It's officially over.

[telekill]

[/quote]


First off, best of luck with the buying and move to your new house. Hoping you have a smooth experience and a low APR on the mortgage.

I'm also considering getting a Switch 2 for the family this Christmas. We have the first and have enjoyed it, but I'm waiting for Nintendo to give more details on what they're doing for the 40th anniversary of the Zelda franchise. Yeah, the OoT remake is going to be great, but now would be the time to get Twilight Princess HD and the other classic Zelda's as a 40th anniversary collection. Heck, it's the 20th anniversary for Twilight Princess this year so it's a two-fer for that specific game in the series.

*Edit. Not sure what's going on with the "Quote" formatting, but whatever.

[bikingjahuty]

Thanks! Buying the new house is a consequence of me finding out I was getting laid off in late March, getting a new job in another state, having to move, and finally being at the point where I can seriously look at buying my next house. It's been a freakin ride, but I'm hoping things can start to feel normal again after we end up finding something.


My only hesitation about the Switch 2 is whether Nintendo will pull something similar to Sony before the end of the Switch 2's life. The console has only been out a little over a year, so there is still plenty of opportunity for Nintendo to announce no new non-keycard games, which is my primary concern. I'd also be buying one under the assumption the vast majority of first party games would remain non-key card throughout the console's life. I guess given my situation, I have time to think about it, but I'd be lying if I said the threat of the Switch 2's price rising again isn't a motivating factor for me wanting to get one sooner rather than later. AI has really screwed the consumer electronics market and I don't see prices coming down on hardware for a long, long time, if ever.

[marvelvscapcom2]

This whole debacle has annoyed me beyond words more than initially. As if it werent already sad enough. Mostly because as expected gamers cannablized their own hobby because of hysteria or at least outsiders have surged the amount of intake of old physical media under the impression its some fleeting mirage. "It isnt being made anymore" dude FYI. PS2 and PS3 physical media hasn't been made in a damn decade so that is already the case.  The logic is flawed to to buy retro media you normally wouldn't have in droves because PS6 will be digital only. Wtf does folklore for ps3 have to do with that?  Its existence was already finite. It is out of production and not on any digital stores. Why now? Now a 45 dollar game is 145 dollars because July every gamer got the same news and decided to go hysterical.  Modern physical media is in jeopardy.  Not old physical media.  I dont get the correlation between the news sony shared and people panic buying anything.  Yet goodbye retro as a hobby. Might as well chalk that up. Backlog it is lol.  And yes it is becsuse of this news. Not only have I seen people saying their intent to mass buy physical media in preparation for 2028.  But also you can see the sale history of folklore on vgpc. Pre and post news.


Hoarding physical media doesnt save physical media anyway.  Trying to find ways to lobby. Petition. Emulate. Boycott.  That is maybe futile but at least makes sense.



Secondly. On a side rant.  Alot of people randomly decided this past week on my instagram in a great physical media awakening to use their collections to slander not only digital players, steam goers but streaming platforms as a whole.  As if streaming is why physical media has died. From the ashes has risen random dudes with 10,000 dvds like "if you wanna cancel your Netflix. Take all your dvds and put them on a family server account with this link Yada yada. Take all the movies and get them on disc. Viola. Now you arent a slave to a company" but sorta leaves out the part where in order to do that. You have to buy 120k dollars worth of physical dvds accross 5 decades. Like seriously?  They say this shit with a straight face.  Id never be ignorant enough to tell some guy with a ps plus games catelog "hey man. Wanna not pay 16.99 for that? Buy 300 PS5 games like me on disc! Then you own them forever" Netflix is 20 dollars a month.  For most families and even most gamers. Our lifestyle is not the way. Digital games arent the reason physical has died and most importantly. You cant use physical media to replace streaming.  It will never happen. Better to make those mediums coexist.  Owning physical dvds is not an alternative to having streaming platforms. Its a different universe.   Not to be looked at the same.

 Netflix is no different than the blockbuster days everyone worships.  Paying service fees for a item you don't actually own. Except with more inventory up front and more convenience.  Blockbuster died because they couldn't adapt.  Simple and plain. 

The reason physical media died is because collectors and players is a 10 to 90 ratio.  Nobody cares anymore.  And it's sad.  But it was never really preventable. We knew this. My only wish is we dont either Ruin the hobby and physcial resources we do have with panic pricing. Or drive a further wedge by giving asinine advice to digital gamers.  People are gonna go where its convenient and cheap.  And we as physical collectors spend too much time hating the player and not the game.  It's greed and we refuse to speak with our wallets myself included.  I would bet my bottom dollar then when gta 6 drops every physcial only guy will be playing it.  It s digital only until 2027 or more.  Will anyone wait for the disc as a beacon for physical?  No.   It'll do 50 million digital sales in a day.  We dont have the numbers. 


My only goal now is to try to scrape what cheap deals I can before 2028 comes. 

[telekill]

To answer your post direct, I think there's a correlation with PS3 and PSV specifically because of the store shutdown announcement that came the same day. I ended up buying another PS3 so I could claim my old purchases and ensure I had everything off that store before the plug is pulled. The physical games for PS3 starting to skyrocket is due to people trying to rebuild their collections. Unfortunately, I expect I play a small part in that.

