Could a Disc-Free PlayStation Actually Lower Game Prices? (kotaku.com) 101
"As Sony soldiers ahead with their plans to end hard copies for new PlayStation games, players are fearing a future which will force them to pay more and own less," writes Kotaku.
What will prices do in a world with no physical copies to share or sell? One former Square Enix executive speculates this could actually drive down the price of games: "Digital on the PS store will likely get cheaper," posted Jacob Navok, former Square Enix business strategist. "Current prices are tied to retail. Without physical discs holding digital hostage we'll see a larger spectrum of pricing similar to steam." Navok says that the digital-only landscape will pit major publishers in constant, dynamic competition with each other... "The more the Playstation store becomes digital only, the greater this trend will accelerate," Navok follows up. "You will see more sales and dynamic pricing similar to Steam because publishers will compete among themselves to a greater extent."
[O]n the other end newer games are getting increasingly expensive, even on digital platforms. The fact that Grand Theft Auto VI will be a purely digital release has not caused its price point to budge.
What will prices do in a world with no physical copies to share or sell? One former Square Enix executive speculates this could actually drive down the price of games: "Digital on the PS store will likely get cheaper," posted Jacob Navok, former Square Enix business strategist. "Current prices are tied to retail. Without physical discs holding digital hostage we'll see a larger spectrum of pricing similar to steam." Navok says that the digital-only landscape will pit major publishers in constant, dynamic competition with each other... "The more the Playstation store becomes digital only, the greater this trend will accelerate," Navok follows up. "You will see more sales and dynamic pricing similar to Steam because publishers will compete among themselves to a greater extent."
[O]n the other end newer games are getting increasingly expensive, even on digital platforms. The fact that Grand Theft Auto VI will be a purely digital release has not caused its price point to budge.
No, it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
No. /end topic.
Re:No, it won't (Score:4, Informative)
Re: No, it won't (Score:2)
Your steam library disagrees with you though.
When you no longer have your game sitting on shelves at Walmart and Target etc, you have more freedom to set your price in the digital stores.
Re: No, it won't (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, more companies aren't even lowering the prices even after 5+ years anymore.
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Re: No, it won't (Score:2)
A used disc sits in inventory incurring a small but real cost each month. Your calculus to set price considers this. Something that incurs no cost does not experience this cost pressure.
The existence of used physical games is a huge help for consumers. Digital only isn't good.
Re: (Score:2)
Your steam library disagrees with you though.
In what way? From what I've seen games sold on Steam command the same prices as games sold on disc, back when they were available. Steam is a bad example because we don't have an easy direct comparison.
Meanwhile in the PS store, Xbox store and Nintendo store we do have direct comparisons and the same game from the same publisher commands a premium for digital only. Only yesterday the wife had Mario Kart World in her hand at Intertoys and complained that she wished the digital version was also 70EUR because
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But digital games are cheaper.
Such a huge part of the appeal of digital games has been that older games go on sale for dirt cheap. Everyone wins across the board here - older games sell a lot more copies than they used to because digital prices can go lower than physical can while still turning a profit.
Price increases on games rarely go over well, and game prices creep up much slower than most other products doing. Most games struggle to make a profit as is, so we're not going to see a drop in base prices,
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> No. /end topic.
Yup. Davis' or Betteridge's Law: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
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No. /end topic.
Actually the answer is "Yes". It objectively "could" lower game prices. It reduces cost of producing games that would be distributed across consumers.
It won't do, because of course it won't ... but it technically could.
Re: (Score:2)
It won't do, because of course it won't ... but it technically could.
I agree. If digital distribution was going to make for lower MSRPs, you'd already see it in the world: buy a physical disc at retail for $X, or buy the digital copy of the same game for $Y, where Y never has been the case for the same title.
