PlayStation 5

[dubbs]

Yes the digital version doesn't have a 4k drive so you can only download games not buy discs. 

[Daweii]

Digital edition is the one I'll be buying for sure. My mind was already made up long before potential prices started to leak so saving £100 will be a nice bonus. 

[Sam-AVFC]

9 minutes ago, dubbs said:

Yes the digital version doesn't have a 4k drive so you can only download games not buy discs. 

As a consumer this seems like a dreadful idea to me. Good for Sony though and no doubt a lot of kids will end up with the digital version for Christmas presents.

Are these next-gen 4k games not going to be absolutely massive? My experience of internet in this country is that a very small percentage will have download speeds that make it feasible to constantly be deleting and re-downloading games. I guess somewhere like Korea could see a much bigger uptake.

Edit

4 minutes ago, Daweii said:

Digital edition is the one I'll be buying for sure. My mind was already made up long before potential prices started to leak so saving £100 will be a nice bonus. 

Ok, so I guess I'm wrong!

Edited June 29, 2020 by Sam-AVFC

[dubbs]

I don't know which way to go. The problem with downloads is the Playstation store prices are always higher than the price of buying a disc from a shop,  plus you can trade in the game when you're finished with it. 

[villa4europe]

Digital only is the way its going, it is what consumers want, not what I want but that is what it is, would guess that PS6 would push to be digital only

Agree about the Internet speeds, maybe they'll devise some sort of clever way of something remaining on the console, something on the cloud and then some ing needing downloading again, not sure how big the FF7 or last of us 2 games are, both had a second data disc so I'm guessing over 100gb, that's a long download for me, next gen will be even bigger

[dubbs]

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm sure I've read somewhere that PSN is notoriously slow for downloads when compared to downloading similar size files from other sources. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by dubbs

[Daweii]

5 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Ok, so I guess I'm wrong!

I am so used to digital these days.

I was primarily a PC gamer in the early 2000's which means I was there on day one when Steam launched and Steam killed discs on PC, it made them redundant which means for the last 17 years I have gotten used to downloading my games. 

11 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Are these next-gen 4k games not going to be absolutely massive? My experience of internet in this country is that a very small percentage will have download speeds that make it feasible to constantly be deleting and re-downloading games. I guess somewhere like Korea could see a much bigger uptake.

Next-gen games will be smaller. 

PlayStation 5 comes with an ultra-fast solid-state drive (SSD), faster than anything in a PC today, massively faster. What this means is games don't have to duplicate assets to speed up load times. On PlayStation 4 every asset that appears thousands of times across a world like textures, mail boxes, street lights, stop signs or even cars need to be duplicated as hard drives are slow. If you're moving through the world at quite a speed then the hard drive can't keep going back to the main folder to load in another mail box, I mean it can, but you'd see the game physically pause for 35 seconds every 40 seconds to load in another mail box. The solution to this is to split the world into unique chunks on the hard drive complete with its own assets even if those assets already exist elsewhere. Spider-Man (40GB game) would be 10-15GB smaller without duplication.   

So games will already be smaller in next-gen, but there is more to it than just removing asset duplication. PlayStation 5 has custom compression/decompression hardware in it. This hardware has two uses. Firstly it compresses the data so that the SSD can load at 10GB/s which is pretty cool, I mean 10GB/s would load Spider-Man (PS4) in around 4 seconds. That said compression doesn't just allow the SSD to hit its advertised typical speeds, it also makes files smaller. So a 200GB game today could be 100GB without duplication which is not bad, but that's 100GB without compression. In the end that 200GB game today could be 50GB on PS5. That takes PS5's 825GB SSD from storing 4 games at a time to storing 16 games. 

Now sure some of this will be nullified by certain assets getting bigger in next-gen, but lets say the average game is between 50-75GB on PS5 it's still so much better than where we're at right now on PS4. Also factor in that download speeds aren't just based on download speed. If the CPU can't move the data around fast enough and the drive can't write data fast enough then download speeds will suffer. This is why download speeds on PS4 are terrible because the CPU in the PS4 is so bad your phone is probably faster than it. PS5 doesn't have that issue as its CPU is 4x faster and it's storage is 100x faster. Download speeds even for those that aren't rocking amazing speeds will be faster on PS5 than they were on PS4. 

So long story short. Games should be smaller and should download faster on PS5. 

[Stevo985]

My only concern with digital is usually the games on the PSN store are ridiculously expensive.