[marvelvscapcom2]

To answer your post direct, I think there's a correlation with PS3 and PSV specifically because of the store shutdown announcement that came the same day. I ended up buying another PS3 so I could claim my old purchases and ensure I had everything off that store before the plug is pulled. The physical games for PS3 starting to skyrocket is due to people trying to rebuild their collections. Unfortunately, I expect I play a small part in that.

Ah I get it now. So basically PS3 store goes Kapoot next year. Everyone loses their digital key cards and thus now flock to buy them physical before its too late. Perhaps combined with awareness of the impendibg. Its wild how fast its surging. But tbh its just sad its come to this.  And I thought the covid bubble was bad lol.   The prices were already insane.


But just as I was typing this.  The deal heavens shined down. I had a string of dumb luck and im so happy. I was able to get Asura's wrath for a 3rd of what it goes for now locally from a Portuguese man.  And also got Wet on what not from a Canadian seller that came out to 45 bucks with the exchange rate. 57 with import fees. So grateful for that as it was one of the ones I was dwelling on missing out on.  Wet has always been a big one I needed and wasnt gonna pay 130 for it.  Kinda like you with Riddick.  At least we got a deal!   And that is part of the fun.  Maybe with luck with insane hikes in price will come hidden gem hunting that may still give this some fun. 


 

[marvelvscapcom2]

To answer your post direct, I think there's a correlation with PS3 and PSV specifically because of the store shutdown announcement that came the same day. I ended up buying another PS3 so I could claim my old purchases and ensure I had everything off that store before the plug is pulled. The physical games for PS3 starting to skyrocket is due to people trying to rebuild their collections. Unfortunately, I expect I play a small part in that.

Ah I get it now. So basically PS3 store goes Kapoot next year. Everyone loses their digital key cards and thus now flock to buy them physical before its too late. Perhaps combined with awareness of the impendibg. Its wild how fast its surging. But tbh its just sad its come to this.  And I thought the covid bubble was bad lol.   The prices were already insane.


But just as I was typing this.  The deal heavens shined down. I had a string of dumb luck and im so happy. I was able to get Asura's wrath for a 3rd of what it goes for now locally from a Portuguese man.  And also got Wet on what not from a Canadian seller that came out to 45 bucks with the exchange rate. 57 with import fees. So grateful for that as it was one of the ones I was dwelling on missing out on.  Wet has always been a big one I needed and wasnt gonna pay 130 for it.  Kinda like you with Riddick.  At least we got a deal!   And that is part of the fun.  Maybe with luck with insane hikes in price will come hidden gem hunting that may still give this some fun. 


 

[dhaabi]

Alot of people randomly decided this past week on my instagram in a great physical media awakening to use their collections to slander not only digital players, steam goers but streaming platforms as a whole.  As if streaming is why physical media has died. From the ashes has risen random dudes with 10,000 dvds like "if you wanna cancel your Netflix. Take all your dvds and put them on a family server account with this link Yada yada. Take all the movies and get them on disc. Viola. Now you arent a slave to a company" but sorta leaves out the part where in order to do that. You have to buy 120k dollars worth of physical dvds accross 5 decades. Like seriously?  They say this shit with a straight face.  Id never be ignorant enough to tell some guy with a ps plus games catelog "hey man. Wanna not pay 16.99 for that? Buy 300 PS5 games like me on disc! Then you own them forever" Netflix is 20 dollars a month.  For most families and even most gamers. Our lifestyle is not the way. Digital games arent the reason physical has died and most importantly. You cant use physical media to replace streaming.  It will never happen. Better to make those mediums coexist.  Owning physical dvds is not an alternative to having streaming platforms. Its a different universe.   Not to be looked at the same.

You don't have to own physical media in order to amass a personal digital collection. Just like with most things, physical items including video games and videos can be traded, borrowed, rented, and gifted. So if building a digital collection is something someone's particularly interested in (via the items they're in possession of by digitizing their content) and they have a limited budget, there certainly are means more widely accepted to do that. Despite your claim that physical media can't replace streaming, it absolutely can for certain individuals, and it doesn't have to be a costly endeavor. If there were more groups of people willing to trade or share their collections with each other, we'd all benefit. I really don't think I've ever done that in my life until last year when I shared some of my Silent Hill collection with someone else. It gave that person the opportunity to experience those games in a very accessible and affordable way, and especially when two of those titles in particular were and still are high market value items that most people now wouldn't ever consider buying. For a lot of people, they just want to experience something and not necessarily own it.

