Banana Kid
Member
For me, it's the convenience of having all my games on the system at the same time. Swapping between games without changing carts is a much better experience.
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Whats the benefit of going digital over physical for PSVita?
- Thread starter KeioSquad2
- Start date
This is definitely a valid concern. Going all digital is not feasible with a measly 32 gb card. In the long term if you eventually run out of space you'd have to uninstall games and or start buying carts. Need a 1 terabyte up in this.
I have a 350 on my ps3 and I only have 100 gigs left so I guess it depends on the life of the product. 10 year life cycle is not gonna happen on a 32 gig card.
inpHilltr8r
Member
Instant gratification.
You guys, always joking!
Have you just not looked at the Vita games in the PSN store? Most of them are cheaper than their retail versions.
UnlovedJew
Member
They are cheaper by a small amount at release. Not that is even a factor, considering that games drop below their retail MSRP within a month or so at least once.
Marty Chinn
Member
I paid $20 for wipeout, hot shots golf, marvel vs capcom, and Katamari. I paid $26.66 for virtua tennis, lumines, uncharted, and Rayman
How much are they on psn?
Shit you got on sale obviously doesn't count in the comparison. Stuff goes on sale on the PSN store sometimes too. The regular price for those games is much higher than what you paid.
Piercedveil
Member
Only $999 each :]
Marty Chinn
Member
Why does it matter if I got it on sale? There are always sales on retail games. They are more frequent and usually better deals. Let's not forget price drops and clearance. No matter how you slice it, retail ends up cheaper.
Except, you know, buying new games at full price because most games don't go on sale day 1.
Marty Chinn
Member
But they usually do. Onviously you don't pay attention to sales.
DangerousDave
Member
This.
I would never buy Uncharted in digital, even if it's slightly cheaper than retail... and I would never buy Hot Shot Golf or Disgaea 3 in physical, even if I found them slightly cheaper than digital.
Also, I get the impression that Sony will keep compatibility of digital games (for example, we see that they are making efforts to keep compatibility of all PSP DD games, and PSX ones), but they don't care too much about people that bought in retail.
You can transfer games to a PC.
Also, currently, most Vita games are around 1GB so a 32GB memory card wont fill up as fast as you think.
Just use Content Manager and transfer some to PC.
polyh3dron
Banned
hell, most of the games can be purchased physically for cheaper like when there was the B2G1 deal on. Right now, purchasing Vita games through the PSN is a ripoff, especially when memory cards cost so much.
toddhunter
Member
Yes I have looked. Lets start at Fifa ~$75 US. Uncharted is about $69 US.
These are the prices I get as an Australian. Yes there are ways around it, the best being not buying digital.
My personal favourite PS3 title is Catherine. ~$105 US. This might explain why I am a *little* reluctant to embrace a download strategy.
ipukespiders
Member
Well, on the ps3 I'll choose digital (if equal price) so I can game share between my 2 systems. Same would apply to the vita if a household owns 2 of them.
You guys, always joking!
I said hopefully for a reason.
DidntKnowJack
Member
Snapshot King
Member
The problem with this argument is that there are so many factors that come into play for different people in different countries.
These two for example. The amazon 2 for 1 sale was amazing, for people that could buy from the american amazon. Over in Canada Amazon.ca doesn't even have a deals section for games and there were no deals on any vita games retail whatsoever, from any retailer that I'm aware of.
In addition, Canada has all sorts of bizarre distribution issues. Capcom titles are almost always invariably a week late unless they're huge marquee titles, and people in the Good People Die thread were talking about being unable to find 999 in stores for months after it's North American release,
As for me, I buy games day 1 and I don't sell them, and canadian sales are almost universally junk compared to the ones you americans get, so there are almost no cons for me going digital. For others, that choice is much harder.
These two for example. The amazon 2 for 1 sale was amazing, for people that could buy from the american amazon. Over in Canada Amazon.ca doesn't even have a deals section for games and there were no deals on any vita games retail whatsoever, from any retailer that I'm aware of.
In addition, Canada has all sorts of bizarre distribution issues. Capcom titles are almost always invariably a week late unless they're huge marquee titles, and people in the Good People Die thread were talking about being unable to find 999 in stores for months after it's North American release,
As for me, I buy games day 1 and I don't sell them, and canadian sales are almost universally junk compared to the ones you americans get, so there are almost no cons for me going digital. For others, that choice is much harder.
DangerousDave
Member
But europeans we can get US games at day 1 much cheaper than the european prices, even with deals.
Marty Chinn
Member
Except not. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours right now to download once you've purchased. You'd likely get gratification sooner driving to a store in some cases
This is true, it can protect you from being irresponsible and in the rare case of an act of nature. My problem is usually you can control this fate where as if a license is pulled or a server shuts down, that is completely out of your control. It's the dependency nature of DD that bothers me. Plus in the future, those games are still replaceable where as with DD you may never be able to replace it.
