Microsoft was right, I was wrong. No need for media, digital only would have been fine, maybe Kinect.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

9 hours ago, Charisma said:

I preferred physical media for a long time, but one big thing made me change my mind:

 

Region locking.

 

I have a whole plethora of games I can no longer play since I don't live in the country where they were purchased. If I'd bought them digitally, this wouldn't be an issue. Until the stupid, stupid practice of region-locking is gone, digital is the way to go for me. I don't even want to think about how many hundreds, thousands of dollars worth of games are there that I can't use anymore.

Region locking is gone now? XB1 and PS4 are region free. PS3 was region free, some 360 games were region free but not all.

 

Not quite sure how digital would have helped you here either. If we are talking region locked 360 games then even the digital copies need to be played on the same region 360. Point being digital was region locked as well.

 

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

14 minutes ago, Audioboxer said:

Region locking is gone now? XB1 and PS4 are region free. PS3 was region free, some 360 games were region free but not all.

 

Not quite sure how digital would have helped you here either. If we are talking region locked 360 games then even the digital copies need to be played on the same region 360. Point being digital was region locked as well.

 

I may have misunderstood your question but, at least with the Xbox One, you can change regions to exploit the currency exchange rates and purchase digital titles with savings. 

 

And they all work with the console set to the UK (or wherever you are)

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

13 hours ago, Audioboxer said:

edit: As a bonus question, a fairly new but well received update added 360 BC to the One and everyone was happy their 360 discs would work. Digital only would have had you forced to re-buy the old games you own digitally, kind of like Sony have done with PS2 games on PS4, so would have removing the disc drive have been good for this?... Not really.

I own a tonne of digital titles on my 360 that I bought in various sales and all of are ready to download and play on my One (as soon as they're ready). There's no need to re-purchase!

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

8 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

I may have misunderstood your question but, at least with the Xbox One, you can change regions to exploit the currency exchange rates and purchase digital titles with savings. 

 

And they all work with the console set to the UK (or wherever you are)

Yeah that's my point region locking is gone.

 

I've done the above myself Digital RRPs are rarely ever converted fairly by MS/Sony across regions.

 

7 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

I own a tonne of digital titles on my 360 that I bought in various sales and all of are ready to download and play on my One (as soon as they're ready). There's no need to re-purchase!

I meant that more for anyone who owns physical 360 titles.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Agreed. I've been all digital since the last few years of the 360's life, on console, and pretty much for as long as i can remember on PC.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

6 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

Agreed. I've been all digital since the last few years of the 360's life, on console, and pretty much for as long as i can remember on PC.

That surprises me for someone in the UK. Our retail market is insane compared to the US. As in retail titles can often be 30-50% less than what digital wants to charge. Obviously talking about AA/AAA titles and not indie.

 

Are you really okay being that badly shafted?

[Jack W]

3 minutes ago, Audioboxer said:

That surprises me for someone in the UK. Our retail market is insane compared to the US. As in retail titles can often be 30-50% less than what digital wants to charge. Obviously talking about AA/AAA titles and not indie.

 

Are you really okay being that badly shafted?

I'm from the UK too; digital provides two licenses, works out cheapest.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

7 minutes ago, Jack W said:

I'm from the UK too; digital provides two licenses, works out cheapest.

To share an account with a friend (split costs)? Can do but not everyone is comfortable account sharing. I done it a bit during the PS3 days, but I'd never like my whole library to be based upon account sharing. Would make me feel like I do not actually own everything, but part own

 

Account activations have always been there for when you own more than one console. If it's just for yourself though it comes back to the how lazy are you argument. As you can only play one console at a time so a disc would be fine for a sole user.

[Noir Angel]

9 hours ago, -Razorfold said:

Why are you comparing PC and console game costs now? Your argument was that physical media and digital media shouldn't cost the same and that it's only consoles that rip you off in that matter.

 

The vast majority of PC games cost exactly the same whether or not you buy them digitally or get a physical copy. There are very few games that I've bought on Steam / Origin that actually ended up being cheaper than the physical media on release day / pre-order. 