By no means are those who pay to use streaming services consume every piece of media being offered. Just because a service like Netflix or PlayStation Plus has x amount of pieces of content available doesn't mean the average subscriber feels the tremendous loss of whatever that total x figure is either. In fact, there are many who may only engage with one or two pieces of streamed media across a billing period, while there are many others who completely ignore the service altogether for long periods while continuing to pay the monthly fee. What this means is that everyone's interests vary. Every single person wanting to build a library will achieve that goal differently.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Alot of people randomly decided this past week on my instagram in a great physical media awakening to use their collections to slander not only digital players, steam goers but streaming platforms as a whole.  As if streaming is why physical media has died. From the ashes has risen random dudes with 10,000 dvds like "if you wanna cancel your Netflix. Take all your dvds and put them on a family server account with this link Yada yada. Take all the movies and get them on disc. Viola. Now you arent a slave to a company" but sorta leaves out the part where in order to do that. You have to buy 120k dollars worth of physical dvds accross 5 decades. Like seriously?  They say this shit with a straight face.  Id never be ignorant enough to tell some guy with a ps plus games catelog "hey man. Wanna not pay 16.99 for that? Buy 300 PS5 games like me on disc! Then you own them forever" Netflix is 20 dollars a month.  For most families and even most gamers. Our lifestyle is not the way. Digital games arent the reason physical has died and most importantly. You cant use physical media to replace streaming.  It will never happen. Better to make those mediums coexist.  Owning physical dvds is not an alternative to having streaming platforms. Its a different universe.   Not to be looked at the same.

You don't have to own physical media in order to amass a personal digital collection. Just like with most things, physical items including video games and videos can be traded, borrowed, rented, and gifted. So if building a digital collection is something someone's particularly interested in (via the items they're in possession of by digitizing their content) and they have a limited budget, there certainly are means more widely accepted to do that. Despite your claim that physical media can't replace streaming, it absolutely can for certain individuals, and it doesn't have to be a costly endeavor. If there were more groups of people willing to trade or share their collections with each other, we'd all benefit. I really don't think I've ever done that in my life until last year when I shared some of my Silent Hill collection with someone else. It gave that person the opportunity to experience those games in a very accessible and affordable way, and especially when two of those titles in particular were and still are high market value items that most people now wouldn't ever consider buying. For a lot of people, they just want to experience something and not necessarily own it.

By no means are those who pay to use streaming services consume every piece of media being offered. Just because a service like Netflix or PlayStation Plus has x amount of pieces of content available doesn't mean the average subscriber feels the tremendous loss of whatever that total x figure is either. In fact, there are many who may only engage with one or two pieces of streamed media across a billing period, while there are many others who completely ignore the service altogether for long periods while continuing to pay the monthly fee. What this means is that everyone's interests vary. Every single person wanting to build a library will achieve that goal differently.

I dont find this to be true at all.  For example, there is content on streaming services that isnt even available on physical media. Some streaming exclusive shows for example. Some indie games also don't see physical release but that's a seperate argument. For netflix only shows some get ported to physical most don't. So for that sole reason alone you cant fully replace all streaming with a physical collection. Can you amass so much physical media that you decide "I dont need to watch streaming because my backlog is large enough to entertain me" sure of course. But that is not what is being argued.   I myself have a collection of 100 vinyl records. And 230 CDs. So I ask you this.  What do I do if I want to listen to an obscure grunge song of a Japanese grunge band I dont own? Delete my apple music and start spending thousands buying every album ever made?  Or in your suggestion try to find someone to borrow an item Noone has in my country?  Or just never play it.  Those are the 3 options in fairness. I do the norm and launch up apple music and listen to it and every other song of my desire in one place for $10 a month?   I use both physical and streaming. Both have their time and place.


In the quest to big up the pros of physical media which are abundant (ownership, trading, selling, hedge against defunct servers) people are constantly ignoring or pretending the pros of streaming don't exist (ease of access, convenience, affordability) and that is not helping anyone. For the average consumer it doesnt work that way. And I believe proof of that is the fact more people do it that way.  It's not because they are wrong.   Yes physical media is better for us. Ideal I should say. Is it always possible? No. Is it a pain in the ass sometimes? And costly? Yeah. We as collectors know that. To us its worth it. Especially on the media we want. But even a lot of diehard gamers emulate games we cant afford. So many users here use nintendo online to play earthbound because it costs so much.  Are you denying that importance? Some people really don't care about owning everything and want convenience. And not everyone has friends or expendable income. Are they wrong for that? I'm not inclined to say that.


The IF in your paragraph is a big if. Not many people even like letting others borrow things at all just because how little respect people have for others belongings. And that system would be nice of trading amongst eachother. That'd be a brilliant idea actually. But do you trust other users here to send your rarest game? I dont even have friends that have big collections tbh.  And people are so afraid that your 800 dillar rule of rose will end up on ebay if you let someone borrow it. So I think because of that.  The community swapping in that way will likely never be widespread.  And isolated friends wont have all the games you may want to play. 



For example I love my ps plus games catalog.  I get to play a lot of cool games.  I know I dont own them. I know they arent mine. But to me its like blockbuster. I used to pay 5 bucks to rent some game. It isnt meant to replace physical

But on the other side of the coin. Physical isnt meant to replace it either.

