Poll of the Day > Do you think next console generation will be the first all-digital consoles?

(+) Yeah! (+)

adjl posted...

Why would they worry about backwards compatibility when they could just make you buy the same games again?

I anticipate that they'll have to concede on that front in order to go full digital.

They honestly don't need to make many concessions at all. So long as no viable alternative exists, the vast majority of gamers - no matter where they sit on the digital vs. physical debate - would rather buy a digital-only system than give up buying new games altogether, and the savings from never having to worry about physical distribution would more than make up for the handful of people that actually go through with their promise to boycott.

The big thing holding them back is that if an alternative does exist, they're screwed. Because they can't guarantee that their competitors will take the same step at the same time, they hesitate.

funkyfritter posted...

I don't think the switch to digital-only will come until consoles can figure out how to reliably carry over your purchases from one console generation to the next. Backwards compatibility would be a huge technical challenge, so I expect streaming games to be the breakthrough that leads to them pulling the trigger.

They already cracked that nut:

The Last of Us on PS3, on PS4, on PS5, on PC, etc.
Nintendo re-releasing their entire WiiU catalog on Switch
GTA V being on a million different systems over 3 console generations.
All the remasters/remakes/HD Editions/Master Collections
And so on and so on.

Dikitain posted...

Nintendo re-releasing their entire WiiU catalog on Switch

That one, I can understand because of how poorly the WiiU sold, but for a more relevant example there were quite a few games released on the Wii VC that were subsequently released on the WiiU VC at a higher price (supposedly, because the WiiU VC offered a few more bells and whistles). For people who already owned the Wii version, they did offer a discounted upgrade (like I think instead of $8 for a SNES game they charged $2 to upgrade from the $6 Wii version) that let you play them on the WiiU with the extra engine features, but I don't think that was a very popular option. And then the Switch got rid of the option to own retro games altogether.

adjl posted...

We're never going back to a paradigm of having like four different magazines you can read and that being the main way you find out about games, simply because there are so many better ways to get a game out there than that and far, far too many "hidden gems" for a small number of media outlets to cover all of them.

That was just an example. We're in a time with AI, limitless information, and people constantly being connected with their smartphones. There's really no reason for indies to have a larger reach than they currently do, it's more a matter of people being lazy and opting for convenience.
Like, yeah, 90+ percent of people will only find out about games from facebook, twitch, etc. but there's no reason to just accept that those have a monopoly and give up.
But, then again, the only person I've seen make an effort like what I'm imagining is videogamedunkey with his big mode games, and I don't think anything has released through that yet.
And also I can't really have room to talk about people being lazy because I'm saying all of this and making no real effort on my part to do what I think devs, indie publishers, etc. should be doing. Like, I make games and I've never ever once made a youtube video or even actually released anything lmao, so I suppose all that I'm saying ultimately boils down to wishful thinking.

BoomerKuwanger posted...

Indie games are pretty much entirely reliant on word of mouth unless they want to spend marketing money too. But there are hundreds to thousands of them released each year and most of them suck. They aren't a monolith, they can't all get word of mouth or marketing money en masse

Indeed. That said, there are countless youtube channels, streamers, and journalists that make an effort to find and highlight promising new/upcoming indie games. For all its faults, Steam's discovery queue is also pretty good for raising awareness of games you might otherwise have missed, plus things like Nintendo Directs often mention a bunch of indie games (though the eShop is exceptionally bad for aimlessly browsing and there's virtually zero chance you'll find anything worthwhile because of the glut of shovelware and minimal curation options). Some gems are still going to end up flying under the radar no matter what you do to try and find them, but so long as you put some effort in (and, for that matter, let social media algorithms figure out what kind of games you'd like to be shown), you'll find out about plenty of good indie games, no differently from how picking up a magazine or two each month helped you find out about interesting sub-AAA games.