Hahahahahahaaa. No. (Score:2)
Yeah, what did you think was going to happen?
savings (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Generally, yes. This is one area where a physical game might not be available or get extremely rare. If it was a game that did well, then there will be reprints (all those "game of the year" or "classic" editions), but if a game didn't do as well, they often get heavily discounted and then destroyed. Though they usually only get a really small print run.
The question of whether 10 year old games
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I think so. I consider myself an outlier gamer. For instance, I own an xbox one but never connect it to the Internet. I don't online multi-player. I play solo or if a friend comes over we play split screen. The last time I did go online was to update it so I could install Madden 25, which sadly I think is the last Madden being released for the Xbox1. With the exception of Madden 25, all my other xbox games have been purchased off the used games rack. They have rather large sections of used games or did a co
Re: LEASED GAMES (Score:1)
You didn't "buy", You don't "own" any of those games on Steam....just leased until they get tired of carrying it, or the music license lapses or some other bullshit. Granted Steam has been very cool up to this point, with few de-listings and generous terms, but just look at Sony and know the day will come to Steam as well. I've been on Steam 17 years and I own Doom+Doom2. It's a great place to try out Demo's but licensing SUCKS.
Re: savings (Score:2)
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You could never get Civ V used. It was always tied to Steam. The boxed copy came with a code to activate it on Steam, and it wouldn't run until you signed in to Steam. The massive discounts on old Civ games usually happen when they release a new Civ game or expansion pack. They put all the old ones on special to try and generate interest in the new one.
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The reasoning behind why it's on sale doesn't matter. It's on sale.
The original claim is that this would never happen because of no "stock" pressure. Clearly that is false, as there are Steam sales all the damn time.
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I was just pointing out that fluffernutter's reasoning was flawed. Steam is not competing with the used market when it comes to Civ V, as it was always tied to Steam and it was never possible to sell used copies.
Re: savings (Score:2)
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Yes. Why wouldn't you be able to? You can do that today with digital downloads. E.g. Horizon Zero Dawn (launched 10 years ago) is currently available on the Playstation Store for you to download, including the expansion for 40EUR (it launched at 60EUR, and the expansion launched at 20EUR, so that's half the launch price ignoring 10 years of inflation).
The same applies to Xbox games as well.
Nintendo on the other hand infamously do not discount over time.
Re: savings (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because they like generating revenue against a back catalog they have no continuing investment in?
If people aren't willing to buy at a price you normally list, you can capture some sales by reducing the price. This isn't rocket surgery.
Re: savings (Score:2)
Re: savings (Score:2)
Because some people won't pay $120 for a game.
They sell it full price new, then when the hype of new has passed they discount it for people that are more frugal.
Since $60 is better than $0 they can make more money overall. They probably have sales data to support this (or at least Steam does, since they keep doing pretty deep discounts for their sales).
Re: (Score:2)
Will anyone even be able to get games that are 10 years old or so in 10 years? That's how you save money on games.
There are no downsides! [xkcd.com]
Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
And, that's what the shiny future looks like.
Either that, or your "purchase" of the game is only valid for 6 months or something, then you have to buy it again.
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Maybe Steam is waiting to turn evil but I haven't seen them do this yet. I do appreciate it is a real threat.
On the other hand, I've started steam installed games buy going to their game's actual folder and launching it with wine. I actually do this specifically to run Neverwinter Night's toolkit on linux. Works perfectly by just going to the directory and typing wine nwntoolset.exe. I have it as a link on my desktop.
My point of saying that is, I don't need Steam to run my games if wine can run the games. I
Re: Unfortunately... (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)m not aware of Steam doing this either, but weâ(TM)re talking Sony here and Sony has taken away movies that people have paid for digitally (with no refund) on more than one occasion. Itâ(TM)s not a stretch that they would do the same for games.
Re: Unfortunately... (Score:1)
So... why are you comparing games to movie distribution rights, you know that's different.
Games are more likely to have their server infrastructure shut down being the biggest problem. But.. game companies are bought and sold also, and it's not a platform specific problem of old games getting pulled from digital stores and IP locked up and abandoned.
