Has streaming made physical movies/music obsolete and will it happen to games?

[seether]

A blu ray of a new release costs £14.99 - for that single physical release.

A subscription to Netflix costs £5.99 for many, many movies and TV shows - AND you can watch on your phone, tablet or laptop as well as the TV.

A new CD album costs £10.00 - for that single physical release.

A subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited with access to 50 million songs (just about anything you could ever think of is on there) - costs £7.99 a month.


How long until we can say something like ...

A new video game e.g. Crackdown 3 costs £49.99 - for that single physical release.

A subscription to Xbox Game Pass with access to over 100 games and this new release costs £7.99 a month.


At some point you have to see that the value proposition of a streaming service is far far outweighing picking up a disc of something. I believe we're there with music, I believe millions of people think we're there with video, and I believe in the next generation or two we will be there with games. Mass market adoption of streaming services for all forms of entertainment. One fee for the lot and versatility across multiple devices as oppose to a chunk of money for one disc that you can use only in a specific disc drive and not on the go.

Music streaming is already everywhere - it just makes sense. You can even listen to the very latest new albums and singles, unlike with video streaming services that lack the latest movie and tv shows day and date.

Xbox game pass has been worth it multiple months just to play Forza Horizon 4 or Crackdown 3 or State of Decay 2. You could pay for one month and play one game to completion and feel you got your money worth. And this is just the infancy of game streaming as a service and value proposition.

[Cartagia]

You can probably find the same discussion amongst our members in this post you made about 2.5 weeks ago:

https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,10042.msg165020.html#msg165020

[oldgamerz]

Thanks anyway for the link @Cartagia this is after all another repeat from the same OP

I hope not

I don't like the radio for my music tastes I only listen to the radio if I have no other option, in music in my opinion It can never be enjoyed fully unless you got the CD and you can listen to that whenever you want.

 Plus the FM radio and some internet radio has commercials and you can't really choose a song on most internet radio, although I did hear of an online radio that does requests, but nothing beats the experience of having the CD recorded on your own devices.

With the disc, vinyl or song you can listen to whatever and whenever you want.

[weirdfeline]

Yes for movies and music. It will happen to games but not yet. ISPs need to get their shit together first.

[Warmsignal]

No. Physical items will never be "obsolete". Vinyl records have made a comeback, and not because people forgot how to download a song. It's because people like the physical mediums, which are often of a higher quality playback than any streaming service with compression issues and dependency on remote access to their purchases, and they also enjoy the artwork and liner notes. There will always be a market for a physical representation of media that could otherwise be simply downloaded. The casuals will download, but the hardcore fans will always spring for the tangible option, and I don't see those options going away any time soon.

[bigonanime]

Given streams don't last as long as physical media, the quality is generally worse (Ex: Netflix vs. BD for the anime Expelled From Paradise), and the selection leaves much to be desired, no. Physical media has more value overall as you have more control, meanwhile a stream can go poof, many times without warning, or many things simply never get streamed. A large number of the anime in my DVD/BD collection can't be found on legal streaming sites, additionally many shows that are streaming have the TV version rather than the home video release with the animation corrections/no censors. I use streams to check out content, I buy the physical media for the stuff I care enough about, that's where any rewatches will come from.

[tripredacus]

They are not obsolete because they are still used.

[rayne315]

No streaming has not made anything obsolete. music, movies, or games. you forget that those streaming sites only have access to certain things and not 100% of everything that has ever released. on top of that they also only have access to what they have for limited time frames. music movies and games all can be added or removed from streaming at will making it impossible for you as a consumer to watch, play, or listen to your perfered form of media.

but you know what media can never be removed from your ability to consume it? physical releases of it. once you buy it, it is yours to do with as you please (aside from selling or giving away copies you have made).

[kamikazekeeg]

"Obsolete"? Probably not.  There will always probably be some sort of physical media for those that really want it to some degree.  It will of course mostly go away, there's no reason it wouldn't, but the thing holding it back now is infrastructure as the USA has pretty shitty infrastructure that is WAY behind a lot of other countries right now because of terrible ISP's.  They've been fighting tooth and nail to keep people from having affordable and better internet because it's more profitable for them as it is right now.

[oldgamerz]

Streaming is good for some quick entertainment that you currently do not own or cannot afford, and it's often cheaper on the user then owning the physical media itself, not to mention that most people likely have limited space. However I think music too ("date of post") is rapidly now getting harder and harder to obtain in physical form, since Walmart now only has a limited selection online for both music and games. Movies however are dying too, with both music and videos often replaced with YouTube videos.

However I am currently a paid sponsor for a 3rd party streaming website that helps artists sell amazon MP3 files. However I am not an admin of that streaming site or an amazon seller, but only a paying sponsor for a 3rd party middle man site.

 leaving me no access to exactly who clicks on the amazon buy links or how much of the music I play on my own stream actually sells. As many of you might know I have been streaming every single day 24/7 with my own server for about 2 1/2 years now. and I've picked up quite a VPN following going by an advanced data calculation app.

all I know  (in music streaming alone" that beside Sirius and Napster, Pandora (etc) there is ICECAST and apps free 3rd party apps like VLC and Clementine that connect to 1000's of other free FM AM and Internet Radio Stations world wide including mine if you want 1000's of free radio stations for your phone or PC or Laptop follow this thread o  the VLC forum I created for everyone seeking 1000's of free music playlists for free including mine in a bulk download

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=161630

I am against live video game streaming I think that everyone derves their own privacy in gaming music and movies, something I don't think the internet has to offer period

[oldgamerz]

"Obsolete"? Probably not.  There will always probably be some sort of physical media for those that really want it to some degree.  It will of course mostly go away, there's no reason it wouldn't, but the thing holding it back now is infrastructure as the USA has pretty shitty infrastructure that is WAY behind a lot of other countries right now because of terrible ISP's.  They've been fighting tooth and nail to keep people from having affordable and better internet because it's more profitable for them as it is right now.

The infrastructure is still bad, and a lot of ISP's in the United States have strict data caps still, and if it's cheap and without a data limit the quality is bad and often slow and buffers constantly, that is why I keep needing to replace my equipment

People will often times borrow TV and Internet from networks in my local area, since people have been stealing cable for years and years in my area, in which might be causing some issues with the local American infrastructure