[dhaabi]

Alot of people randomly decided this past week on my instagram in a great physical media awakening to use their collections to slander not only digital players, steam goers but streaming platforms as a whole.  As if streaming is why physical media has died. From the ashes has risen random dudes with 10,000 dvds like "if you wanna cancel your Netflix. Take all your dvds and put them on a family server account with this link Yada yada. Take all the movies and get them on disc. Viola. Now you arent a slave to a company" but sorta leaves out the part where in order to do that. You have to buy 120k dollars worth of physical dvds accross 5 decades. Like seriously?  They say this shit with a straight face.  Id never be ignorant enough to tell some guy with a ps plus games catelog "hey man. Wanna not pay 16.99 for that? Buy 300 PS5 games like me on disc! Then you own them forever" Netflix is 20 dollars a month.  For most families and even most gamers. Our lifestyle is not the way. Digital games arent the reason physical has died and most importantly. You cant use physical media to replace streaming.  It will never happen. Better to make those mediums coexist.  Owning physical dvds is not an alternative to having streaming platforms. Its a different universe.   Not to be looked at the same.

You don't have to own physical media in order to amass a personal digital collection. Just like with most things, physical items including video games and videos can be traded, borrowed, rented, and gifted. So if building a digital collection is something someone's particularly interested in (via the items they're in possession of by digitizing their content) and they have a limited budget, there certainly are means more widely accepted to do that. Despite your claim that physical media can't replace streaming, it absolutely can for certain individuals, and it doesn't have to be a costly endeavor. If there were more groups of people willing to trade or share their collections with each other, we'd all benefit. I really don't think I've ever done that in my life until last year when I shared some of my Silent Hill collection with someone else. It gave that person the opportunity to experience those games in a very accessible and affordable way, and especially when two of those titles in particular were and still are high market value items that most people now wouldn't ever consider buying. For a lot of people, they just want to experience something and not necessarily own it.

By no means are those who pay to use streaming services consume every piece of media being offered. Just because a service like Netflix or PlayStation Plus has x amount of pieces of content available doesn't mean the average subscriber feels the tremendous loss of whatever that total x figure is either. In fact, there are many who may only engage with one or two pieces of streamed media across a billing period, while there are many others who completely ignore the service altogether for long periods while continuing to pay the monthly fee. What this means is that everyone's interests vary. Every single person wanting to build a library will achieve that goal differently.

I dont find this to be true at all.  For example, there is content on streaming services that isnt even available on physical media. Some streaming exclusive shows for example. Some indie games also don't see physical release but that's a seperate argument. For netflix only shows some get ported to physical most don't. So for that sole reason alone you cant fully replace all streaming with a physical collection. Can you amass so much physical media that you decide "I dont need to watch streaming because my backlog is large enough to entertain me" sure of course. But that is not what is being argued.   I myself have a collection of 100 vinyl records. And 230 CDs. So I ask you this.  What do I do if I want to listen to an obscure grunge song of a Japanese grunge band I dont own? Delete my apple music and start spending thousands buying every album ever made?  Or in your suggestion try to find someone to borrow an item Noone has in my country?  Or just never play it.  Those are the 3 options in fairness. I do the norm and launch up apple music and listen to it and every other song of my desire in one place for $10 a month?   I use both physical and streaming. Both have their time and place.

In the quest to big up the pros of physical media which are abundant (ownership, trading, selling, hedge against defunct servers) people are constantly ignoring or pretending the pros of streaming don't exist (ease of access, convenience, affordability) and that is not helping anyone. For the average consumer it doesnt work that way. And I believe proof of that is the fact more people do it that way.  It's not because they are wrong.   Yes physical media is better for us. Ideal I should say. Is it always possible? No. Is it a pain in the ass sometimes? And costly? Yeah. We as collectors know that. To us its worth it. Especially on the media we want. But even a lot of diehard gamers emulate games we cant afford. So many users here use nintendo online to play earthbound because it costs so much.  Are you denying that importance? Some people really don't care about owning everything and want convenience. And not everyone has friends or expendable income. Are they wrong for that? I'm not inclined to say that.

The IF in your paragraph is a big if. Not many people even like letting others borrow things at all just because how little respect people have for others belongings. And that system would be nice of trading amongst eachother. That'd be a brilliant idea actually. But do you trust other users here to send your rarest game? I dont even have friends that have big collections tbh.  And people are so afraid that your 800 dillar rule of rose will end up on ebay if you let someone borrow it. So I think because of that.  The community swapping in that way will likely never be widespread.  And isolated friends wont have all the games you may want to play.

For most media that's available to be streamed, it's widely available to be purchased digitally as well. Not once was I arguing that an all-digital ecosystem could be replaced (not without internal industry change, that is.) Though if you're someone who doesn't engage with streaming platforms and are wanting to engage with a streaming-only item, then there certainly are less than publicly accepted means of being able to do so. Of course, the fact of the matter is that there was a time not that long ago when digital media was not streamed and only available to be purchased. With your example of EarthBound, it was available for years as a digital release on Nintendo's Wii U storefront. It could still be available for purchase on their more modern platforms, but Nintendo knows it's more profitable to charge for a streaming subscription while removing the means to purchase the software altogether.

And with your example of wanting to listen to some obscure song while not be a subscriber of streaming services, then the song is definitely also available on free, public spaces like YouTube, whereas modern songs from indie artists will be available on free platforms like Bandcamp. Both platforms offer a free means to engage with these items, alongside Bandcamp also being a platform that grants its users the option to buy both digital and physical products.

