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[BeardGawd]

This huge thread is crazy now that digital sales have eclipsed physical this gen.

We were successful in keeping physical ownership rights intact but also threw out all the pro-consumer moves in regards to digital ownership such as being able to trade and resell digital games.

I wonder how people feel about that in hindsight.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Necrobumping is a forbidden sin on GAF.

 

[DrAspirino]

This huge thread is crazy now that digital sales have eclipsed physical this gen.

We were successful in keeping physical ownership rights intact but also threw out all the pro-consumer moves in regards to digital ownership such as being able to trade and resell digital games.

I wonder how people feel about that in hindsight.

Everyone thought that digital was never going to be a thing. Guess what: it became a thing and now it's unstopable.

Gamers are a very "conservative" bunch, regarding new distribution techs. Mark my words (you can quote my post later) when I say this:

For the people that still believe that gaming in the cloud "is never gonna be a thing", by the end of next-gen, it will be a thing...and a big one.

Change is going to happen, regardless of what we want. The only thing we can do about it is, like surfers, "ride the wave" and get to shore safely.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

We were successful in keeping physical ownership rights intact but also threw out all the pro-consumer moves in regards to digital ownership such as being able to trade and resell digital games.

This was a shitty bait on Microsoft's part to lure people into buying this ultimately draconian policy.

With that being said, physical copies have become less appealing as day one patches became the norm nowadays.

 

[Dane]

MAN THESE TIMES IN THE INTERWEBZ WERE FULL OF LULZ.

That Microsoft shit move made me chose for the PS4.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Dang this thread brings back memories. Anyways I'm glad the original plans never fell through. If they did gaming would be very different today.

 

[BeardGawd]

This was a shitty bait on Microsoft's part to lure people into buying this ultimately draconian policy.

With that being said, physical copies have become less appealing as day one patches became the norm nowadays.

You still haven't refuted the fact that we would have more rights with digital than we do now. It was a trade-off no doubt about it. Would it have been a net win for consumers given the negative (less physical rights) is up for debate.

It's very interesting to look back and analyze people's mindsets. I personally feel most couldn't wrap their heads around that it was mutually beneficial to both consumers and MS in the long-run. People were short-sighted and too quick to jump on the next 'cause' to fight.

It's analogous to a lot of things really. Everything has to be black or white, no nuances, so this was seen as an all negative in-spite of any benefits.

 

[DrAspirino]

With that being said, physical copies have become less appealing as day one patches became the norm nowadays.

"Physical copies" died with the Xbox 360 generation, in which you could just put the game on console and play, no need for installation.

Nowdays, what are the physical copies good for? They don't come with an instruction manual, they don't come with internal box art or poster or any kind of art. You can't even play them directly, since you first have to install the game. And even then, some games come half-way on disc and half on the internet (I'm looking at you, Spyro). Heck, even those that do come "complete" on the disc, have so many day-one patches that you still have to download several GB of data just to start playing the game on the disc!!!

The only good thing physical copies are worth for are as "keys" for the data stored on the console. Nothing more.

The only console that still to this day has a real physical format is the Nintendo Switch: you buy a cartridge, plug it in the console and you're ready to go: no downloading of anything and no bullshit.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

People are still ignorant of what DRM means, the PS4 (and all consoles since the NES, maybe even before) had some kind of DRM on them, to prevent copies from being made. Normally on consoles these are not intrusive, the problem with the XB1 was that it was going to go too far before the backlash, forcing people online all the time to play physical media game is not fair.

MS was pretty clear about their intention from the get go, Sony did not communicate much about it because there was no change (however if you paid attention they already stated that they were not going in the direction MS was going in wayy before the viral video)... But people faked not understanding for some reason.

 

[TLZ]

"Physical copies" died with the Xbox 360 generation, in which you could just put the game on console and play, no need for installation.

Nowdays, what are the physical copies good for? They don't come with an instruction manual, they don't come with internal box art or poster or any kind of art. You can't even play them directly, since you first have to install the game. And even then, some games come half-way on disc and half on the internet (I'm looking at you, Spyro). Heck, even those that do come "complete" on the disc, have so many day-one patches that you still have to download several GB of data just to start playing the game on the disc!!!

The only good thing physical copies are worth for are as "keys" for the data stored on the console. Nothing more.

The only console that still to this day has a real physical format is the Nintendo Switch: you buy a cartridge, plug it in the console and you're ready to go: no downloading of anything and no bullshit.

Wha? The Switch is full of half assed useless physical bullshit. Only some of the game is on the cartridge and the rest had to be downloaded.