Not in my experience. Perhaps US customers just get ripped off.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

On 1/21/2016 at 5:23 PM, Skiver said:

I will never go fully digital until they sort out the pricing model, which at the moment I don't ever see happening as there is never competition on the digital front.

 

Case and point - I could pick-up the Division for £40 right now on pre-order, go onto the Xbox store and I'll pay £55 for it - for what exactly? I don't believe people are lazy enough to truly justify £15 for no other benefit then not having to get off your rear to change a disk. This massive price difference is the same for every new title I've ever come across with prices only dipping months after release when the occasional sale occurs, for some that works but I like to get titles as they release so I'll continue to buy disks where its more cost affective.

Same here. When Fallout 4 came out I saw it in the store and it was something like £59.99. Amazon had it going for £40, I think. It was a no-brainer, even with shipping.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

13 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

Same here. When Fallout 4 came out I saw it in the store and it was something like £59.99. Amazon had it going for £40, I think. It was a no-brainer, even with shipping.

It is pretty crappy, I mean even Halo 5 selling at below £50~60 RRP on the MS store is £44.99. Can be purchased for £23.95 physically. Almost 50% less with free next day delivery. You can just imagine the Ubisoft and EA games sticking to £49.99/£54.99 digitally and how they fair in retail (3rd party titles tend to drop in price quicker than 1st party).

[Skiver Veteran]

27 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

Same here. When Fallout 4 came out I saw it in the store and it was something like £59.99. Amazon had it going for £40, I think. It was a no-brainer, even with shipping.

 

I got Fallout 4 and Rainbow six Siege for £60 from Amazon - two games for the price of one in terms of digital.

[MikeChipshop Member]

3 hours ago, Audioboxer said:

That surprises me for someone in the UK. Our retail market is insane compared to the US. As in retail titles can often be 30-50% less than what digital wants to charge. Obviously talking about AA/AAA titles and not indie.

 

Are you really okay being that badly shafted?

I hear you man. And i agree, but i'm super lazy. I honestly pay that much extra to not swap out discs.

Had the Xbox One kept the whole thing about using the disc once and then it would be loaded on to the box forever more, then i'd still be using discs.

 

However the pull of being slumped on the sofa and having a large grid of games to choose from, is hard to ignore. 

But you're right, especially as we're not even that far apart geographically and you know full well what some the internet speeds can be in the more rural areas around here. I'm not proud though

[Tech Geek Alex]

As long as the ISPs have the control that they do (Oh Please can we see more Google Fiber), then physical disc's will never go completely away.  Until recently I lived in a large tourist trap city in Florida, and the only ISP choice maxed out speeds at 10 MB for $100 a month, and had a 250 GB monthly cap, and this was not some backwoods middle of nowhere area. If you have a good quality ISP consider yourself lucky. If you relocate to a new town, when considering where to live, cost of living, expenses, etc, you need to make sure and add ISP quality before choosing if its a good location. 

 

 

[Mr. Gibs]

3 hours ago, Javik said:

Not in my experience. Perhaps US customers just get ripped off.

Perhaps. But then again I'd rather pay $60 than $60-$80 I guess thanks to exchange rates + tax. So really at the end of the day it's still you getting ripped off lol.

 

Right now with Amazon Prime pre-orders are only $45 for physical, no discount for digital. But then again I have problems with pre-ordering games unless it's from a series I truly enjoy or I have played the beta and liked it. Too risky otherwise imo.

[farmeunit]

21 hours ago, MorganX said:

That's the best compromise. Keep the disc for legacy titles and discs, but move forward with online drm/licensing. I couldn't resist Batman Arkham Knight at Best Buy this weekend for $14. But when I play it, I'll have to put the #@#@ disc in.

Why not do both?  That's the issue.  They say it's either one or the other, and that's just BS.  They want to push THEIR agenda and that's why people backlashed.  As for phyical media, I know people that still have 3MB connections and they're lucky to get that speed.  How are they supposed to download a 20GB (or more) game.

[Noir Angel]

2 hours ago, -Razorfold said:

Perhaps. But then again I'd rather pay $60 than $60-$80 I guess thanks to exchange rates + tax. So really at the end of the day it's still you getting ripped off lol.