And yes, I would trust select members from our community to trade games with. The person I was referencing is actually a member of our site—someone, which I will add, whom I've never met. It's interesting you specifically mention a $800 price amount, because I believe that's the amount of insurance that a significantly lower total of money was spent to ensure the items I lent were mailed in confidence. Though it's true what you're saying about trading or lending being an imperfect system, though largely in regards to the fact that not all out-of-print items someone may be interested in may be available to them even through others' ownership. But then again, most of these kinds of items are only available physically, so it's not as if streaming or even digital formats have the advantage in that scenario. In that case, really all there is for someone on a budget to do is to expand their network.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Alot of people randomly decided this past week on my instagram in a great physical media awakening to use their collections to slander not only digital players, steam goers but streaming platforms as a whole.  As if streaming is why physical media has died. From the ashes has risen random dudes with 10,000 dvds like "if you wanna cancel your Netflix. Take all your dvds and put them on a family server account with this link Yada yada. Take all the movies and get them on disc. Viola. Now you arent a slave to a company" but sorta leaves out the part where in order to do that. You have to buy 120k dollars worth of physical dvds accross 5 decades. Like seriously?  They say this shit with a straight face.  Id never be ignorant enough to tell some guy with a ps plus games catelog "hey man. Wanna not pay 16.99 for that? Buy 300 PS5 games like me on disc! Then you own them forever" Netflix is 20 dollars a month.  For most families and even most gamers. Our lifestyle is not the way. Digital games arent the reason physical has died and most importantly. You cant use physical media to replace streaming.  It will never happen. Better to make those mediums coexist.  Owning physical dvds is not an alternative to having streaming platforms. Its a different universe.   Not to be looked at the same.

You don't have to own physical media in order to amass a personal digital collection. Just like with most things, physical items including video games and videos can be traded, borrowed, rented, and gifted. So if building a digital collection is something someone's particularly interested in (via the items they're in possession of by digitizing their content) and they have a limited budget, there certainly are means more widely accepted to do that. Despite your claim that physical media can't replace streaming, it absolutely can for certain individuals, and it doesn't have to be a costly endeavor. If there were more groups of people willing to trade or share their collections with each other, we'd all benefit. I really don't think I've ever done that in my life until last year when I shared some of my Silent Hill collection with someone else. It gave that person the opportunity to experience those games in a very accessible and affordable way, and especially when two of those titles in particular were and still are high market value items that most people now wouldn't ever consider buying. For a lot of people, they just want to experience something and not necessarily own it.

By no means are those who pay to use streaming services consume every piece of media being offered. Just because a service like Netflix or PlayStation Plus has x amount of pieces of content available doesn't mean the average subscriber feels the tremendous loss of whatever that total x figure is either. In fact, there are many who may only engage with one or two pieces of streamed media across a billing period, while there are many others who completely ignore the service altogether for long periods while continuing to pay the monthly fee. What this means is that everyone's interests vary. Every single person wanting to build a library will achieve that goal differently.

I dont find this to be true at all.  For example, there is content on streaming services that isnt even available on physical media. Some streaming exclusive shows for example. Some indie games also don't see physical release but that's a seperate argument. For netflix only shows some get ported to physical most don't. So for that sole reason alone you cant fully replace all streaming with a physical collection. Can you amass so much physical media that you decide "I dont need to watch streaming because my backlog is large enough to entertain me" sure of course. But that is not what is being argued.   I myself have a collection of 100 vinyl records. And 230 CDs. So I ask you this.  What do I do if I want to listen to an obscure grunge song of a Japanese grunge band I dont own? Delete my apple music and start spending thousands buying every album ever made?  Or in your suggestion try to find someone to borrow an item Noone has in my country?  Or just never play it.  Those are the 3 options in fairness. I do the norm and launch up apple music and listen to it and every other song of my desire in one place for $10 a month?   I use both physical and streaming. Both have their time and place.

In the quest to big up the pros of physical media which are abundant (ownership, trading, selling, hedge against defunct servers) people are constantly ignoring or pretending the pros of streaming don't exist (ease of access, convenience, affordability) and that is not helping anyone. For the average consumer it doesnt work that way. And I believe proof of that is the fact more people do it that way.  It's not because they are wrong.   Yes physical media is better for us. Ideal I should say. Is it always possible? No. Is it a pain in the ass sometimes? And costly? Yeah. We as collectors know that. To us its worth it. Especially on the media we want. But even a lot of diehard gamers emulate games we cant afford. So many users here use nintendo online to play earthbound because it costs so much.  Are you denying that importance? Some people really don't care about owning everything and want convenience. And not everyone has friends or expendable income. Are they wrong for that? I'm not inclined to say that.

The IF in your paragraph is a big if. Not many people even like letting others borrow things at all just because how little respect people have for others belongings. And that system would be nice of trading amongst eachother. That'd be a brilliant idea actually. But do you trust other users here to send your rarest game? I dont even have friends that have big collections tbh.  And people are so afraid that your 800 dillar rule of rose will end up on ebay if you let someone borrow it. So I think because of that.  The community swapping in that way will likely never be widespread.  And isolated friends wont have all the games you may want to play.