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Still, though... they're the same because it's a media (game, movie, or music) that is locked/trapped/limited to online only, and can be removed from your collection/library at the whims of the company.
Remember back in the when you owned the record or VHS movie or DVD, and if you took care of it good enough, it would last a long time (I have Bing Crosby on 78rpm in very good shape), and that was your copy of it, to play or watch anytime you want without worrying about when Sony or whoever loses the license
Betteridge Going in Raw (Score:2)
$5 to $20 games exist now; IARC self-rating (Score:2)
Digital games themselves did not lower prices, despite them being marketed as doing so without the cost of materials/packaging/handling/shipping
From the summary: "Current prices are tied to retail. Without physical discs holding digital hostage we'll see a larger spectrum of pricing." As I understand this, paid downloads did not lower prices of AAA games because of retail price parity contracts. Paid downloads did, however, make the $5 to $20 tier for indie game pricing viable.
One thing not mentioned in the summary is that publishers of games distributed in physical copies owe a royalty to the age rating agency of each region in which a game is pub
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Current prices are tied to fuckall. If this surprises you, remember regional pricing does whatever the fuck it wants. Sorry, "whatever the market will bear."
By its nature imaginary property defies the rules of competition, of supply and demand.
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The second hand physical market is also holding prices down. A new game at $70 is competing against an entire library of used games permanently on sale at $20-$40. Also the need to clear physical inventory means that new game will go on sale eventually at retail even if the digital price is still $70. So the new game is also competing against its future discounted or secondhand price if the consumer feels like waiting.
Also, certain brands, like Nintendo and Square, are famous for almost never putting their
Semantics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Semantics (Score:4, Insightful)
It will certainly ensure that you won't be buying used games at a yard sale for $5 a piece 10 years from now, anyway.
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And, it'll certainly ensure that the games in your "library" can be deleted when Sony or whoever decides.
And, it'll certainly mean that you _need_ to have high-speed always-on internet... and, also, that your PS10 or XBox100 has to have tons of storage.
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Yeah, but I buy 10 year old games off Steam for $5 and it pretty much just works, no fuss. I can't always say that when installing off old media, though 10 years isn't that long ago. Getting those 30 year old games to work, that's the trick. Better off just virtualizing the platform and install the game that way. I've done this.
Make them allow alternative game stores (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Re: No (Score:2)
Sadly, the internet is full of them.
No (Score:4, Funny)
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That is how capitalism works. Competition is a key concept. The big PC game stores have games at all kinds of prices including lots for free. They regularly give away fairly recent big studio games for free. Having to produce physical media is a barrier to competition. Sony is also a barrier to competition, so no guarantees, but it's certainly not because "that's not how capitalism works."
The reason why inflation doesn't reverse itself is because 1) we go to great lengths to avoid deflation and 2) *salaries
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Physical media with first-sale doctrine is the only way you can have a competing source that exists outside the scope of the imaginary property holder.
It's the only sale where you and the buyer/seller can have your trade immune to molestation.
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> Having to produce physical media is a barrier to competition
No it isn't. The only barrier to competition is the whole digital signing thing which is true of both physical media and online delivery.
Physical media is dirt cheap and always has been. You can print off 1,000 BDs for $1,000 or less. Virtually every software developer capable of buying the equipment needed to produce a game is capable of spending that. What they can't do is actually get hold of the proprietary Sony keys and digital distributi
Re: (Score:1)
Stopped reading there. You, I, or anybody can upload a file to the Internet for other people to download. Pressing discs, putting them on boxes and getting them to users is a whole different ballgame. It is most certainly a barrier to competition.
Re: Hostage?! (Score:2)
How do you expect retail stores to buy copies of your game and then also undercut them on digital pricing? You have to cooperate with your retail partners for that to work.
