Most consoles come with a disc drive and you can buy physical games, but digital games are becoming the norm. This could pose problems for console gamers’ wallets, but there could be a few ways to avoid that future.
But PCs have gone completely digital. What’s the problem?
Before we get to the console side, a common argument in the gaming community is that PC gaming went all-digital years ago and is usually just fine. It’s true that you can no longer buy games on disc for PC, and virtually no computer comes with an optical drive as standard.
The crucial difference, however, is that PC games are sold in an open market. PC gamers have a variety of digital gaming platforms to choose from. Game developers can sell their games directly without using a third-party storefront. For example, Blizzard sells their games using its own launcher and store.
Price competition is enforced on PC because no one has complete control over video game prices. If one supplier inflates its prices, another will undercut that price. That’s a very different context from the “walled garden” video game market model that consoles use.
Fully digital is shrinking the walled garden of console gaming
When you buy a console that can only play digital games, you give 100% of the price control to the owner of the console platform. Unlike a PC, you can’t buy your digital console games from anyone except the three major console brands Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft.
These companies still sell digital game codes and account vouchers to retailers. These retailers have some leeway to cut prices on their own margin, but once physical games no longer exist for future consoles, there’s no reason companies can’t stop selling digital codes to third-party retailers. Sony even stopped selling digital game codes to brick and mortar retailers in 2019.
As the nothing but place where you can buy video games for your console is through the digital store then prices can be pushed to the absolute limit of what gamers will tolerate. Your only legal option would be to either pay the price or not play the game at all.
Does physical media have a future?
The size of video games is growing, although the advent of SSDs in consoles has allowed for smaller installation footprints thanks to SSD deduplication. This poses a problem as the largest optical discs currently used in consoles are 100GB Blu-rays.
Of course, Blu-ray discs themselves are quite cheap to produce, so just having a game on multiple discs is a reasonable medium term solution. We can also see solid-state memory prices falling enough to make high-capacity cartridges viable. In fact, solid-state game media may be preferable to full game installations on a local drive. Both digital downloads and Blu-ray games currently take up space on console SSDs, but if the game’s media were fast enough, it wouldn’t be necessary.
Optical media has also not reached a dead end as there are optical discs that offer multiples of the capacity of a Blu-ray. That doesn’t mean these discs (which are intended for archiving) will ever have a commercial release, but it does mean that 100GB Blu-Ray discs aren’t the end of the line technologically.
Losing your digital games
Aside from current and future prices for digital games, another aspect of the future of an all-digital console is the loss of access to games. In July 2022, Ubisoft appeared to be removing access to Assassin’s Creed Liberation from people who had previously purchased the game. It is not uncommon for digital games to be removed. It usually occurs as a result of the termination of content licensing agreements for music or visuals, preventing new copies from being sold.
What made the Ubisoft affair notable is that it looked like even existing owners would lose access. Ubisoft later relisted the game and it’s not clear if the initial reports were the result of a misunderstanding, but it reminded modern gamers that their purchases may not be as secure as they thought. News has also come out that the 3DS and PlayStation 3 stores would be closing. That is, until Sony decided to keep the PS3 store open for the time being.
It may seem like a long time, but we’ve only had digital gaming on consoles since the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, and it’s only now that console gamers have to face the inevitable fact that the servers will eventually have to be shut down.
What can we do about fully digital gaming?
Digital gaming is arguably the most convenient form of gaming today, and we’re not arguing that anyone should stop using digital games in favor of physical titles instead. Full digital gaming on consoles is bad for game preservation, but preservation isn’t the point of the argument here. Keeping your options open as an individual consumer is more relevant in the here and now.
Let’s take the PlayStation 5 as an example. For about $100 price difference, you can buy a PS5 without a disc drive. It may seem tempting to save 20% off the price of a new console, but the number of doors it closes is worth much more than a single Benjamin. Losing that drive cuts off access to retail games and used games. Used games alone would recoup $100 in a single visit to a Gamestop or other comparable used game retailer.
To illustrate, let’s look at the price difference between a new and a used copy of the same game.
Demon’s Souls Remake is a popular PlayStation 5 exclusive and the standard price for a new PS5 game is $69.99, which is indeed what GameStop is selling a new copy for at the time of writing.
A used copy of the same game costs $39.99. That’s a $30 difference, meaning you only need to buy 4 used copies to recoup the cost of the disc drive in a PS5 and have an extra $30 in your pocket.
So one thing that gaming consumers can do is buy consoles with physical drives if given the option. This is a market signal that consumers appreciate physical media. The second is to make a price comparison between the physical and digital copy of a game before buying it. Not only will you save money in many cases, you will also have the option to resell games that you don’t plan on playing again. The downside is that you may have to wait a few days for your game to be delivered, but if you can practice patience, it can pay off.
Buying consoles with disk drives and buying physical games when it benefits you are just emergency measures. At some point, global broadband access will reach the point where an all-digital console generation makes financial sense. It is therefore inevitable that digital gaming will become the norm in the future.
When that time comes, console gamers won’t be completely powerless. For starters, gamers can choose to support the console makers that continue to offer physical games as an option or are changing their digital gaming practices to allow for personal backups, third-party code sales, and a reasonably priced marketplace. While all-digital consoles won’t compete with third-party storefronts, they will still compete, meaning your wallet can still speak loudly in favor of fair game prices on consoles.
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