For most media that's available to be streamed, it's widely available to be purchased digitally as well. Not once was I arguing that an all-digital ecosystem could be replaced (not without internal industry change, that is.) Though if you're someone who doesn't engage with streaming platforms and are wanting to engage with a streaming-only item, then there certainly are less than publicly accepted means of being able to do so. Of course, the fact of the matter is that there was a time not that long ago when digital media was not streamed and only available to be purchased. With your example of EarthBound, it was available for years as a digital release on Nintendo's Wii U storefront. It could still be available for purchase on their more modern platforms, but Nintendo knows it's more profitable to charge for a streaming subscription while removing the means to purchase the software altogether.

And with your example of wanting to listen to some obscure song while not be a subscriber of streaming services, then the song is definitely also available on free, public spaces like YouTube, whereas modern songs from indie artists will be available on free platforms like Bandcamp. Both platforms offer a free means to engage with these items, alongside Bandcamp also being a platform that grants its users the option to buy both digital and physical products.

And yes, I would trust select members from our community to trade games with. The person I was referencing is actually a member of our site—someone, which I will add, whom I've never met. It's interesting you specifically mention a $800 price amount, because I believe that's the amount of insurance that a significantly lower total of money was spent to ensure the items I lent were mailed in confidence. Though it's true what you're saying about trading or lending being an imperfect system, though largely in regards to the fact that not all out-of-print items someone may be interested in may be available to them even through others' ownership. But then again, most of these kinds of items are only available physically, so it's not as if streaming or even digital formats have the advantage in that scenario. In that case, really all there is for someone on a budget to do is to expand their network.

YouTube is a streaming platform though and so is band camp and I certainly wouldn't own any song I stream on it. So you kinda made my point.  Of course there are ways to access music online without paying but solely because streaming exists. You just proved why its so important. And the people im arguing against dont want those either. Physical only. Youtube is good. It's a very useful public tool like Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesnt destroy physical encyclopedias and the need for them. Its a completely different resource. They coexist. Without all streaming. Free or otherwise.  Id have to literally source all my music physically. Pirate it illegally. Or hope the radio plays it so I can record it.  Just like the 90s.  Pre internet music was almost purely physical and public radio. 


I think some of the convo here is missing the context of the people im referencing so i'll add that to see your stance on it  They basically are saying everyone should live a physical only existence because all digital consumption is theft and killing physical. That includes all streaming both paid and free. They have called to boycott tubi, disney, and even steam. And digital gaming as well. Some are calling to intentionally hack switch 2 because since they made soke games digital only it is justified to pirate them games" Calling to take physical media and basically form.your own platforms where you can access these medias as a family with no contact with things you dont actually own.  That to me is something I intend to do as well.  With my physical stuff.  I dont even mind people mentioning doing it though. It's cool advice. My issue is where they insinuate most people have the means or wish to do something like that.  Or that it fully can replace my need for all digital media. I cant afford that. It requires a lot of money, patience and time. The average consumer is not like us even let alone an extreme curator.

The people that I am referencing are not counting digital as a alternative either.  They say if you dont own it they wont support it and nobody else should either or "you are part of the problem" its physical or nil to them. And that hysteria has gotten loud.  I just think it's pretty preachy lately.


As for your lending games.  Maybe I misread. You just said it cost 800 dollars to send them insured safely? You just said that this was meant to be a cost effective option for people to consume media. That's big money talk lol. That alone already makes what you did impossible for like 80 percent of middle America. And even if you dont insure the games. It's costly to ship stuff.  But to me what is more likely to make that hard is the trust aspect. That's a beautiful thing you trust a person enough to lend them games that cost so much but i'm sure you do admit that both you and your friend are in a very specialized circumstance there.  Id be lucky if my own brother would do what you did. Most people arent part of a community like this dealing with specialized friends.  If I want to borrow silent hill or say rule of rose. Maybe I could message you.  If you wanted to borrow one of my games. I'm sure that could be arranged. But that requires having a friend that not only collects games but has that level of commraderie with you.  Which is pretty hard.   Harder even more so in the digital age post pandemic.  You can't just meet someone at a game convention and be like "hey can I borrow your 200 dollar survival horror game. Trust me bro" lol.  You have trust I assume because you know this person.  Also its a collector forum so you assume we all are good at taking care of games. What about some new comer you meet on reddit?  Would you do the same?   I just think that idea takes a level of socializing and networking most introvert gamers arent willing or cant do.   But I do agree what you are saying should be part of our community. We last the community aspect of this hobby. It should be organized and more help eachother.  Soon im gonna give all my doubles away to collectors.  I want to benefit the communities as well. 


Also to address the elephant in the room and call it blunt. Most people are very greedy to even consider what you did as well. And I very much admire what you did. Because I miss gaming being like that. It was for the sake of it. Now its for gain. For profit. This is a dog eat dog world sadly and most people even people on here would laugh if I asked to borrow their games.


You are correct though. And I am kinda confused and meant to ask telekill this.  But why do you think folklore, puppeteer and wet are rising in value due to the store closure when those games were never on the digital store to begin with?  Just panic over physical in general?  You are correct that many games are just not on streaming.  Those are essentially physical.  Which is why I say neither can replace the other.  Physical is more important for sure.  But I think they can coexist.  Idk if you agree that they can. 

