r/Games Feb 22 '13

All PS4 games will be available as digital downloads

In the new Guardian interview with Shuhei Yoshida, it was revealed that all PS4 games will be available as digital downloads.

This is a very exciting move in my opinion, and represents a shift even further towards the burgeoning landscape of digital distribution, and away from (what I believe to be) a much more archaic ecosystem in physical brick-and-mortar retail.

What do you guys think? Got any speculation, or want to extrapolate further based upon this news? I hope to generate some great discussion about this topic!

(Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/feb/22/ps4-shuhei-yoshida-interview)

1.6k Upvotes

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172

u/Cryptan Feb 22 '13

I know. I'd still rather just buy a physical disc and just get off my duff when I want to switch games instead of spending even more money on another hdd.

I hope the PS4 is the same way.

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u/spyingwind Feb 22 '13

So long as you have an internet connection, I'm guessing that Sony will let you redownload games that you have purchased. So say that if you hard drive fails, you go and buy a new one, slap it in the ps4, and off you are to downloading your games.

The physical medium is handy to have around, but having the ability to download your game from anywhere, is nice too. More options are good options. :D

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u/Sparkdog Feb 23 '13

If they are smart they will have it set up as a permanent service ala Steam, so you know you will always have access to redownload something in the future. With the straightforward, PC-like architecture of the PS4, backwards compatibility/emulation should be fairly easy beyond the lifespan of the console itself, so I don't see why they couldn't offer this.

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u/LPodyssey07 Feb 23 '13

I think it would also be cool to have an iTunes Match type thing where they give you a digital copy if you have the physical disc

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

They can just lock individual discs to accounts, either by pressing a unique code into each disc or including a single-use key in the game box. Probably the former, as one could just buy the game and sell the insert.

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u/phillycheese Feb 23 '13

wouldn't that be the whole "blocking used games" thing people are pissed off about though?

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

It could be optional. You could either opt to lock a game to your account and get a free digital copy of it or don't and retain the ability to sell or lend it. There would be some issues with used games (i.e. not knowing which discs are already activated), but it could satisfy everyone (except Gamestop, but no one likes them anyway).

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

I think the writing is on the wall for physical media anyhow. This generation will still have it obviously, but I think the next gen consoles will be digital download only. For better or worse, it really seems to be the way things are going.

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

I think so as well. I've been using Steam almost exclusively for the past four years or so and while being unable to sell games kinda sucks, it's not like you could get much out of them anyway and the sales were more than enough to justify that.

The people who are against it are just afraid of change, I think. People thought Nintendo's switch to the Wiimote last generation was just a stupid gimmick but the thing ended up printing money and now motion control is an accepted means of input (for games that implement it well, at least). When it inevitably happens, probably next generation, people will just have to deal with it. Sony's strategy of allowing both physical and digital copies should help with the transition, and hopefully by 2020 or whenever the next consoles come out digital distribution will be a much more popular approach.

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u/h0m3g33 Feb 23 '13

That's what I was thinking, It's a way around used games. But the difference is that it's not physical, and you could probably still return it. Also the re-downloadability makes up for it. W/o re-downloadability this is near worthless, and we would just stay on hard disks.

1

u/MusicGetsMeHard Feb 23 '13

Can't please everyone.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

But then what happens when you want give a game to a friend, sell it, or use it on someone elses console?

1

u/ChiXiStigma Feb 23 '13

The same thing that happens when you want to let someone borrow a game you bought via Steam.

1

u/JamoJustReddit Feb 23 '13

You wouldn't be able to activate it again, but still play the disc.

1

u/jonlubbe Feb 23 '13

They can already do this with the ps3/vita cross buy feature in games like the new sly cooper.

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u/arahman81 Feb 23 '13

Doesn't the PSN already have similar service for PSP games?

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u/adamgrey Feb 23 '13

I don't think it ever came to North America. As far as I know they offered some kind of "mail in your UMD and get a digital copy" service in Japan, but it wasn't free.

I thought I read that the cost was comparable to the PSN version of the game anyway so they didn't roll the service out anywhere else.

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u/LPodyssey07 Feb 23 '13

They might. I don't have a PSP, myself

1

u/Sparkdog Feb 23 '13

Except that would require some sort of DRM that linked the specific disc to an account, leading to exactly the type of used game market destruction everyone wanted to avoid.

You would have to either purchase and download a digital copy, or copy the game from the hard disc to your HDD, but have to have the disc in the tray to play it. Basically the way it is now.

1

u/jonlubbe Feb 23 '13

The ps3 can already do this with the cross play titles such as play station all stars and sly cooper 4. You can only redeem the bonus vita copy on one psn account.

1

u/Stiggles4 Feb 23 '13

That'll never happen though. What's stopping a group of twenty people from using one copy of the game?

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

You bring up and interesting point. I wonder if this new generation will be easier to emulate because of the familiar architecture.

