6mo ago

Do you buy your game physical or digital?

Pushsqure has postet an articel with the ratio of game bought pysical or digital this year. The ratio goes up for digital games. I'm still buy most of my games pysical, but what do you prefer.

I like that i'm able to resell, rent games and i have a bigger market for discouts in pysical games. I guess the biggest advantage if digital games it's how easy it is to obtain them and you don't have to stand up switching games. Not surprised that the games sold on the Switch have a much higher ratio of pysical games, there is just not enough memory on the system.

PS5: 78% digital, 22% pysical
XBS: 91% digital, 9% pysical (no gamepass included)
NS: 53% digital, 47% pysical

PS5: 68% digital, 32% pysical
XBS: 81% digital, 19% pysical
NS: 35% digital, 65% pysical

38 comments

I try to buy physical (especially if official nintendo game) but if its more indie I go with digital... There may not be a physical copy anyways
- even if there are pysical copies of indie games. They often a lot more expensive.
  
  The $60 AAA games aren’t afraid to eat the loss in profit margin from extra costs in producing physical copies. For $10 to $20 indie games, they can’t afford not to raise the prices on the physical versions.

Mostly physical. I do pick up a decent amount of digital games, but either they are cheaper indie games or were bought with a heavy discount.
It's extremely hard for me to pick up a $60+ game digitally.

Physical whenever possible. I don't trust Nintendo's DRM.

For Nintendo I don't buy any games... 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Depends. If it's an online game like Splatoon, I would buy digital. If not, then I'm leaning towards physical these days.

Every game I have on switch I bought digitally. I just love being able to hop on the estore and bam new titles downloading. The main downside is the sales on Nintendo titles are few and far between so you’re more than likely to pay full price for any Zelda or smash bros game for instance. I do have plenty of other titles I bought for heavy discounts, the entire borderlands collection for 40 bucks the entire bioshock collection for like 30, gta collection probably the same price too so there are deals to be had.
- There are regular discounts on the nintendo e-shop, but only a few (mostly AA) nintendo games, but hundret of other games (often not interresting for me). I seldom look into nintendo discouts to be honest lately.
  
  Other than Nintendo first party games, all other games have very similar sales as on PSN. There are few games which have lower "lowest ever price" on Switch, and there are some which have it lower on PSN, but overall, both get similar-ish sales.
  This is just my personal experience though, have looked at many games, but haven't done any proper research into it.

I buy physical because I really do think this could be the last console with physical media for games. I’m getting in one last hurrah.
- For ps, xbox maybe. But the switch predecessor has already so much leaks that almost confirmed physical support. I guess... Not following leaks that much and not want to start a discussion about it.
  
  Successor you mean?

Buy physical, dump the cart and then install it digitally to whatever damn device I please

Idk what you mean about “not enough memory”. I have a microSD card in my switch that has more space than I’d likely ever be able to fill.
- How big is it?
  
  256GB. I think you can get ones as big as 1TB.

Physical only for all systems, unless it's a short indie game, in which case I'll wait for a digital sale.
If Xbox and PlayStation ever try to force digital-only, I'll probably wind down my game buying. I'll definitely stop buying new games at full price and just wait for steep discounts for the digital versions. Meanwhile I'll play through my unplayed physical games.

it's funny how everyone on the nintendo community tells digital only, and on the playstation community pysical only (so far). Oposing the statistic
- With my Switch I think the only digital game I own is Diablo 3 because I got the D3 Special Edition Switch and it came with a download code.
  I specially got a disc edition PS5, but shortly after buying it I started to lug it between home and work and I was always forgetting games at one place or the other, so I started to buy digital.
  
  Most of my discs are in a disc case that is easy to transport. But i get why you do it

I am 100% digital now.
Used to be 100% physical in PS3 era.
Then when I got switch, went with Nintendo first party games as physical and all others as digital.
Now, I am 100% digital on all platforms though. I don't care about collecting, and the ease of use and getting the game for digital just wins it for me.
Edit: It's really interesting to see the numbers though. Digital sales are constantly on the rise, though I am really surprised by the Xbox numbers.
- The Xbox numbers doesn't even have gamepass or Digital indie games included. Reality is, that the digital number of played games are a lot higher. I even see shops doesn't sell xbox games anymore
  
  Yeah, with gamepass, it was probably close to 99.9% or something.

My kids and I lose things. Digital is a blessing for us.

I went digital in 2018 when:
I had a switch case with my game cards stolen,
I swapped from PS4 to PS4 pro and Xbox One to One X,
my son started walking and getting his hands on everything.
At that point physical games seemed riskier than account based digital purchases.
The mid gen refreshes may seem like a bit of a non sequitur but they felt like new platforms and it was a clean break from the physical era.

I’d go all physical yet digital is usually cheaper as games go on sale more often. Unless I am after some fresh release, I don’t rush my purchase and wait for the digital game to go on sale.
- There are a lot sales on physical games as well and they are usual cheaper. If i look at psn or e-shop sales and look for the same game physical. A lot of these are cheaper or already the same price on physical. Steam could be better here, but never compared that.

If it's a game I'm not sure I'm going to like, or it's a collectors item I'll buy physical. Other than that, digital. If it's physical I can pass it on to someone who does want it (this has happened mostly with switch games that I give to friends kids etc). But I own a Switch, a PS5, and a computer. All my computer games are digital at this point. Any physical copies I did have I've lost or sold so I didn't have to move them.

Digitally. I'm just too lazy to swap a cartridge.

Only digital. I only have one physical which is mario kart that came with the console permanently in the card socket. I have no time or interest to be exchanging different cards to play different games and having to interact with the console physically at that level constantly.

It's probably 95% digital now for me.
I tend to buy 1st party Nintendo games in physical form still but because of more PC gaming and having Xbox Gamepass for that last couple years I've moved mostly to digital.
- i posted that here and on ps community and no any gaming community, because i'm sure pc gamer have mostly digital games. Are there even physical version of most pc games? But i would say you go with the trend buying switch games physical.

Mostly physical because I prefer doing so for all of my consoles. I only buy digital when a game is deeply discounted, I was given a Nintendo gift card, or the physical version isn't available or is prohibitively expensive

If there's the option, always physical, I guess I'm just old fashioned!

38 comments