In the past games were exclusively on cartridges, later disks before downloading became viable. As a console player on various platforms I have various CIB games which include instruction manuals, basic safety information and current offers. They can also be sold if you want more.

I guess since computers can store more and games are sometimes cheaper, there is also no need to sell old games.

I game both on console and PC and personally for me and my friends, its mainly about collecting it. I just like being able to have the game physically ( especially if its a collectors edition or something) to display on a shelf. Similar to buying movies these days even though its all on streaming service?

I buy physical to get better deals. Steam sales are a lot better than most digital store sales, so for consoles most of the time it's better to buy a secondhand copy than try to wait for a sale. Xbox and Sony do have good store sales, and I use them when I can, but especially Nintendo their games are full price years after release on the eShop and at retail.

Just look at deku deals for Mario Odyssey for example, where the physical all time low was $30 while digital all time low was $35. I got it for $20 a while ago used. I wish we had steam on consoles.

Because otherwise content can just disappear, like PT and Scott Pilgrim, or all of the DSiWare, or all the WiiWare etc. If it's on a disc and the disc isn't damaged then you can play it forever.

PC gaming doesn't have the same problem because piracy fills this void, although people very much do still collect physical copies of PC games too.

I play mainly single player offline games so once I beat the game I just eBay and buy another one. Rinse and repeat and it means it barely costs any money to play games after the initial hardware cost

Well I’m not much of a collector but I got a decent discount on the disk version through someone for the ps5 ($775 vs $640) so I got the disk version mainly because of some of my favourite games are cross platform which also happen to be compatible with the ps5 and I simply don’t wanna pay again for those games even if there dirt cheap now. That’s the only reason if I didn’t get the discount I would stick with digital and soend the extra on a drive because now even with a cad it’s essentially a key to download the game there’s no real benefit like it was with the ps3 or before

I like having the option of buying physical copies and being able to sell and trade games or lend and swap them with friends as I wish and I also enjoy having my own physical games collection and some come with collectors editions, steel books, booklets, guides or other goodies like maps etc.

Having the option of buying physical is one of the reasons why I personally prefer console gaming over PC.

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Alright your point on collecting movies even tho we have streaming services got me thinking. Seems like most people here just like to collect games and share them with friends. I get that, I guess everbody is different when it comes to buying games. I personally prefer digital games. Console gamers should be able to choose if they want physical or digital, so I get that people would be angry at companys for taking away that choice.

Yeah seems like a big problem is the online stores for consoles. Selling year old games at full price? Thats a ripoff. Steam on consoles would be great since they have really good sales and don't sell everything at full price. Or maybe Sony and Microsoft and especially Nintendo just need to improve their stores?

>limited space on console

Doesn't matter, games are installed and ran entirely from the internal drive, and have done since the PS4/Xbox One.

That said, I like the flexibility. I'm not bound to the consoles store, I'm also more inclined to try out new games if I can resell it in the event it's a stinker. And with console games getting more expensive, buying at launch on a physical format makes sense. I'm not gonna play say God of War Ragnorok more than once in quick succession, so I'll sell it when done (and buy The Callisto Protocol).

It's also about ownership, and preferring the tactility of having something in your hand.

Sony usually have killer deals on their store. It's mostly been new PS5 games that are holding their prices, but there's usually two sales running at any one time, with prices that are as good as Steam.

I bought Resident Evil 2 + 3 Remakes (PS4 and PS5 versions) for less than €20... I spent more on peanut butter this morning FFS.

I don't care about new physical games, I just want to be sure I can play all the old ones I already own, so I care more about backward compatible hardware.

A: affordability B: actually having it rather than renting up until the websits or whatever goes bang

I was honestly thinking about making a local "game library" where people could come and borrow games untill they played them, and then return them / exchange them for other games.

It's nice to have options. I have the option to buy used games or deep sales like Black Friday sales coming up. Also several games are only available on backwards compatibility via disc. If both options are offered, why not take the one with more flexibility?

For me it's about price . I can buy a used game i really want to play a couple /few months after wrelease at a steep discount while the digital version on series s or ps 5 digital remains at full.price for a year :-)

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You lose access to everything digital at some point. Excuse me for actually wanting to own my media.

