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a) Preordering and preloading games from digital stores isn't a new thing either. Internet connections are improving but are they improving at the rate of how l

by tmotwu 6y ago

a) Preordering and preloading games from digital stores isn't a new thing either. Internet connections are improving but are they improving at the rate of how large AAA games are becoming? (A little anecdote, I recall downloading video games on Steam 10 years ago and it took me on average a few hours. Now in the present, newer games like RDR2 took me days.) For b), I'm with you. GameStop does have an e-commerce platform, so they're hardly exclusively brick and mortar. Walmart and Target hasn't disappeared because they're suddenly competing with Amazon. But cmon, there are highly upvoted posts in this thread speculating all video games are digital only within 5 years. Do you believe that?

sct202 6y ago
The PC market is basically all download now. Most pre-built gaming PCs don't have disc drives, and then gaming laptops with disc drives are basically non-existent. Imo, the consoles have been stingy on built in storage space and also pricing their games the same for digital and physical, and that is limiting adoption.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >Imo, the consoles have been stingy on built in storage space Xbox and PlayStation now require you to install all games on the SSD so discs lose out on that advantage as well (unless you're regularly uninstalling and re-installing games, in which case the BD might be faster).
Hamuko 6y ago
>But cmon, there are highly upvoted posts in this thread speculating all video games are digital only within 5 years. Do you believe that? No, but simply because the console lifecycle is longer than 5 years and physical games can't die with the PS5 and Xbox SX around. However, PC games are absolutely digital only already. Even if you buy a swanky collector's edition of a game, you don't get the game in the box. There's just a piece of paper with a download code. And unfortunately Sony and Microsoft have an incentive to kill physical games since they can get more of the profits if everyone just buys from their stores.
- tmotwu 6y ago
  I don't think we're disagreeing. Looking at this as the worst case, GameStop has 5 years of cash flow to transform their brand - as they should. And this is only for a single aspect of their business. PC was never their primary market for as long as they existed, so I don't think this was the dent to their cause.
  - Rapzid 6y ago
    > 5 years of cash flow Physical sales are way, way, way down from 10 years ago already. It's only going to trend down further. I wouldn't call that a reliable source of cash flow.

by tmotwu 6y ago

sct202 6y ago

The PC market is basically all download now. Most pre-built gaming PCs don't have disc drives, and then gaming laptops with disc drives are basically non-existent. Imo, the consoles have been stingy on built in storage space and also pricing their games the same for digital and physical, and that is limiting adoption.

Hamuko 6y ago
>Imo, the consoles have been stingy on built in storage space Xbox and PlayStation now require you to install all games on the SSD so discs lose out on that advantage as well (unless you're regularly uninstalling and re-installing games, in which case the BD might be faster).

Hamuko 6y ago

>But cmon, there are highly upvoted posts in this thread speculating all video games are digital only within 5 years. Do you believe that? No, but simply because the console lifecycle is longer than 5 years and physical games can't die with the PS5 and Xbox SX around. However, PC games are absolutely digital only already. Even if you buy a swanky collector's edition of a game, you don't get the game in the box. There's just a piece of paper with a download code. And unfortunately Sony and Microsoft have an incentive to kill physical games since they can get more of the profits if everyone just buys from their stores.

tmotwu 6y ago
I don't think we're disagreeing. Looking at this as the worst case, GameStop has 5 years of cash flow to transform their brand - as they should. And this is only for a single aspect of their business. PC was never their primary market for as long as they existed, so I don't think this was the dent to their cause.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  > 5 years of cash flow Physical sales are way, way, way down from 10 years ago already. It's only going to trend down further. I wouldn't call that a reliable source of cash flow.