So when you no longer have boxes in stores you're practically selling direct through an online marketplace, you can do sales or special pricing or whatever moves more copies anytime you want.
This seems blindingly obvious.
No (Score:2)
Remember when digital books were going to make it cheaper to own books?
not even if the games were free (Score:2)
If you don't have a disc then you don't own the game. A download only model is not a price for ownership, it is a rental fee.
As much as I use stuff like Steam (probably 800 games in my library), I also am forced to admit that I don't own any of those games. The moment some companies buys Valve and alters the deal, I lose access to my games.
Re: not even if the games were free (Score:2)
These days with a lot of discs just being a boot loader to download the game and some games requiring always on net access then even a disc isnt a guarantee of you really owning it if it can - in theory - be disabled or deleted remotely.
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Honestly, just backup the harddrive they are on. I'm quite sure wine will run most your games. It does get updates from the proton folks I imagine. I use wine to run the neverwinter nights toolset.exe despite nwn being installed via steam. You just got to go through the tedious file system to get to where it's actually installed.
So if you are truly that worried about losing access, at least for the installed games, you can make a backup of the drive or the game itself more locally and run it outside of Stea
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Steam packaged games have DRM. It has to phone home periodically and verify the license on the game or it will stop working. Some devs opt out of the built in DRM, but not all do. It might be steam DRM is fairly weak and can be cracked, but just backing up your local steam library is not enough to ensure a game will work offline indefinitely. The steam library will look for a signed, timestamped license attestation from valve, and if it is too old or absent, the staem wrapper wont allow the game to run.
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That's interesting. You mention a steam wrapper that will prevent the game from running. How would a process that's not started prevent wine, which has zero to do with Steam, from launching? Just looking at the files in the folder, they appear about as normal as ever.
I don't doubt Steam itself may not launch the games, but are you positive that Steam could prevent wine from launching it? I'm only skeptical since I do run a Steam installed app via wine and it works.
I'm not saying you are wrong but this is de
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It's not a check performed by the steam client. As a developer, you upload your final .exe to valve and get a modified DRM-enabled copy back. You then included this modified.exe in the final bundle you upload to steam for publication.
I suspect it just wraps your code in a watchdog that makes a few steam API calls to check for a valid license before transferring control to your original game code. Valve explicitly states that it is only trying to prevent casual copying and not a determined attacker. But just
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Ahh okay. I see. Maybe my app runs because it's a "side app" and not the game itself. Or probably works since I'm typically online and the timestamp is still good. Thanks for the info. Very interesting and informative.
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thank you for your insightful comment (Score:2)
It's called first sale doctrine in the US, but parallels exist in other jurisdictions as well.
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You own the physical media as a matter of first sale, but the bits on the disc are inert. In order to get the software to run, it must be copied into ram or onto the hard drive. At that point you are in a copyright regime, not a first sale regime. Hence the need for a license to run the software from the copyright holder to actually use the software.
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https://www.esquire.com/entert... [esquire.com]
Yeah, right... (Score:2)
Because making less money is CEOs utmost priority.
They will take the discs away and rake in more profit by reducing delivery costs, limiting reselling and keeping prices equal or higher.
Why not modernise some old tech? (Score:1)
The games industry moved away from cartridges because they could get more data onto an optical disk. Well, here's a radical idea...
They could always go back to cartridges!
A modern cartridge could be vastly more data dense than a 25Gb blu-ray disk. Heck, SD cards (Which will wear out eventually) would be fine. Like the Nintendo Switch.
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A cartridge with just a modified M.2 card with some kind of security thing so you can't just slap it in your computer and copy it could actually work.
Wasn't a similar prediction made for e-books? (Score:2)
Why Kindle Books are priced higher than their print counterparts [goodereader.com]. And going back further, I seem to recall predictions being made that CDs and cassette tapes would be so much cheaper than vinyl. Oops.