We should be able to sell or transfer the cd keys of games when we buy digital games.

Because if we don't fight the coming digital age, MS and Sony will just take our games that we paid for!!! /s

I'm a PC and console gamer. I buy physical for console to buy, sell and trade. PC games can be had relatively cheap digitally year round but not on console. Periodic digital sales on console often don't even get as cheap as used physically copies are year round.

Idk my ps5 is a digital edition as i struggled to find a disc edition and its completely fine, im not missing out on any games. I mean sure its harder to get deals but still.

It’s mostly paranoia. Digital is far more convenient and is the future.

I buy physical games because I like to collect them. I also like to buy physical versions of my favorite games in the remote, extremely remote chance that digital versions become unavailable one day. And I can’t stress enough how monumentally remote the chance of that happening is.

I like to own my games

I bought gran Turismo 7 for £38 on eBay 4 months ago. I sold it last week for £33. If you went digital you just blew £60

I haven’t bought a physical game in years. I have an XSX and I gameshare with my brother so anything any of us buy the other can play. Who wants to mess with switching discs. Sure deals on newer games are generally better on discs but I have game pass and don’t need to buy too many new games, plus those I buy, me and my brother can both play. So we buy one copy of MW2 and both play at the same time. I also grind out MS rewards to buy games.

Even without piracy, as far as Steam goes, theres only a handful of specific cases where you wouldn't be able to legitimately play a game after its been removed from the platform. You can even buy removed games through 3rd party sites with CD Keys and play the game still.

Theres a whole community dedicated to collecting games that have been removed from the store page.

I can buy a game, complete it and trade it back in for the next new thing. Simple.

I care quite a lot

I like physical for my PS5 because I usually wait a month or two after a game is out and I get it usually for a discounted price. It's also nice to be able to resell it down the line if I decide I don't want to keep it forever.

In short, because I do like owning my games.

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You can sell physical games, and then get new games, and digital games, your stuck with them, even the ones that suck ass

Not sure, my entire retro collection is digital. Current gen and PC is all digital. I guess if the system has no way of playing games that have been preserved, that could be an issue. But current gen and even last gen, games are unplayable without being able to connect to a server and that's the big issue. Even if you have a disc, it could be rendered useless either way without the ability to connect to the current iteration of the networks.

Better deals and they have resale value

I usually would get the digital games from the online store, just due to me been lazy. I’ve recently started collecting the physical copy and idk why but for some reason I get a satisfaction holding the cover in my hands opening it and taking the disk out and just having the cover as a display. Idk the words to describe it but yeah it’s kind of satisfying

If you buy a physical game, you can borrow it to a friend or sell it later. It's an object you can hold and own. The market determines the value vs a singular storefront price fixing (better for consumers). When publishers sell you a physical game, they relinquish the control of the market price to the media holders. With a digital storefront, that never occurs which is better for them.

This post ownership future written in agenda 2030 by the WEF (world economic forum) is being created and pushed by the owner class on to consumers and soon to be renter class. It's a consolidation of power and class divide. I don't support this direction for the future since I'm not in the elite money holding class. If I spend money I earn, I want something tangible for it at the very least vs simply paying for an experience.

I bought the PS5 with the disc drive because the extra $100 would be made up on physical game sales from best buy or walmart or whatever, and it has already paid for it. I would rather pay extra for the ability to have it than save a little bit in the short term and not be able to take advantage of physical copy sales, which are often better than anything the PS store offers.

I’m a conolse and pc gamer and I have not bought a physical copy of a game in over 10 yrs

Physical is best for preservation. Most games still print the full game on (albeit in a buggy, unpatched state) but it will still allow you access to the game.

Also, games where the license has expired and is removed from store fronts may drive up the value of the disc version.

As a PC gamer and a console gamer I do complain that PC physical games don't exist as much anymore. It's a great way to help ensure that 50 years from now you can play your games. Tho even console games are coming eith physical games that don't have anything which really saddens me. It's not a perfect way, see borderlands on PC physical release, but it's a foot in the door to keep preservation possible. Another great way is just release games without DRM. Or only have timed DRM so like 10 years later it can unlock the game for preservation.