Are we going to be able to download games digitally from retailers or does it all have to come from PSN?

[lapal_fan]

8 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

My only concern with digital is usually the games on the PSN store are ridiculously expensive.

Are we going to be able to download games digitally from retailers or does it all have to come from PSN?

Yea this. 

I mean, I buy Battlefield games upon launch and I've never paid more than £40. 

On PSN, they were £60-£100, depending on the edition.

That £100 saving is going to be eaten away in 5 games I purchase the solid copy of and even less if I choose to trade in.

BUT, Battlefield 5/Jurassic Park were the last games I bought and they are 18 months+ old now, so maybe it wouldn't matter because I tend to play Apex and stuff now. 

(I forgot about Wreckfest I bought at the start of lockdown for my kid to play on whilst I worked.. bad dad). 

[Daweii]

20 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

My only concern with digital is usually the games on the PSN store are ridiculously expensive.

Are we going to be able to download games digitally from retailers or does it all have to come from PSN?

If the prices are accurate and the Digital is £100 less than Physical then it's likely because PlayStation Store will be the only way to buy games.

PlayStation Store is Sony property so they get a 30% cut of all third party sales and 100% of all first party sales. That would likely be enough to allow them to subsidise the cost of the Digital because they'll make way more money over the life of the product.

[Stevo985]

Just now, Daweii said:

If the prices are accurate and the Digital is £100 less than Physical then it's likely because PlayStation Store will be the only way to buy games.

PlayStation Store is Sony property so they get a 30% cut of all third party sales and 100% of all first party sales. That would likely be enough to allow them to subsidise the cost of the Digital because they'll make way more money over the life of the product.

But they’ll also have a monopoly over digital purchases so can basically charge what they like. 
 

As papal says, games now on PSN if they’re not in the sale are extortionate

[Daweii]

9 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

But they’ll also have a monopoly over digital purchases so can basically charge what they like. 
 

As papal says, games now on PSN if they’re not in the sale are extortionate

They would definitely have the potential to abuse it.

I think for at least this upcoming generation they will be kept in line because physical still exists. If Sony are going to abuse a digital monopoly it'll be when physical is no longer an option.  

There was also a bunch of placeholder listings on Amazon that leaked a couple weeks back that had every PS5 game costing £70. So even if Sony don't take advantage, if those leaked placeholders are accurate then next-gen is gonna be expensive.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Daweii

[Stevo985]

Just now, Daweii said:

They would definitely have the potential to abuse it.

I think for at least this upcoming generation they will be kept in line because physical still exists. If Sony are going to abuse a digital monopoly it'll be when physical is no longer an option.  

There was also a bunch of placeholder listings on Amazon that leaked a couple weeks back that had every PS5 game listing costing £70. So even if Sony don't take advantage, if those leaked placeholders are accurate then next-gen is gonna be expensive.

But they don't stay in line now. They already offer digital games and they're like £60

[Daweii]

Just now, Stevo985 said:

But they don't stay in line now. They already offer digital games and they're like £60

They offer the digital games for their actual RRP.

As of right now Sony and Microsoft are merely sticking to the price tag and games in 2020 have an RRP of around £59.99, some are little less than that, but that's the price of games.

They are staying firmly in line. Just because other stores sell the games for less is not Sony, or Microsoft not staying in line, it's other stores deviating from that line. 

In the end this is all going to come down to what you believe games to be worth. I have had no issue paying RRP for every game since the early 2000's, I understand though that to others it's a case of why pay £60 when the game is £40 on ShopTo and I fully get that. 

[Stevo985]

Just now, Daweii said:

They offer the digital games for their actual RRP.

As of right now Sony and Microsoft are merely sticking to the price tag and games in 2020 have an RRP of around £59.99, some are little less than that, but that's the price of games.

They are staying firmly in line. Just because other stores sell the games for less is not Sony, or Microsoft not staying in line, it's other stores deviating from that line. 

In the end this is all going to come down to what you believe games to be worth. I have had no issue paying RRP for every game since the early 2000's, I understand though that to others it's a case of why pay £60 when the game is £40 on ShopTo and I fully get that. 

But that's what I mean. The RRP might be £60 but when was the last time anyone paid the full RRP for a game? Maybe if you buy a game on release day you would.

But the benefit of games being sold at other retailers is the price comes down and you pay cheaper. On PSN most games stay at their full RRP unless you get a sale. That doesn't happen with other retailers.

