Captain Stud Muffin (BLM)]

They even out

I just have always preferred digital for probably the last 8 years or so because I do not care about having physical games anymore and just "hassle" of actually getting it. I don't sell them back anyway and would be a lot of clutter

[Dr. T is an alien]

I’ve downloaded games but also am leery of digital copies getting deleted “stored for my convenience” behind a subscription wall.

[Vice honcho room temperature]

Nov 8, 2022 19:29:42 GMT -5 Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) said:

They even out

I just have always preferred digital for probably the last 8 years or so because I do not care about having physical games anymore and just "hassle" of actually getting it. I don't sell them back anyway and would be a lot of clutter

Let's be honest in this world even if the storefronts shut down there probably will always be a way to buy or get the worthwhile games. Also with online patches and updates how much will disc's really matter in terms of ownership if the updates are hard to download

I do miss when Best Buy had gamers club where all games were 20 percent off... made day one games and the first sales of new games so much more worthwhile to buy physically

[Vice honcho room temperature]

Nov 8, 2022 19:26:15 GMT -5 A Platypus Rave is Correct said:

eh... They start at the same price, they may go on sale more regularly but they generally don't reduce in price permanently.

also you then have to worry about if the storefront ever goes down or your account is banned or whatever you lose access to your games.

Yeah physical games will bottom out but the sales are plentiful and anything beyond Nintendo you'd be a fool to pay full price for a digital game after a year unless you need it right now for some reason

[Zombie Mod]

it evens out, generally digital doesn't drop in price as often like physical games do as retail stores need to clear out stock faster for space for new games but physical games lose value quickly when you're looking to sell on if it's a super popular game due to the large amounts of copies sold back to places that trade in games.

if you buy a physical copy and hate the game right away you can still make some money back on it towards something else if it's close to release day, where as digital you're stuck with it (depending on the refunds policy for the digital store front, last time I checked sony tend not to give refunds for digital games, not sure about microsoft (they have refunded stuff in the past for people I know or had to help at my former place of work.) but generally they don't like to do it.)

personally I still buy physical copies if I can. it's a combination of wanting something for spending my money, being able to lend the game to family or people I know and trust to give it back when they complete the game, or having a collection of games for a system with the possibility of it becoming rare and digital storefronts removing games for various reasons (licencing or lawsuits preventing the sale and so on.) like deadpool on 360/ps3 and it's small re-release window on xbox one/ps4.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Varies game to game and circumstance to circumstance really. I largely go digital myself.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Depends on if you ever plan on upgrading.

I still have multiple 360 games that I bought digital whereas physical games often stop working when the next generation comes

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

I'm a collector of physical media so I prefer buying physical if possible. But that's just me, I also have a large movie and book collection too

[Allie Kitsune]

Sometimes, but not always.

Not a satisfying answer, but...

[Zombie Mod]

as much as I hate to say it, all three big companies will eventually move to digital games only as both microsoft & sony have been pushing for it since early in the xbox one/ps4 era and they will get their way on it one way or another and nintendo are starting to lean that way as well.

microsoft are currently advertising the series S over the series X if you notice (it's not because of shortages of parts for the series X as the series S would have that issue as well.) but purely because of two reasons, it's cheaper to produce and it's a digital only machine forcing people to buy from the xbox store for games or get a variation of Game pass as their is no disc drive on it.

[Allie Kitsune]

Nov 9, 2022 8:00:59 GMT -5 Zombie Mod said:

as much as I hate to say it, all three big companies will eventually move to digital games only as both microsoft & sony have been pushing for it since early in the xbox one/ps4 era and they will get their way on it one way or another and nintendo are starting to lean that way as well.

microsoft are currently advertising the series S over the series X if you notice (it's not because of shortages of parts for the series X as the series S would have that issue as well.) but purely because of two reasons, it's cheaper to produce and it's a digital only machine forcing people to buy from the xbox store for games or get a variation of Game pass as their is no disc drive on it.

The unfortunate part that people don't like to face is also that a good number of digital-only games (especially indies and smaller-budget Japanese games) wouldn't get released over here at all if they couldn't be digital-only.

[darbus alan]

It's a big ol depends. The major digital storefronts will have generous sales pretty often. And with digital you don't have to worry about condition like you would with used games. On the other hand, some physical games drop in prices dramatically compared to digital. Yearly sports games especially.

I used to swear by physical only games until the pandemic. Made it hard to deny the convenience of digital games while stuck in the house. That and the PS4 just installs the entirety of the physical disc onto the HDD anyway, so it's not like you're saving any storage space. Switch is the only system I prefer physical media with still. And that's mostly due to the limited internal storage space and lack of ethernet port on the non-OLED models.

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Nov 9, 2022 8:00:59 GMT -5 Zombie Mod said:

as much as I hate to say it, all three big companies will eventually move to digital games only as both microsoft & sony have been pushing for it since early in the xbox one/ps4 era and they will get their way on it one way or another and nintendo are starting to lean that way as well.

microsoft are currently advertising the series S over the series X if you notice (it's not because of shortages of parts for the series X as the series S would have that issue as well.) but purely because of two reasons, it's cheaper to produce and it's a digital only machine forcing people to buy from the xbox store for games or get a variation of Game pass as their is no disc drive on it.

also it forces people to buy their hard drive which ends up costing about the same as a series X