Because they're cheaper. The prices the PlayStation store charges are absolutely extortionate when I can get a physical copy sometimes for £20 less even at launch!

I rent my games, pay £12 a month and can have 2 physical games at a time. It’s well worth it for me as I have a PS5 and play every single Sony exclusive (and some good 3rd party games) at launch when they come out at a fraction of the price it would cost to buy each of them.

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I’m on starlink now out in the country, so it’s not as much of an issue but when I have internet issues, my console is a brick without internet.

1. I like the idea of owning a game, not just having a license that can be revoked at any time. That concept is getting more elusive, but for example when you don't have internet or there's a server issue you can't play your digital Xbox titles.
2. The experience is different. I have had Steam for a decade and have dozens of titles, mostly bought through a Steam sale or a Humble bundle, but there are so many I can't actually play them all. Every physical game I buy, I will play for at least a few hours.

EDIT: Also, second-hand. I buy about half of my games used. I can also borrow a copy from a friend.

Personally I like having physical so I can look at my games when I go to pick one to play. I also played pc heavily for about a decade too, but it was during late 90's to early 2000's which also had physical games. I just like having something you can hold or look at. I also find it easier to keep track of what games I have to play in my collection vs a list of games on some software. It's why I still buy physical games primarily even now.

Maintain value, don’t risk the server simply going down and losing the game and a little bit of tradition.

Xbox store ain't available where I live so I either deal with gift cards and vpns or simply buy the game physical

I think a part of it is that they won’t be able to play old games they have on discs on the consoles, and another is that, for the PlayStation, at least, you can play blu-ray movies on it, too, with the disc slots.

To add to this, I also think that the cost of console games is a little higher digitally compared to digital purchases on steam, so the option to buy 2nd hand games or cheap physical copies (something I do all the time with my Ps5) is more valued compared to PC, where the sales are alot better in my opinion. At least with the series S there is game pass which is value for money.

Not all console gamers care. I have a PS5 and a SeriesX but I don’t own a single physical game

Why do we care about physical games? Because I like physical games.

Expansion cards can be difficult to install without a parent or the money to buy one. As from experience

Pls name the community I didn't even know it's possible to do that

Virtual games on the PS5 can also cost much more than the physical copies

I purchased a PS5 disc version to save me money.

It allows me to buy a newly released game for £60, complete it within a week and sell it on for £40. Also allows me to buy cheap second hand games.

But saying that... I am getting lazy to the point where I don't want to play a game if it means having to get off my seat to change the disc.

I'd also like to add that I purchased the disc version before knowing Sony were going to do PS extra. I'm sure the next generation of consoles will not give you an option for a disc drive for this reason - there won't be a demand.

On Xbox at least, downloaded games seems to cost more than the dvd versions. Largely because the store continue to charge full price for many games, when after a while dvd games are dirt cheap.

Downloaded games require the appropriate services to be still there to be able to play. Eg the device that checks your licence. Having said that, more and more dvd games now require Xbox live connection too now :(

If you have a disc you can always put it in the machine. If you want to redownload you are at the whims of publishers leaving it available in the Xbox store.

https://www.dafoot.co.uk/index.php/computer-juice/gaming/180-xbox-game-prices

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With a console it is something diffrent than on a Pc, it´s just a good feeling when you are putting a physical game into your console.

I buy it because I expect to own it once I pay for it. If a digital game came with a cast iron guarantee that I would NEVER be cut off access to that game I’d think differently but right now you’re only ever an update away from losing access to your digital media. Perhaps increasing the standard storage might be more persuasive though

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Most games I buy digitally. Only my absolute favourite I want physically so I always have them readily available to play. Also, the optical drive plays the movies I buy physically as well, for the same reason. I stream regularly, but my favourite movies of all time I own so I never have to worry about them being removed and no longer having access to them.

So the servers go down to get download games. Without physical you have lost your games

for me personally i think a big problem is also resellability, as a pc gamer i will say it sucks not being able to sell games, my friend for example will buy a game second hand for say 20 bucks, play it and beat it in a month or so and then resell it for pretty much the same price he bought it. as someone who has a steam library with hundreds of games ill likely never play again, this would be fantastic.