[dhaabi]

YouTube is a streaming platform though and so is band camp and I certainly wouldn't own any song I stream on it. So you kinda made my point.  Of course there are ways to access music online without paying but solely because streaming exists. You just proved why its so important. And the people im arguing against dont want those either. Physical only. Youtube is good. It's a very useful public tool like Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesnt destroy physical encyclopedias and the need for them. Its a completely different resource. They coexist. Without all streaming. Free or otherwise.  Id have to literally source all my music physically. Pirate it illegally. Or hope the radio plays it so I can record it.  Just like the 90s.  Pre internet music was almost purely physical and public radio. 

I think some of the convo here is missing the context of the people im referencing so i'll add that to see your stance on it  They basically are saying everyone should live a physical only existence because all digital consumption is theft and killing physical. That includes all streaming both paid and free. They have called to boycott tubi, disney, and even steam. And digital gaming as well. Some are calling to intentionally hack switch 2 because since they made soke games digital only it is justified to pirate them games" Calling to take physical media and basically form.your own platforms where you can access these medias as a family with no contact with things you dont actually own.  That to me is something I intend to do as well.  With my physical stuff.  I dont even mind people mentioning doing it though. It's cool advice. My issue is where they insinuate most people have the means or wish to do something like that.  Or that it fully can replace my need for all digital media. I cant afford that. It requires a lot of money, patience and time. The average consumer is not like us even let alone an extreme curator.

The people that I am referencing are not counting digital as a alternative either.  They say if you dont own it they wont support it and nobody else should either or "you are part of the problem" its physical or nil to them. And that hysteria has gotten loud.  I just think it's pretty preachy lately.

As for your lending games.  Maybe I misread. You just said it cost 800 dollars to send them insured safely? You just said that this was meant to be a cost effective option for people to consume media. That's big money talk lol. That alone already makes what you did impossible for like 80 percent of middle America. And even if you dont insure the games. It's costly to ship stuff.  But to me what is more likely to make that hard is the trust aspect. That's a beautiful thing you trust a person enough to lend them games that cost so much but i'm sure you do admit that both you and your friend are in a very specialized circumstance there.  Id be lucky if my own brother would do what you did. Most people arent part of a community like this dealing with specialized friends.  If I want to borrow silent hill or say rule of rose. Maybe I could message you.  If you wanted to borrow one of my games. I'm sure that could be arranged. But that requires having a friend that not only collects games but has that level of commraderie with you.  Which is pretty hard.   Harder even more so in the digital age post pandemic.  You can't just meet someone at a game convention and be like "hey can I borrow your 200 dollar survival horror game. Trust me bro" lol.  You have trust I assume because you know this person.  Also its a collector forum so you assume we all are good at taking care of games. What about some new comer you meet on reddit?  Would you do the same?   I just think that idea takes a level of socializing and networking most introvert gamers arent willing or cant do.   But I do agree what you are saying should be part of our community. We last the community aspect of this hobby. It should be organized and more help eachother.  Soon im gonna give all my doubles away to collectors.  I want to benefit the communities as well.

Not once throughout any of my posts have I argued that streaming is unimportant. My argument is against premium, pay-to-access subscription services—so not examples like YouTube or Bandcamp—being viable alternatives to physical and digital mediums that I think I've already made clear. Concerning Bandcamp specifically, you are wrong. When purchasing music from Bandcamp, users are given a permanent link to download their digital library in various file formats to save locally; so yes, users have access to whatever is uploaded and sold for an indefinite amount of time. By all accounts, physical items, digital files, and premium streaming services can coexist. The third, though, is most unnecessary and could be entirely removed without anything significant lost regarding content itself. Like I said before, there was a time before any streaming existed at all, and things were fine.

I've not encountered anyone arguing against digital media altogether, let alone streaming. I'm sure those arguments exist, and maybe they're gaining some sort of social media traction, but it's not as if those people themselves have any sort of control over how entire industries function. Only if some sort of wide consumer change would those sorts of internal decisions be introduced, so it'd be (slightly) warranted if that were the case. Like the opposite now with some physical media, the entire removal of any means of access is problematic—consumers should be able to choose how they engage.

You did misread, although perhaps I could have worded that statement better. The games I lent were approximately valued around $800 at that time, so extra money was spent on shipping for that much insurance. That extra money was something like $20. But yes, I agree that my personal experience I've recounted with lending games most recently is more of an extreme. And again, I acknowledge that most people would not be willing to part with items with that sort of market value attributed to them without some sort of collateral. However, the principle of lending, borrowing, and trading remains. Just because the items in my scenario were valued high doesn't mean that every item wanting to be borrowed will be. Long ago—and especially in people's youths when a larger social circle was more available to them—it was far more common to encounter instances like these, when some common game was exchanged for another over the weekend or a holiday break. That sort of community could still exist. It's something I think should and likely will grow in these changing times regarding physical and digital ownership, but it's largely dependent on where one lives and the social connections they've cultivated. I wouldn't expect someone to lend items with a total stranger they've just met, and that includes me too. So, naturally, forming those good-faith communities online is difficult to do. Nevertheless, local institutions like libraries offer opportunities to rent items.

