Next Gen Price Points (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, September 17, 2020, 09:29 (1309 days ago) @ breitzen

All that said, I totally empathize. As someone who loves getting the best possible version of a movie, I fear the day companies decide it's not profitable enough to make physical copies of movies.

The issue for me is ownership. Like it or not, even in a world with no physical discs, you can still 'own' a copy of a movie if you get a pirated copy. You can save that, keep it forever, and play it wherever and whenever you want. It'll probably be a lower quality version ripped from streaming, but you can still have something that nobody can control your access to.

Games are different. Consoles are locked down. You can't have free unrestricted access to a game without physical media. On PC, you have options like GOG that give you the game with no restrictions. You can save them, and play them whenever wherever. You can't do that on a console.

The elimination of physical media for game consoles necessarily means sacrificing your ability to play whatever game you want, when you want. Especially with game pass… if a game is pulled? Bye. You're not playing it.

When a game leaves the Xbox Game Pass library, you won't be able to play it any longer, even if it's downloaded to your console.

Digital downloads are similarly controlled and can leave you unable to play a game you paid for.

There is no way around this like with a movie or music since the consoles are locked down.