I don't have this problem on any of my PS4 or Xbox physical games. In case you didn't know the Spyro games do come all on disc now. The newer versions with 2019 on them I think.

And physical is great and vital for me when I'm without net and games are pulled from services. Or the service itself has stopped. They won't be there forever.

 

[ManaByte]

 

[alabtrosMyster]

You still haven't refuted the fact that we would have more rights with digital than we do now. It was a trade-off no doubt about it. Would it have been a net win for consumers given the negative (less physical rights) is up for debate.

I don't agree with you, what were these benefits that we don't have now--and more importantly why did MS keep them from us? What's their excuse? most of us are at least in part digital now, and we can re-sell our physical games without asking mom for a special permission, assuming the game was not re-sold too many times already.

Having features with added benefits to the downloaded games is not hampered by the presence of physical games in the ecosystem.

The only console that still to this day has a real physical format is the Nintendo Switch: you buy a cartridge, plug it in the console and you're ready to go: no downloading of anything and no bullshit.

However bullshit load times are a thing. They don't install for fun on the other consoles, it's because the HDD is much faster than the bluray drive, this is not part of the copy protection scheme... if you have the disc and you can install the game then play it, it doesn't matter how much of the game needs to be installed locally.

For the people that still believe that gaming in the cloud "is never gonna be a thing", by the end of next-gen, it will be a thing...and a big one.

Admittedly there is a giant push for "cloud gaming" right now, but this is not the first time we see this. Second screen gaming never became a thing, move controls did not remain a thing for long, there may be more but these are the ones I can think of.

With that being said, physical copies have become less appealing as day one patches became the norm nowadays.

I can only agree with this, however many (most?) games work without a hitch without any patch applied to them.

 

[Tripolygon]

Everyone thought that digital was never going to be a thing. Guess what: it became a thing and now it's unstopable.

I'm going to disagree with you on just about everything. Nobody said digital was not going to be a thing. Digital was already a thing but most people said it was going to be a while before digital overtook physical. Same as it has been in every medium. DVD and Bluray were slowly but sure overtaken by streaming. Buying music CD was overtaken by MP3 downloads which has now been overtaken by streaming via Spotify and Apple Music. Same apply to games where we now see that downloads is overtaking physical but in the next couple more years streaming will overtake that as well.

For the people that still believe that gaming in the cloud "is never gonna be a thing", by the end of next-gen, it will be a thing...and a big one.

People in the industry saw this coming. We had a glimpse of it with Gaikai and Onlive. Sony definitely saw it coming so they bought the technologies and expertise that powered both services and for a long time they were the only commercial game streaming service. The argument has always been it will not be "the thing" until the internet infrastructure, equipment and services improves. Gigabit internet is more widespread than it was 7 years ago, 5G is now a thing, we have faster internet protocols, cloud computing has increased but we are not yet there. A few more years and we will get there.

You still haven't refuted the fact that we would have more rights with digital than we do now. It was a trade-off no doubt about it. Would it have been a net win for consumers given the negative (less physical rights) is up for debate.

No we wouldn't have. Microsoft themselves could not communicate their own policy effectively and clearly for everyone to understand. I still maintain that they could have had all those things like

• being able to gift digital games (steam),
• being able to share digital library (Steam, Apple Store, Google play Store),
• being able to trade in digital goods (steam),

Without encroaching on the rights of those who still like to buy physical. Their priority was to stifle physical used games market. They could have left physical alone and still had their digital plans.

You can buy a movie on Bluray and they will give a digital version for free which you can redeem on a service (Movies Anywhere) that gives you multiple copies across Vudu, iTunes, Google Play and now you can share said movie with anyone (currently in beta). This is how it should be. Owning digital shouldn't mean that you lose your rights to physical goods.

It's very interesting to look back and analyze people's mindsets. I personally feel most couldn't wrap their heads around that it was mutually beneficial to both consumers and MS in the long-run. People were short-sighted and too quick to jump on the next 'cause' to fight.

People understood it for what it was taking away physical games rights. It was not mutually beneficial to anyone but Microsoft and 3rd party publishers.

It's analogous to a lot of things really. Everything has to be black or white, no nuances, so this was seen as an all negative in-spite of any benefits.

There was no nuance to what Microsoft had planned. It was either you follow my way or none at all. A nuanced approach would have been to allow those who want to buy physical games to do so while retaining the common rights physical goods afford. And also implementing their digital plans for those who wanted to buy digital goods. Everyone would have gotten behind that.