PS3 makes sense because you can have multiple profiles. Vita doesn't since I would think each person would want ownership of their handheld system and use their own profile for data and even trophies. If they don't care about that then ya, it would work.
This is true. I'm talking about purely from a US perspective where the only advantage might be convenience.
Brad Grenz
Member
I assume all you physical stalwarts are still rocking portable CD players.
Going digital on Vita confers basically the same benefits as doing so with music or Steam. Convenience, nothing to lose, no media to swap, can carry a large collection easily, modest discounts day one, potential for big sales around the holidays (Sony has been getting pretty good at this, especially for PS Plus members).
And let's not ignore the fact that it's digital day one on Vita that basically led to all the B2G1 deals in the first place. So even if you want to go physical, have some respect for the fact that retail is now forced to compete with digital distribution directly as never before, leading to those kinds of unprecedented discounts. Oh, and you can thank those same retailers for the high memory prices as well. The lion's share of that $99 price for a 32 GB card is going into GameStop or Best Buy's coffers, not Sony's. That's the kind of concession retail demanded back when the PSP Go came out, and it's the same with these memory cards. They wouldn't have agreed to sell the Vita at all if every customer could just buy a microSD card online and bypass them completely for all future game purchases. But getting to make $40-50 on a 32GB card actually makes it worthwhile, even if they don't come back, while they can also steer people to smaller cards and make them dependent on retail games (*cough* Amazon).
Going digital on Vita confers basically the same benefits as doing so with music or Steam. Convenience, nothing to lose, no media to swap, can carry a large collection easily, modest discounts day one, potential for big sales around the holidays (Sony has been getting pretty good at this, especially for PS Plus members).
And let's not ignore the fact that it's digital day one on Vita that basically led to all the B2G1 deals in the first place. So even if you want to go physical, have some respect for the fact that retail is now forced to compete with digital distribution directly as never before, leading to those kinds of unprecedented discounts. Oh, and you can thank those same retailers for the high memory prices as well. The lion's share of that $99 price for a 32 GB card is going into GameStop or Best Buy's coffers, not Sony's. That's the kind of concession retail demanded back when the PSP Go came out, and it's the same with these memory cards. They wouldn't have agreed to sell the Vita at all if every customer could just buy a microSD card online and bypass them completely for all future game purchases. But getting to make $40-50 on a 32GB card actually makes it worthwhile, even if they don't come back, while they can also steer people to smaller cards and make them dependent on retail games (*cough* Amazon).
Even if you read people's reviews its still their opinion. Skyward Sword is highly regarded but I didn't like it. Sometimes even if the game has a demo , its still not enough to have a final opinion.
Pretty much convenience like everyone has said. And convenience is huge to me... otherwise I wouldn't purchase most of my games on PC on steam. It's great to not have to switch discs and to have all your games in one location. Sucks if you get blocked off the service or if your memory stick goes bad... A lot of redownloading acoming.
Grinchy
Banned
because this doesn't look ridiculous in the slightest:
lmao that's the first time I've seen this. That does look ridiculous.
But to the OP, the question of whether digital is more beneficial than physical is crazy to me. Physical media should have to build an argument for why it's more beneficial than digital, not the other way as you are proposing. I simply do not see how physical copies have any benefits other than the potential for resale and displaying a collection. Everything else about physical media sucks in comparison to digital.
Despite how much I prefer physical, I have to agree that the case has to be made for physical instead due to how they gimped physical releases (slightly more obnoxious to switch and the bubble for the game can be lost in a sea of them, NOTHING in cases but codes when relevant)... Still, I think the case can be made that way too:
1. Load times ARE a bit better on carts, a reverse of the PSP's scenario.
2. Deals and selling back.
3. Some of these games are fucking massive and are way better just get a physical copy to save on memory card space.
4. Related to that, bigger memory cards need to come along still, or at least cheaper ones. Getting BlazBlue and Uncharted digitally won't be a big deal if we either had 64 or 128 GB cards, or if 32 GB ones were at LEAST half the price they are now.
5. If a game doesn't depend on on cart memory you can easily share. Granted, online passes can also be a problem but if you want to let someone else try the game out you don't have to worry about messing up trophies or maybe a solitary auto save.
I'm going to mix it up myself. Stuff like Katamari and Rayman Origins I'll be inclined to get digitally pending great retail sales, whereas Uncharted and Blazblue are physical because I don't want to worry about 3+ GB games on my card.
because this doesn't look ridiculous in the slightest:
Is the case that big, or the cart that small?
I can't tell, perspective fail. Need a dollar bill in there or something. In any case LOL.