Civil Discussion: Will Physical Media die?

[ShoothimNow]

This is not a joke:

I once had a 3GB HDD that had 1.3GB's of data on it, more was transferring.  I had it on my pillow on my bed and I noticed it was getting hot.  Like an idiot, I found the fans were on the bottom and it wasn't pumping any air out, so I put it on it's side.. on the pillow... 5 minutes later, the sucker fell over ONTO THE PILLOW (like standing a book up on its spine and letting it fall flat on the table) and it broke.

Knowing that ANY CONTACT could potentially break a HDD, yeah, that is why I own about 6 external HDD's =D

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The space has to be large enough to hold collections.  Yeah, technology is expanding, and SSD's would eliminate any loading times that occur in larger HDD's, but the fact is again, do people have the internet speeds to be ABLE to download the games?  Where I am at, it takes 4 days to download 10GB's of data.  FOUR WHOLE DAYS AT MAX DOWNLOAD SPEEDS.  Meaning, I can't do jack shit on the internet when I am downloading something.  Youtube hangs, Resident evil lags, Vudu doesn't attempt to load a movie, bringing up google takes about 15 seconds [and about 15 seconds for consecutive pages after].


I bought Infamous 2 when it was on sale on the PSN, and I just bought the Infamous Collection (1-2-festival of blood) for $10.  Deleted it from my PS3 as soon as I got the disk.  Digital format is convenient, however I NEVER get around to playing it if it is "just" there.  I look at it, and pass it up for something that I can touch.  Bought FF7 almost 3 years ago on the PSN, still have yet to play that version.  Played my physical version numerous times =D

[palmer6strings]

^^^ The used market is nothing compared to new retail. All those big-ass chain stores would find themselves without product to sell, and the margin on hardware is tiny when compared to the margin on software/media.  That would put some serious hurt on the big box stores, not to mention any of the stores like Game Stop that pretty much rely on media sales exclusively in order to stay in business. Those places would be completely wiped out.

Heck even wal-mart would even take a hit. There is ALWAYS someone in the electronics buying games. Either for themselves or kids/grand kids.

[Beastman1975]

i agreee there will always be a place for physical media  allthough i think companies will try and push for digital downloads to become the norm ( afterall theyd make almost pure profit on them , almost no cost to store/distribute )  but if they ever did away with physical media it would probably wreck our market system as we know , all the stores that rely on those sales that would either lay off a large % their workforce or close all together . if game ever do go 100% download im out  , im unlikly to ever want to sell the games ive collected  but its nice to have that option in an emergency. if i converted every dvd i have id need over 7 tb of hdd space and thats not including blue rays suure space saveing would be nice but not actually owning what you buy  is a big negative to me , and netflix  pretty much sucks lately , when i joined they got new releases all the time but over the last year or so they hardly get new movie releases , apparently the studios want to much for the licenceing,  if it wernt for their anime selection and  tv shows id have probably dropped it by now

[Arseen]

And next step is that you don't own the games you buy, you pay monthly fee to play them and once the companies decide that you don't need to play your favorite game any more as the next instalment in the serie is out, they simply remove it from play lists.

[sheep2001]

i agreee there will always be a place for physical media  allthough i think companies will try and push for digital downloads to become the norm ( afterall theyd make almost pure profit on them , almost no cost to store/distribute ) 

There are still huge costs in setting up the distribution channel, software development, data warehousing, network redundancy, security, etc, etc, etc.  The production/distribution costs really just move around.  In fact it's probably cheaper to freight ship a couple of containers of DVD's of 1 title, than it would be to set up long term digital distribution for it with a similar number of licenses. The problem is, with no physical product, i think it's unfair for the profit margins to be so high.  Although, what I fear is that download titles will not get cheaper, they will stay static, but the cost for physical media will go up significantly - pushing regular (non collectors) to favour the digital copies, making it easier in the long run to make that the norm.

[larryinc64]

if they ever did away with physical media it would probably wreck our market system as we know , all the stores that rely on those sales that would either lay off a large % their workforce or close all together

And they still need the retailers to sell Consoles, Controllers, Point cards, HDDs,Ect. and If they piss them off by not giving them a product to sell they may not carry them.

[wiggy]

ESPECIALLY because there's literally negative profit selling consoles.  The ONLY reason retailers even carry them is so that customers will buy games to go along with it. 

[larryinc64]

Just a point of interest, I was watching a menu walkthroough of the Wii U and apparently you can order game discs to be sent to your house through the system. That's an interesting way to bypass stores.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KibJMZEu_eE

[JDavis]

if i converted every dvd i have id need over 7 tb of hdd space and thats not including blue rays suure space saveing would be nice but not actually owning what you buy  is a big negative to me , and netflix  pretty much sucks lately , when i joined they got new releases all the time but over the last year or so they hardly get new movie releases , apparently the studios want to much for the licenceing,  if it wernt for their anime selection and  tv shows id have probably dropped it by now

I'm actually cancelling my Netflix at the end of my current billing cycle, simply because my DVD/Blu-ray collection has started to go into the same problem as my game collection: Shelves full of them, and many of them I've never watched. Until I catch up, no Netflix.

[Harp00nX]

Everyone should resist digital downloads, if you want a game buy a physical copy of it or demand it be made available because once they get everything on download only we will all have lost. Control that is, once you don't physically own something you no longer control how, when and where you can use it. Digital distribution and cloud bs is just a massive open door to DRM and publisher control over you. Don't encourage it!