 

Right now with Amazon Prime pre-orders are only $45 for physical, no discount for digital. But then again I have problems with pre-ordering games unless it's from a series I truly enjoy or I have played the beta and liked it. Too risky otherwise imo.

The price I paid for Portal 2 and Bioshock 2 amounts to ~$38 dollars. Call me crazy, but I'd still say I'm getting the business end of that deal.

[compl3x]

On 1/17/2016 at 5:03 AM, MorganX said:

Having a fiber connection helps, but I really see no reason for the media at this point

 

The rest of the world doesn't have super fast or even always reliable internet access. Couple that with some of the downtime we've seen and digital only isn't as amazing as everyone thinks.

 

I like digital, but a person cannot use their own experience as an indication of what an entire system with millions of users in all different regions should do. Even just downloading a few gig of patches for some people is an absolute pain, most wouldn't be able to download 10s of gigs of base-game.

 

Additionally, MS marketed the One as a media centre. Not much of a media centre without the ability to playback discs. And no, streaming 1080p from Netflix is not like playing a blu-ray disc.

 

 

This topic has been done to death. MS was wrong on multiple fronts with the One, that is why they changed so many of their policies. People just need to deal with it and move on.

[HawkMan]

3 hours ago, compl3x said:

 

The rest of the world doesn't have super fast or even always reliable internet access. Couple that with some of the downtime we've seen and digital only isn't as amazing as everyone thinks.

 

I like digital, but a person cannot use their own experience as an indication of what an entire system with millions of users in all different regions should do. Even just downloading a few gig of patches for some people is an absolute pain, most wouldn't be able to download 10s of gigs of base-game.

 

Additionally, MS marketed the One as a media centre. Not much of a media centre without the ability to playback discs. And no, streaming 1080p from Netflix is not like playing a blu-ray disc.

 

 

This topic has been done to death. MS was wrong on multiple fronts with the One, that is why they changed so many of their policies. People just need to deal with it and move on.

Very few places on the planet where people play gaming consoles now doesn't have internet fast enough for digital. you don't need fiber, low end ADSL is good enough. sure it'll take a while to download. But probably about the same as driving 2 hours one way to the nearest gaming store, combined with all the other shopping and crap you have to do while there. 

 

As for downtime. there's not really been any for xbox. there's been some minor interruptions over xmas, but I didn't really notice. Even then if it goes all the way down it won't affect your gaming unless it's down for over 24 hours, completely down, not just slow access. If multiplayer is having issues, it'll still have issues if you have a noisy annoying space wasting disk in the console

 

a media center doesn't need disk playing, my HTPC does not have a drive, I have enough BD drives elsewhere. I rarely watch disk based movies anyway, and if I didn't have a BD player I would be fine with that. mostly I just have it for Star Wars and as often s I watch that, I could watch it digital. 

 

Besides that, the original plan of the Xbox One was NOT to release without a BD player. games where in fact still supposed to be sold on disks. so that peopl oculd buy the disks in a store and install from the disks, the disks would also automatically embed the gamekey. after the game was installed it would work as a digital distribution and no more disk needed. 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

9 hours ago, compl3x said:

 

The rest of the world doesn't have super fast or even always reliable internet access. Couple that with some of the downtime we've seen and digital only isn't as amazing as everyone thinks.

 

I like digital, but a person cannot use their own experience as an indication of what an entire system with millions of users in all different regions should do. Even just downloading a few gig of patches for some people is an absolute pain, most wouldn't be able to download 10s of gigs of base-game.

 

Additionally, MS marketed the One as a media centre. Not much of a media centre without the ability to playback discs. And no, streaming 1080p from Netflix is not like playing a blu-ray disc.

 

 

This topic has been done to death. MS was wrong on multiple fronts with the One, that is why they changed so many of their policies. People just need to deal with it and move on.

/topic

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

6 hours ago, HawkMan said:

Very few places on the planet where people play gaming consoles now doesn't have internet fast enough for digital. you don't need fiber, low end ADSL is good enough. sure it'll take a while to download. But probably about the same as driving 2 hours one way to the nearest gaming store, combined with all the other shopping and crap you have to do while there. 