 

[Hendrick's]

Thank you for bumping this thread to remind me how much of a disaster the launch of the Xbox One was. I almost made it a whole day without without being reminded.

 

[kretos]

Damn why remind us of this bleak bullshit

but then again thanks for reminding us of this gem

 

[Zog]

Everyone thought that digital was never going to be a thing. Guess what: it became a thing and now it's unstopable.

Are you kidding? Everyone didn't think that digital was never going to be a thing. When this gen started most people had already bought atleast one digital game. Be it PS1 Classics, Xbox Live Arcade, etc... For god sake, people were buying digital games on the PSP, Vita and 3DS before this generation began. I get it though, revisionist history is fun.

 

[Zog]

The only console that still to this day has a real physical format is the Nintendo Switch: you buy a cartridge, plug it in the console and you're ready to go: no downloading of anything and no bullshit.

Switch has patches too and some are day 1. Worse, games require both the game card AND a download. So you know, there is some bullshit with the Switch.

 

[DrAspirino]

Are you kidding? Everyone didn't think that digital was never going to be a thing. When this gen started most people had already bought atleast one digital game. Be it PS1 Classics, Xbox Live Arcade, etc... For god sake, people were buying digital games on the PSP, Vita and 3DS before this generation began. I get it though, revisionist history is fun.

You said it yourself: people were buying digital, but in such small ammounts that no one believed that it could become a thing. Just compare the numbers and see what % of games were sold digitally at the beginning of this generation vs how many sold by the end of this generation.

Switch has patches too and some are day 1. Worse, games require both the game card AND a download. So you know, there is some bullshit with the Switch.

Whoa...didn't know that. From all the physical games I have for the Switch (got it recently), none of them required me to download anything. Luigi's Mansion 3 worked flawlessly, Mario Kart 8 deluxe as well, Zelda Brath of The Wild worked as soon as I inserted the cartridge and the same happened with Mario Odyssey. I truly missed the feeling of buying a game, putting it in the console and start playing right away.

 

[Zog]

You said it yourself: people were buying digital, but in such small ammounts that no one believed that it could become a thing. Just compare the numbers and see what % of games were sold digitally at the beginning of this generation vs how many sold by the end of this generation.

It already was a 'thing'.

 

[Self High Five]

I wonder how people feel about that in hindsight.

I feel if you're going to necro bump you should probably provide some facts.

Indeed, when it comes to AAA launches, an estimated 75% of an average game's sale still comes via physical goods sold via Amazon, GAME, GameStop and the rest.

Why do gamers still buy physical games?

The physical games market may be in decline, but it remains a hugely lucrative area that's worth billions of dollars wo…

www.gamesindustry.biz

This article was barely a year and a half ago. Yes, any dork can create a small indie game and sell it for 99 cents on eshop, but when it comes to games driving in actual revenue for the industry (aka AAA gaming). Physical gaming is still prevalent

The rest of your posts are so obviously misinformed that you should actually take the time to read the thread. A console having a mandatory 24 hour online check in (aka obey the MS overlords or your property will be useless) has nothing to do with digital gaming. Having Microsoft 'instruct' you on how to sell/trade your physical game provided no benefit to the end user.

"Everything has to be black or white, no nuances". Seriously, no other entertainment medium has this type of sycophant mentality for a multi billion dollar corporations. Show your posts to any other buyer of physical medium (used books, etc) and they would think there is something mentally wrong with you.

.

 

[Virex]

I do not remember that Microsoft was falling so low. They committed suicide it is not possible. Damn!

Create a new thread you stupid cunt

 

[M1chl]

Makes remember times when power was in TF and not in likes on instragram.

 

[BeardGawd]

No we wouldn't have. Microsoft themselves could not communicate their own policy effectively and clearly for everyone to understand. I still maintain that they could have had all those things like

Agreed it was very confusing.

• being able to gift digital games (steam),
• being able to share digital library (Steam, Apple Store, Google play Store),
• being able to trade in digital goods (steam),

Steam only allows gifting/trading of games purchased as gifts if I'm not mistaken? Which is much different from being able to trade/resell a game you've played (essentially used).

Without encroaching on the rights of those who still like to buy physical. Their priority was to stifle physical used games market. They could have left physical alone and still had their digital plans.

You can buy a movie on Bluray and they will give a digital version for free which you can redeem on a service (Movies Anywhere) that gives you multiple copies across Vudu, iTunes, Google Play and now you can share said movie with anyone (currently in beta). This is how it should be. Owning digital shouldn't mean that you lose your rights to physical goods.

