All it's going to take is one AAA game to start the movement...

[xWhiplash]

Minecraft did it on Xbox just fine. And on PC. Seems it sold pretty well digitally.

 

Minecraft is not the same size as AAA games.  Some AAA games need the size of the Blu-Ray disc.

[GotBored]

Whats the point of digital only? I'd rather have the option to be able to buy a physical disc.

 

1). You can have as many discs as you want, but your limited to your storage limit for digital downloads.

(I dont want to delete and re-download games all the time, look at games now the bigger ones are around 50GB and getting bigger, that's only 10 games max for the next-gen consoles with 500GB storage)

 

2). I can lend a game to a friend or borrow a game off a friend if it was a disc.

(If it were online sharing then I'd be happy with that too, but I know that once it goes digital only the console makers/publishers will make that impossible)

-They may allow it for a short period of time to make people go 'digital' only, but as soon as it happens they will call it piracy and not allow ir.

 

3). I can freely sell off or trade-in my discs, even swap them for another game.

(Digital doesn't allow this yet but when it does the publishers will get a percentage of re-sale)

- Microsoft even figured out loopholes like you selling a game to a friend and then just gifting it to them online to avoid these fees, so Microsoft made it that you had to have them in your family account and be friends on Xbox live for atleast 30 days before you could gift and then after you gift a game it becomes locked into their account, they cannot re-gift it. This means whoever you sell it to will have to wait atleast 30 days before they can get the game.. I dont think many people are willing to wait so long or even if they were after a few times they'd get over it and only buy new cause its too much hassle.

 

4). International Pricing, In the US they sell games for $60 but in Australia they sell for almost $120.

If it was digital only I would be locked to the AUS store cause of my i.p, or maybe my first selection when I setup the console or automatically by the console cause it would be a AUS version. I would have to pay almost double what they pay overseas even though our dollar is almost the same value. But now I can import a game from the US and pay almost half the price after postage and currency conversion.

- I could set my region as US and go through a proxy to mask my I.P but then I would be locked on US servers for multiplayer and would have serious lag on all my games and I'm pretty sure they would make a new drm feature which would make this impossible anyway. (Like region locking my console)

 

5). Price, I find it funny that people think that the price of digital downloads would drop if it went digital only when digital downloads today are the same price as a physical disc when they don't have to pay for production, transport and outlet costs of selling a disc. When a product is monopolized into one outlet (e.g xbox online store) I've never seen that equate to cheaper product, always the opposite (more expensive product).

- I see Steam being used as an example of this, but Steam has competition in physical media and various other online stores so its prices need to be competitive. If Steam was the only outlet for PC games you would be paying the max amount they could charge you as long as they believed the selling point wouldn't drop the demand so much that it would effect their overall income.

 

To better explain my last point say Steam think if they priced a game at $100 it would sell about 4,000,000 units. So $400,000,000 profit.

(Say $10 per game was publisher costs, so - $40,000,000) = $360,000,000 Clear profit.

But if they sold a game at $40 it would sell 6,500,000 Units. So $260,000,000 Profit.

(Same $10 per game publisher costs, - $65,000,000) = $195,000,000 Clear Profit.

 

Which do you think they would choose?

 

With competition if they priced a game at such high prices they would get 0 sales, or maybe a few and would need to drop prices to remain competitive.. In a monopolized market they do not.

 

In business it doesn't matter how much production costs were as long as your selling price is higher, if they could make a product for $1 and sell it for $100,000 they would. Its all about supply and demand, if the demand is high and your the only supplier you've hit the jackpot.

[spaceelf]

I've never said tldr before heh

1). You can have as many discs as you want, but your limited to your storage limit for digital downloads.

(I dont want to delete and re-download games all the time, look at games now the bigger ones are around 50GB and getting bigger, that's only 10 games max for the next-gen consoles with 500GB storage)

That's assuming every game will use the entire disc, which is silly.

[GotBored]

I've never said tldr before heh

That's assuming every game will use the entire disc, which is silly.

 

50GB is what new games like Watch Dogs and GTA V require. Even PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Gods of War 3 are over 40GB. (Digital Downloads)

 

They have made Blu-ray discs with max capacity at 1TB but I don't think the PS4 or Xbox One will come with readers for these..

 

But both consoles have said they will support 4K video which needs a lot more storage than 1080p, So i'd say the blu-ray drives on each console would need to at-least  read quad-layer discs which are 128GB.

So I wouldn't assume that 50GB is the entire disc.

 

I think it would be quite silly to assume that games wont be getting bigger as they have been doing since the start of console gaming.

[Woelfel]

So apparently there are two digital only games for Xbox One, I haven't seen any for Sony yet. Killer Instinct (I've been waiting a while for this game, and my game of choice, along with Watch Dogs) and D4 (I don't believe this is a launch title). Killer Instinct will probably be bought a lot because of the fighting game community (and how well Double Helix, the developers, are communicating with the community), I don't know about D4 though. Interesting times.

[GotBored]

So apparently there are two digital only games for Xbox One, I haven't seen any for Sony yet. Killer Instinct (I've been waiting a while for this game, and my game of choice, along with Watch Dogs) and D4 (I don't believe this is a launch title). Killer Instinct will probably be bought a lot because of the fighting game community (and how well Double Helix, the developers, are communicating with the community), I don't know about D4 though. Interesting times.

 

PlayStation has Warframe, Blacklight and PlanetSide 2 which will be digital download only games like Killer Instinct. (All free-to-play also)

But like all free-to-play games they will offer in-game purchases, Upgrades and Unlocks will cost real money, for Killer Instinct you will only have one character to play and it will cost you to unlock others.

It is also possible that you will need to pay to unlock levels, costumes, combos, finishing moves and from what I've read they will offer a subscription-based seasonal pass so you can have all characters because they are going to continually add new characters like League of Legends.. Or you could just buy new characters individually 

 

Double Helix has only made a handful of games; Silent Hill: Homecoming, Green Lantern, GI Joes: The Rise of Cobra, Battleship and 3 other games I've never heard of.

I don't really see how this will make the fighting game community more likely to purchase the game.

 

I personally don't think the fighting game community will respond well to this release, I like to play fighting games and can say that majority of the time I play these types of games with friends in local multiplayer. We like to mix characters and being limited to only one character or having to pay a subscription to unlock them all isn't very appealing to me. 

 

D4 is an episodic game, so I'm guessing the first episode would be free-to-play but then continuing chapters would cost you.

[Woelfel]

Killer Instinct is not really "free to play" in the traditional sense. There's a demo in which you play as Jago and you are free to play (pun not intended) online, story mode, and training. You have the option of buying the entire game or this demo mode (where you can buy other characters). They cleared that up a while ago. There will be a "seasons" for releasing new characters, but they never stated combos or finishing moves (I doubt those, but possible). There's probably a possibility of having a season pass for such things a la Halo, COD, etc...

 

I'm basing what the game is showing and feedback from fighting game players in the community who played the game. There's positive feedback so far. I personally believe that the FGC will respond well to the game and will be paying attention closely during EVO, which is like 2 weeks away where they'll be letting the FGC play it and a new character reveal.

 

D4 is an episodic game, but I doubt the first episode is free to play...prolly just gotta buy everything. No problem with that as long as the content is good. I don't see myself buying it though. Killer Instinct is a must for me though.