Cost yes, prices no. (Score:2)
This is that same kind of question (Score:1)
As âoeIf we give rich people more money, its bound to trickle down to everyone else, right?â
For me it will be effectivedly $0, so yes (Score:2)
I'm not going to hand over money to Sony for killing off their used game market.
After 2028 rolls around, used PS4/PS5 physical disc games, that I can confirm will work locally on an offline PS5 (or haven't had an online kill-switch of some kind reported yet) will just have to do for my PS needs. Plenty of great games to last me however long I am still gaming. And yes I already buy Steam games so I admit a degree of hypocrisy, but it's the principle of Sony making this change, and the fact that they've alrea
No!!! (Score:2)
Bad Car Analogy (Score:2)
Used cars keep the new car markets in check to a degree. Now, if only there was a way to get those used cars off the market [wikipedia.org] ...
Prices of games have gone down (Score:2)
Prices of video games have gone down, when adjusting for inflation. Looking at a couple of games from the 90s - TIE fighter in the mid nineties cost 50 USD, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 launching around 2000 had similar pricing. Adjusted for inflation, that's around 100 USD (slightly more) today.
I believe part of the reason for this is digital frontends resulting in a larger proportion going to the developer/publisher - about 50% went to the store, physical production, and physical distribution, now they get to k
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, we've driven down the price of almost everything. That's called "prosperity."
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The real question is... (Score:2)
They are just lowering the barrier to entry (Score:2)
Entry for players, that is. If they can get a console into some shmoe's hands at a lower price point and then continue to gouge that mark on game subscription prices over time, that's what they're after.
Nothing to see here. Business as usual.
Is this April fools or something? (Score:2)
Lowers My Price To Null (Score:2)
Quite frankly, if the
Could a disc free Playstation lower its price? (Score:2)
Could unbundle bags lower air fares?
Could more ethanol on gas lower gas prices?
Could more efficient vehicles lower vehicle prices?
Could reducing chocolate lower its prices?
Could replacing chocolate with
Could smaller boxes of cereal boxes lower cereal prices?
Could reducing coffee can sizes lower coffee prices?
Could streamline rental cars reduces rental prices?
Could more efficient water heaters reduce its operational costs?
Could subscription services save money?
Could eco-friendly, smaller ink cartridges save
Headline asks a question (Score:2)
The answer is "No"
Editor David ?!?!?! (Score:2)
Why is Editor David posting trash like this ? IS he getting paid under the table, HAS he just thrown in the towel ? Shouldn't a LONG time editor have some baseline knowledge of fact checking, or should we just continue to accept this subpar performance knowing this site is the palest of imitations of what it used to be.
Translation (Score:2)
In the exact same way that a monopoly (Score:2)
can serve customers better and more efficiently and cheaply than if they have to compete.
That's what all the companies say when they want to do a mega-merger, and they always lie.
What a ridiculous premise!
No (Score:2)
Yes. (Score:2)
I know, distrust the system, but the truth is our 98% disc free reality already has made games cheaper. Browse https://www.xbox.com/en-US/gam... [slashdot.org]">the XBox Store and there's always going to be AAA games from three years ago for under $10, or indie titles for $6.99, or shit like that. You'd never see deals like that back in the day when games were all on disks, even before accounting for inflation. Much cheaper than used disks from Gamestop, even.
Ha! No. (Score:2)
The reason steam can often be cheap is because there are 124,000+ games on there, from more than 100,000 different publishers competing with one another. Many of which are also available on other stores, physical disc, or direct download fro
Seriously? (Score:2)
Is that why it's cheaper to buy discs for consoles than digital starting like 1 month after launch?
This is all a load of bullshit.
Disc-free Playstation..Just use a PC then (Score:2)
Price has nothing to do with Cost (Score:2)
It's not really a marketplace. In the future, we will own NOTHING. That's what the corporations want: for us to rent our entire lives from them.
Re: (Score:2)
Your at -1 right now, but your comment, 100%