Jubenhimer
Member
Digital Distribution has come a long way since it first surfaced on consoles (PC's been doing it for years). At first, it seemed like a novelty, an afterthought, almost like a secondary platform within their respective consoles used mainly for retro re-releases, or the occasional indie title. They were branded separately from retail games, and the two worlds rarely crossed paths.
Starting around 2011 though, things changed. Full retail games started popping up on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace, the big three started to take indie developers more seriously, and now, every retail game on all the major platforms is also available for download on their respective storefronts.
With Digital Distribution so matured at this point, do you consider digital only games to be of equal value to those that get a retail release in a console's library? Now yes, it's obvious that a major AAA game hitting the store shelves of Game Stop and Best Buy will always be a bigger deal than some low-key indie release. But they're both games you can play on the console. I mean, I consider Freedom Planet as much of a PlayStation 4 game as say Bloodborne. Digital games aren't given their own seperate branding any more. No longer do we have WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network games, and instead just games for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo 3DS, both retail and digital. There are a few people who consider digital games separate from the rest of a console's library. But do you feel that retail games and digital games are of equal value to the library of a system?
Starting around 2011 though, things changed. Full retail games started popping up on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace, the big three started to take indie developers more seriously, and now, every retail game on all the major platforms is also available for download on their respective storefronts.
With Digital Distribution so matured at this point, do you consider digital only games to be of equal value to those that get a retail release in a console's library? Now yes, it's obvious that a major AAA game hitting the store shelves of Game Stop and Best Buy will always be a bigger deal than some low-key indie release. But they're both games you can play on the console. I mean, I consider Freedom Planet as much of a PlayStation 4 game as say Bloodborne. Digital games aren't given their own seperate branding any more. No longer do we have WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network games, and instead just games for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo 3DS, both retail and digital. There are a few people who consider digital games separate from the rest of a console's library. But do you feel that retail games and digital games are of equal value to the library of a system?