Exactly this. Today I can get a physical copy at release date for ~10 EUR cheaper than on the Playstation Store, then resell it for 3/4 of the price, or lend it to a friend easily.
Everything about digital-only is anti-consumer. Games will be more expensive with fewer and less important discount, the second-hand market will be dead, and so will be sharing games to friends so they can experience it for free.
Nintendo has implemented lending a digital game, but with arbitrary limits (you HAVE to be in physical proximity for the lending process, it lasts a maximum of two weeks, and you can lend 3 / borrow 1 game at a time). Sony and Microsoft don't let you do that.
> resale value and being able to buy used games for cheap
This is exactly how I do it - I don't have much time for gaming as much as I would like to so I just buy one game at a time (~90% of the time it's used one), finish it, sell it and possibly look for another one; as the catalogue is so big there is no point of hoarding games
I used to own xbox and had digital collection of games - most of them I never even started (much easier to hoard stuff when it's digital); I don't have that console anymore and I was left with a useless collection of stuff I don't own tied to my online account - never doing that again
Overall I hate this news so much, I probably will give up with 'modern' gaming altogether
Exactly this. Today I can get a physical copy at release date for ~10 EUR cheaper than on the Playstation Store, then resell it for 3/4 of the price, or lend it to a friend easily.
Everything about digital-only is anti-consumer. Games will be more expensive with fewer and less important discount, the second-hand market will be dead, and so will be sharing games to friends so they can experience it for free.
Nintendo has implemented lending a digital game, but with arbitrary limits (you HAVE to be in physical proximity for the lending process, it lasts a maximum of two weeks, and you can lend 3 / borrow 1 game at a time). Sony and Microsoft don't let you do that.
As a child trading in games I didn’t play anymore was a great way of getting the latest titles at a discount.
> resale value and being able to buy used games for cheap
This is exactly how I do it - I don't have much time for gaming as much as I would like to so I just buy one game at a time (~90% of the time it's used one), finish it, sell it and possibly look for another one; as the catalogue is so big there is no point of hoarding games
I used to own xbox and had digital collection of games - most of them I never even started (much easier to hoard stuff when it's digital); I don't have that console anymore and I was left with a useless collection of stuff I don't own tied to my online account - never doing that again
Overall I hate this news so much, I probably will give up with 'modern' gaming altogether