[telekill]

Well... we have our answer. Sony CFO Lin Tao confirmed in their earnings call overnight that they won't be backing down from their digital only path. A little more than 95 million PS5's sold with 18% of game sales being physical. That means Sony is willing to alienate ~17 million of their consumers. That's going by their numbers, of course. That's extreme arrogance. I expect had they completed the PS5 gen with discs and then moved to digital only with PS6, the blowback would have been far less, but... here we are.

PS5 will be my last Playstation. I'll more than likely move to Switch 2 or if God shines down on gamers, Sega jumps back in with physical media, that's how I'll continue with gaming. Once everyone is digital only, I'll probably switch to PC where you don't pay for online and can occasionally get DRM free games that you can burn to disc. Seems mostly through GoG with that, but more research is needed.

[Cartagia]

The big thing that I think is getting lost in the conversation is that a lot of physical purchases are second-hand.  Every single one of those is a game that Sony could have sold for profit twice (or more), which is why they want to eliminate it so bad.  I think where Sony is going to see a big down turn isn't in initial sales.  Digital is going to see an uptick from all the people who previously bought physical but still want to play.  If you made conservative estimates, about 25% of new physical sales will convert to digital.  So their sales loss would only be about 75% of what current physical sales revenue is.

There is probably going to be a drop in long term engagement from people who buy used games.   I'd wager that the people who do buy second hand are not going to be converting to digital en masse, but there is no real way to measure or estimate that right now because there's no way to effective gauge the strength of the secondary market.

[dhaabi]

Sony CFO Lin Tao confirmed in their earnings call overnight that they won't be backing down from their digital only path. A little more than 95 million PS5's sold with 18% of game sales being physical. That means Sony is willing to alienate ~17 million of their consumers. That's going by their numbers, of course.

That's quite the inflated estimate, by your measures. Such an estimate assumes that PlayStation 5 owners are wholly categorized as either someone who purchases physical games or someone else who purchases digital games, when instead the average owner will have purchased games by both means. We don't have to look far to confirm that realization either, as you yourself have purchased a small collection of digital games, based on your site Collection.

Another aspect you're also ignoring is that PlayStation 5 systems can be grouped in two ways: those with disc drives and those without. I'm assuming that 95 million figure doesn't differentiate between the two, meaning the number of consumers Sony is willing to "alienate" is fewer. At the same time, not all owners of PlayStation 5 systems which include disc drives will be resolute in ways like others are proclaiming they will be. Some will resign to a physical-absent ecosystem and continue purchasing games, albeit in a digital format only.

[telekill]

That's quite the inflated estimate, by your measures. Such an estimate assumes that PlayStation 5 owners are wholly categorized as either someone who purchases physical games or someone else who purchases digital games, when instead the average owner will have purchased games by both means. We don't have to look far to confirm that realization either, as you yourself have purchased a small collection of digital games, based on your site Collection.

Another aspect you're also ignoring is that PlayStation 5 systems can be grouped in two ways: those with disc drives and those without. I'm assuming that 95 million figure doesn't differentiate between the two, meaning the number of consumers Sony is willing to "alienate" is fewer. At the same time, not all owners of PlayStation 5 systems which include disc drives will be resolute in ways like others are proclaiming they will be. Some will resign to a physical-absent ecosystem and continue purchasing games, albeit in a digital format only.

Actually it's not inflated as the pendulum swings both ways. Out of the 95 million consoles sold, we're looking at ~70 million of them having a disc drive per Sony's numbers. I'm not even including those digital only consoles that the consumer bought the attachable disc drive later.

I'm not saying wholly categorized for anyone. There are games that are offered as digital only which skews the numbers in favor of digital sales by quite a lot, but if you want to play them, you have no choice and no ownership... and that's where the alienating comes from....ownership first, and choice second.

Sure, I've bought digital only games, most recently Code Violet (PS5), and I plan to buy a couple on the PS3 before the store closes like Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, but had I been given the choice for a physical copy, I would have bought the disc. Case in point, I recently found out that Ducktales Remastered on PS3 somehow got removed from my purchased licenses on the PS3 store and Sony is requesting I rebuy it at $15. Luckily, I found that particular game later got a physical edition and I'll happily pay the $10 difference for the disc.

Ownership is key here. The younger generations (for whatever reason, but we'll go with corporate grooming) are apathetic to the idea of ownership. They've grown up in a world of streaming services where the company decides what content you have access too and when. It's very much the "You will own nothing and be happy" idea that's been around for more than a decade now, but I would add a qualifier for most of the younger consumers... "You will own nothing and be happy because of your ignorance." That's not the entire younger generations, of course, but it's par for the course. They don't understand what ownership is because many have been priced out of owning much of anything, including the stuff that matters, such as a home... but that's another conversation.

As for choice, it isn't just something that I want. I expect choice is something that most people want. Out of the ~70 million PS5's sold, even those with owners that mostly buy digital... they have a choice to buy games on disc, and I would expect that most of that 70 million have bought at least one game physically new since purchasing their system. When you remove a choice that someone once had, most will get over it, but there are quite a few that won't. Removing more affordable second hand purchases as an option will alienate the consumer base.

So that ~17 million alienated over no physical games... yeah, that's a way lower number than it more than likely is... not inflated in the least.