If the price of games stays at £60 on PSN I won't be buying a digital version of the console. The £100 saving on the console will be eaten up by the time you've bought 4 or 5 games

[villa4europe]

11 minutes ago, Daweii said:

I understand though that to others it's a case of why pay £60 when the game is £40 on ShopTo and I fully get that. 

its not just that, its download the last of us 2 for £60 vs buy it for £48 from shopto and then cash it in at cex for £36 after a week

I just cant justify the digital model on the playstation

PC games with a lower RRP, plus then all the various modding options meaning they have better longevity and then the lack of a trade in market and I can get on board with it

[Daweii]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

But that's what I mean. The RRP might be £60 but when was the last time anyone paid the full RRP for a game? Maybe if you buy a game on release day you would.

But the benefit of games being sold at other retailers is the price comes down and you pay cheaper. On PSN most games stay at their full RRP unless you get a sale. That doesn't happen with other retailers.

If the price of games stays at £60 on PSN I won't be buying a digital version of the console. The £100 saving on the console will be eaten up by the time you've bought 4 or 5 games

That's why there is a choice.

I fully understand your position that digital doesn't offer the value features you want.

I also fully understand that physical is more flexible for those that don't buy every game brand new and don't buy every game at launch, but there are a growing number of people that do. 

If you like games coming down in price then there is a version of PS5 for that. 

For perspective I pay full RRP for every game. I am likely the outlier on this forum as a result, but I am very much someone that recently paid full RRP for Last of Us 2 digitally and every other game for the last 17 years since digital became a thing. 

[villa4europe]

14 minutes ago, Daweii said:

That's why there is a choice.

I fully understand your position that digital doesn't offer the value features you want.

I also fully understand that physical is more flexible for those that don't buy every game brand new and don't buy every game at launch, but there are a growing number of people that do. 

If you like games coming down in price then there is a version of PS5 for that. 

For perspective I pay full RRP for every game. I am likely the outlier on this forum as a result, but I am very much someone that recently paid full RRP for Last of Us 2 digitally and every other game for the last 17 years since digital became a thing. 

both the IGN and gamespot coverage following the presentation and then the giant bomb podcast afterwards all lauded them for doing it and all the presenters from memory said that's the version they would be getting

and I think it will work with kids, fortnite is so successful that I can see more games going that way in the future, can imagine EA giving FUT away for "free" or a digital only version for say £15 eventually too, there's a market there that's for sure and companies will find a way to feed it

[Daweii]

1 minute ago, villa4europe said:

both the IGN and gamespot coverage following the presentation and then the giant bomb podcast afterwards all lauded them for doing it and all the presenters from memory said that's the version they would be getting

and I think it will work with kids, fortnite is so successful that I can see more games going that way in the future, can imagine EA giving FUT away for "free" or a digital only version for say £15 eventually too, there's a market there that's for sure and companies will find a way to feed it

I read a report on gameindustry.biz in early 2019 I think it was that stated 80% of the UK's video game market was now digital. Now that stat is misleading as a lot of it is digital sales of indie games, microtransactions and DLC. Only about 25% of that 80% was AAA games so it's not all bad news for physical, but these percentages are only going to grow from here on out. 

I also saw the same universal praise for the digital edition and I am curious to see how this all plays out going forward. I do think your thought on EA giving away FUT is something that will happen. This option of a digital console isn't just a sign that stats are in digital's favour, it's also a sign that enough people have some form of Internet that digital is also thriving. I do expect to see more games go down the free to play route because that's where the money is.

Quote

UK video games (excluding hardware) generated £3.864 billion last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.

Digital accounted for over £3 billion of that number, representing 80.1 per cent of the market. Digital grew 12.5 per cent year-on-year, whereas physical sales dropped slightly by 2.8 per cent (as revealed yesterday). Overall, the games software market is up 9.1 per cent.

The numbers are based on data supplied by GfK (physical retail), IHS Markit (digital revenue) and GSD (download figures). Digital data includes microtransactions, subscriptions and add-on content.

Source

I found the article. After writing my reply I doubted myself and had to look up the article itself to make sure I wasn't just making it all up. 

[GarethRDR]

I realise this will sound very "old man yells at cloud" but the day I can't get a console with physical games is the day I get out of console gaming altogether, methinks.  Hopefully it will continue to be a consumer option for the foreseeable, to have it either way.