 

As for downtime. there's not really been any for xbox. there's been some minor interruptions over xmas, but I didn't really notice. Even then if it goes all the way down it won't affect your gaming unless it's down for over 24 hours, completely down, not just slow access. If multiplayer is having issues, it'll still have issues if you have a noisy annoying space wasting disk in the console

 

a media center doesn't need disk playing, my HTPC does not have a drive, I have enough BD drives elsewhere. I rarely watch disk based movies anyway, and if I didn't have a BD player I would be fine with that. mostly I just have it for Star Wars and as often s I watch that, I could watch it digital. 

 

Besides that, the original plan of the Xbox One was NOT to release without a BD player. games where in fact still supposed to be sold on disks. so that peopl oculd buy the disks in a store and install from the disks, the disks would also automatically embed the gamekey. after the game was installed it would work as a digital distribution and no more disk needed. 

Low end ADSL may be okay for digital for the most part, but with game sizes what they are this can still take 10-24 hours to download a large game. At this point with most online retailers offering next day delivery the impatience game is fairly evenly balanced. So it's of no surprise people start factoring in pricing as a key component when in this situation.

[compl3x]

21 hours ago, HawkMan said:

Very few places on the planet where people play gaming consoles now doesn't have internet fast enough for digital. you don't need fiber, low end ADSL is good enough. sure it'll take a while to download. But probably about the same as driving 2 hours one way to the nearest gaming store, combined with all the other shopping and crap you have to do while there. 

 

And bandwidth caps? Even if I agreed that most gamers had access to Internet that was fast enough (frankly, a dubious claim) a lot of people still  have data caps. In some regions in the U.S. data caps are being reintroduced. I doubt many people have to drive 2 hours to a store. If they are that remote then they surely have either bad Internet or capped plans which makes the whole point moot.

 

21 hours ago, HawkMan said:

 

As for downtime. there's not really been any for xbox. there's been some minor interruptions over xmas, but I didn't really notice. Even then if it goes all the way down it won't affect your gaming unless it's down for over 24 hours, completely down, not just slow access. If multiplayer is having issues, it'll still have issues if you have a noisy annoying space wasting disk in the console

 

 

Perhaps. Different regions experience different rates of downtime. It mightn't happen a lot but it isn't unheard of for systems to go down or be harassed by imbeciles like the grinches who ruined everyone's last Xmas.

 

 

21 hours ago, HawkMan said:

 

Besides that, the original plan of the Xbox One was NOT to release without a BD player. games where in fact still supposed to be sold on disks. so that peopl oculd buy the disks in a store and install from the disks, the disks would also automatically embed the gamekey. after the game was installed it would work as a digital distribution and no more disk needed. 

 

To kill off used sales or disc sharing. Entirely cynical and self-serving. It wasn't for the consumer's benefit it was for theirs. Frankly, that would have arguably been the worst idea: you'd be adding to the cost of the system by adding the hardware while still having, at its heart, a system that strongly promoted digital and restricted game disc use.

 

 

Frankly, I could forgive all of that & jump on the digital only idea if digital pricing on consoles was fairer and reflected some of the savings made compared to manufacturing and distributing physical discs. Digital pricing on consoles, for some confusing reason, is often equal to or greater than buying a physical disc! I buy almost all of my PC games digitally because of enticing sales and lower costs but still get my consoles games physically because I get better deals.

 

Considering that MS was the only manufacturer adopting digital only I doubt there would have been enough pressure to drop prices. In fact, it might have worked the other way because the competition from traditional retailer would have disappeared leaving only MS xbox store to buy from.

[Polonium]

I'm pretty much digital only now for both PS4 and Xbox One. Store prices in my region (Ireland) are cheaper than the high street so it makes sense.

 

The fact I get 360Mb broadband helps too  (just had an upgrade, so the speedtest below is now outdated)

 

 

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

35 minutes ago, Polonium said:

I'm pretty much digital only now for both PS4 and Xbox One. Store prices in my region (Ireland) are cheaper than the high street so it makes sense.

 

The fact I get 360Mb broadband helps too  (just had an upgrade, so the speedtest below is now outdated)

 

 

I get 20mb... 

[MikeChipshop Member]

Just now, Audioboxer said:

I get 20mb... 

I've an average of 4! From what i understand, i'm only a short distance from you too