I wasn't opting out the physical copies.
I meant it would be a good idea for them to do it the hybrid way.
I just prefer the digital world. :P
Besides, retailers would probably go into rage mode if they got rid of physical copies. xD

Personally i think Consoles going 100% digital would be a very bad idea. Reason being console and PC markets are different.

On the PC you have so many networks competing, you got Steam, D2D, Origin, Gamersgate, GFWL all of them competing over one platform, this also helps to create a competitive environment. Competitive environments tend to push prices lower, as can be seen on constant sales and low prices on these networks. AAA games are sold at very cheap prices few weeks after launch.

When it comes to console things are different you only have PSN for Sony and you only have XBL for MS, there is no one to compete with MS on XBL same goes for Sony. Since there is no competition there is also no need to slash prices. If Sony and MS were to have a pact on not to drop prices, it would be beyond anyones control to stop them. Both of them are companies after all and are in this for the money.

Hence i would think it would be in the gamers best interest that the retail on consoles survived.

That's very true T900, but what you just said, price inflation with nothing to stop it, would be enticing to both MS and Sony, thus it might be something of reality.

Technically you "own" the digital copy on your hard drive. You can download the content onto your console before the provider shuts down their services.

The difference is really a double edge sword, while the network is active you can always transfer it between machines, but once the network is offline, the game is tied to the console. Dics on the other hand is easily transferable between machines, but if you loose or damage it, you are SOL.

Cloud gaming has the same levels of licensing as purchased copies. If you read the booklets to games you buy, you dont actually own the game, just the license to play it, same as Cloud.

@Lax, you do own the disc it is on which gives you the rights to the software. As opposed to cloud where you don't own anything physical and don't own the software meaning it can be taken away from you at any time.

You never own the game no matter what. When you purchase a disk copy you are only purchasing a license to use one copy of the game.
I see not very many people read/understand the End User License Agreement.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".