Of course this would have been the preferred option. All I'm championing for is increased digital rights. To me giving up some physical rights was worth it. Clearly for you it wasn't.

There was no nuance to what Microsoft had planned. It was either you follow my way or none at all. A nuanced approach would have been to allow those who want to buy physical games to do so while retaining the common rights physical goods afford. And also implementing their digital plans for those who wanted to buy digital goods. Everyone would have gotten behind that.

Yeah I feel they should have altered what they were trying to do but the reaction was so fast and furious they just reversed it all and didn't look back.

I feel if you're going to necro bump you should probably provide some facts.

I didn't bump this. As for your points:

Why do gamers still buy physical games?

The physical games market may be in decline, but it remains a hugely lucrative area that's worth billions of dollars wo…

www.gamesindustry.biz

This article was barely a year and a half ago. Yes, any dork can create a small indie game and sell it for 99 cents on eshop, but when it comes to games driving in actual revenue for the industry (aka AAA gaming). Physical gaming is still prevalent

Quantify it all you want the majority of sales are digital. And your link states only 15% of digital purchasers would have bought physical if it was available. There are no separate rights for AAA games vs Indie games. I'm failing to understand your point.

The rest of your posts are so obviously misinformed that you should actually take the time to read the thread. A console having a mandatory 24 hour online check in (aka obey the MS overlords or your property will be useless) has nothing to do with digital gaming. Having Microsoft 'instruct' you on how to sell/trade your physical game provided no benefit to the end user.

Agreed I didn't like the time frame of 24 hours, something like once a month would have been far more palatable.

You've already shown that physical sales are the smallest part of the pie. Digital sales are majority. An adjusted form of the original DRM (increase from 24 hours to something more palatable) would have no doubt hurt physical game options but we also would have gained digital used game options. Right now we have zero recoupment options for digital sales which is now the highest percentage of sales.

"Everything has to be black or white, no nuances". Seriously, no other entertainment medium has this type of sycophant mentality for a multi billion dollar corporations. Show your posts to any other buyer of physical medium (used books, etc) and they would think there is something mentally wrong with you.

I guess it's easier to call me a corporate shill instead of addressing my points. I buy majority of my games physical. I enjoy being able to resell them. So I understand the appeal. Why wouldn't I want that option for digital? Apparently that makes me a sycophant.

Bringing used books into the equation is again missing the point. Can you not see how being able to resell used ebooks would be beneficial?

 

[Zog]

Whoa...didn't know that. From all the games physical games I have for the Switch (got it recently), none of them required me to download anything. Luigi's Mansion 3 worked flawlessly, Mario Kart 8 deluxe as well, Zelda Brath of The Wild worked as soon as I inserted the cartridge and the same happened with Mario Odyssey. I truly missed the feeling of buying a game, putting it in the console and start playing right away.

Actually, I meant to say ‘some’ games require a download even if you buy the physical copy. Apparently I forgot the word ‘some’ in my earlier post.

 

[FranXico]

Necrobumping is a forbidden sin on GAF.

You should know, mate. You should know.

 

[FranXico]

Makes remember times when power was in TF and not in likes on instragram.

Speak for yourself. To me, it makes me remember times when people wanted to own their content.

 

[M1chl]

Speak for yourself. To me, it makes me remember times when people wanted to own their content.

Well I yeah, back then I even have my own liver, which I was born with, so I understand.

 

[Grinchy]

Imagine being back in these GAF times where a thread moved 100+ pages in a couple days.

I'm sure that's great for the profitability, but it's impossible to read.

 

[Vawn]

You said it yourself: people were buying digital, but in such small ammounts that no one believed that it could become a thing.

Everyone then knew that eventually would be all digital. That wasn't the issue with Xbox One and their always-online and mandatory DRM.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Are you kidding? Everyone didn't think that digital was never going to be a thing. When this gen started most people had already bought atleast one digital game. Be it PS1 Classics, Xbox Live Arcade, etc... For god sake, people were buying digital games on the PSP, Vita and 3DS before this generation began. I get it though, revisionist history is fun.

Agreed. Tons of people bought retro and smaller digital games on the Wii store as well, same on xbla and the ps3 (Wipeout HD was a budget title at 20$ or so).

If you want people to change their habits you need to give them an incentive to do so, MS tried to force themselves in.

 

[sn0man]

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I think it’s time GAF. Moreover maybe we should ally with ERA for a new battle. #PS5noDRM how do we organize?

 

[Mod of War]

#NeoGAFDRM