Gaming Is the Switch future compatible with a new digital-only infrastructure for Gen 9th consoles?

[pedro702]

Nintendo profit either way as they are getting a cut via the eStore. The only thing cartridges are doing is inflating download prices due to wanting to keep price parity across both formats. There has been plenty of complaints about this resulting in Switch games costing more than other platforms.

thats why people do phisical releases more expensive and add some goodies wich is always nice i love the goodies they have like nicalis releases

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

They can't go all digital until every ones internet is fast enough internet to download it fast it will piss a lot of people off if they do that. It will also piss of collectors.

 

[Fluffball]

I remember years back the head of Square-Enix predicted 2030 would be the cut off date for physical media,sounds about right to me?

I'm not sure about the rest of the world but by 2025 the EU is aiming for every household in Europe to have access to 100Mbps,the days of people saying they don't have fast enough internet will be over by the end of the next decade.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

I do hate the idea of online purchasing replacing shops because people will just stay in their house all day and not go out to buy stuff.

 

[Pluupy]

Anybody remember PSP Go? Neither does Sony.

I do hate the idea of online purchasing replacing shops because people will just stay in their house all day and not go out to buy stuff.

...wat.

People buy and do things besides video games you know...?

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

Anybody remember PSP Go? Neither does Sony.


...wat.

People buy and do things besides video games you know...?

They will replace shops with delivery.

 

[Pluupy]

They will replace shops with delivery.

You have to pay for delivery. Why would people pay for delivery if a shop is close by? If large retailers go delivery only, there would be a massive boom in local shops.

Actually on second thought, that sounds lovely.

People need to work. Driving to work requires gas in your car. Where are they going to get gas? Delivery only? Good luck getting countries to fully give up on billion-dollar gasoline industry in favor of electric cars.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

You have to pay for delivery. Why would people pay for delivery if a shop is close by? If large retailers go delivery only, there would be a massive boom in local shops.

Actually on second thought, that sounds lovely.

People need to work. Driving to work requires gas in your car. Where are they going to get gas? Delivery only? Good luck getting countries to fully give up on billion-dollar gasoline industry in favor of electric cars.

Getting rid of phsycial games also causes a problem for people with internet that takes a day or even more for the game to download its faster to go to the store if you don't have fast internet. They can't do it until every ones internet is ready for it that means every internet plan will be high speed. I would download most of my games if they did not take like half the day to download. Its only a temporary problem though but yeah my parents cannot afford better internet they are broke. also in aus with no fiber yet so the speeds won't be a whole lot better if we got better bandwidth. In the future though i think every internet connection will be high speed so its only a temporary problem for digital games. The internet is becoming more of a need now days. Also not to mention kids can't have there own bank accounts so yeah they will either have to buy a card at a store or ask there parents.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

We already see it though, you can buy top-up cards at your local supermarket in a lot of places.

If we do lose physical media what I would like to see are gaming cafes open up doing deals with the distributors so they have a local cache of the latest games negating the need for fast broadband at all. Just walk in with your Switch, connect to their WiFi then the store automatically uses their local cache for lightening downloads. Of course they would need to remove the speed limit in the console to do that.

This could even expand to none-portables by allowing you to download an encrypted package to a USB stick then the console automatically use that instead of downloading itself.

It could actually build a better gaming community than the stores alone manage to do, as everyone pretty much keeps to themselves in stores in my experience.

 

[pedro702]

people fail to see that stores will always exist, they give free publicity to anything, how manny times are you passing through a store and see something you dont even knew you wanted or even existed? that is the free publicity.

how manny times people pass through eletronics stores and see new games they didnt even knew about and end up getting them, specialy little kids asking their parents.

not everyone roams gaming websites or e shop to know what is available.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

There are issues with digital distribution that might still keep physical media around. One is ownership. You don't really own game software unless it's DRM-free. Steam, the eShop, and most online game stores sell you a license. That can be taken away at any time. If the servers go down, so too do your purchases. You also can't resell digital games, or loan them (easily) to a friend. Despite all this, I actually do prefer digital and the benefits outweigh the negatives for me, but it's clear that not everyone will agree with all-digital. As long as games are still bought individually (as opposed to a Netflix-like service), there will always be a market for physical media.