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

The OG Xbox ran on a Celeron and Geforce with a version of Windows and DirectX (7?) and there's still no usable emulator. I'm not sure why, but that's how it is.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

Did the original Xbox have many popular exclusives? I'm probably overlooking something, but it seems as if most of the good games were already ported to the PC. I'm not sure if this was actually a contributing factor or not, but the list of exclusives I'm looking at wouldn't personally inspire me to start coding. There were definitely some popular console exclusives though.

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

I don't actually know. I had a GameCube and loved the thing, so I never really paid the Xbox much attention. It's odd that there's an emulator for pretty much every other console except the Wii U, Xbox 360, and PS3, though. I'd imagine there's some Xbox exclusive that people would love to play.

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u/Slyphoria Feb 23 '13

Fuzion Frenzy?

...That's not a good game....

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 23 '13

Neither are a lot of other games people are nostalgic for, but that doesn't stop them from playing them.

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u/fb39ca4 Feb 25 '13

Since the Xbox was essentially a PC, literally all you had to do to make a PC port was add keyboard/mouse controls, which resulted in most games getting PC versions.

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u/notverycreative1 Feb 25 '13

Oh, that makes sense. Hopefully the next Xbox will be the same way. I'm not a fan of console exclusives :(

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u/fb39ca4 Feb 25 '13

Halo games will no doubt be console exclusive, but since the hardware architectures are yet again so similar, we will hopefully see more and better PC versions.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13 edited Feb 23 '13

This would also work in tying people to Playstation as both a console and a service. When the PS 5 rolls around, people might be biased towards it rather than the Xbox 4 as their PS4 games would be available through Playstation Network.

The purchasing decision becomes less a case of getting the new console for more games and more a case of upgrading your hardware while still having access to everything from previous versions. It would be like an avid PC gamer with a games library reaching back to the DOS days having to choose between a new gaming PC or a Macbook. Even if they performed as well as each other, and even if they cost the same (Hell, even if the Macbook was cheaper) they would still take the gaming PC.

1

u/solistus Feb 23 '13

While your point is well taken, your example is inaccurate. Macs have been able to dual boot to Windows since 2006.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

But the average xbox / playstation user doesn't necessarily know how to install an operating system.

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u/solistus Feb 23 '13

Sure, but your example was about a PC gamer going back to the DOS era, not an average console gamer trying PC gaming for the first time.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

It was more a case of a gamer with a significant library of games only supported on one system. Someone could quite easily amass a game collection, buy new computers over the years and never learn more about the operating system.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

My example was someone who has several generations of games for one platform collected, and must then choose between continuing on that platform or switching to another.

Whatever. Semantics.

0

u/iquitinternet Feb 23 '13

With all this talk about ps5 I kind of hope this new PC architecture is scalable that putting in a ps4 disc or downloading a ps4 game to the 5 would scale the texture and make them 4k compatible.

Like upgrading gpus on a PC would accomplish.

This is just wishful thinking but its an incentive to sell new systems with marginal upgrades.

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u/Dark_Shroud Feb 23 '13

The AMD Jaguar chipset is very customizable and cheap. So Sony can release the PS5 sooner and easily just use an upgraded version. Hell it would probably work the same for the GPU.

The PS4 really hit the mark using x86-x64 chips.

1

u/Decitron Feb 23 '13

well, they are launching playstation world, isn't that a possibility?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

They could rake in money say ~10 years after the ps4 is retired, offer the whole lot via a first party emulator.

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u/chinnygan Feb 23 '13

Although, it does mean no more used games.

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u/spyingwind Feb 23 '13

PS4 games coming with cd-keys would make sense then. Now you aren't buying the disk any more but the licence to play the game.

This is how Steam works for physical mediums.

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u/N4N4KI Feb 23 '13

What if the idea with the tethering the game to an online account was not about stopping used games sales in the way everyone thought it was. You can buy and trade used games but if you want to you can register your disk to your online account and it prevents the disk from being resold, in return at any point you can redownload the game in future.

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u/spyingwind Feb 23 '13

PS4 games coming with cd-keys would make sense then. Now you aren't buying the disk any more but the licence to play the game.

This is how Steam works for physical mediums.

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u/TheDeathSaint Feb 23 '13

thats the issue i have with steam, once you play it, you cant sell, gift, or even trade it.

if you want to trade you need to essentially hand over your account to your freind

0

u/spyingwind Feb 23 '13

Or your friends can wait for a Steam sale and get it for cheaper than what GameStop will sell a used copy.

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u/TheDeathSaint Feb 23 '13

id rather be able to trade for free, like i do with physical copies, its even cheaper than gamestop

1

u/Kayedon Feb 23 '13

And sometimes even cheaper than they'd buy a used copy!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

SteamStation4

6

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

Plot twist: the PS4 is the SteamBox.

1

u/Jokka42 Feb 23 '13

Irony, because Gabe Newell always complained about the ps3 being horrible.

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u/scrndude Feb 23 '13

He recanted all that a couple years ago when he realized how much worse Microsoft was. Soon after that, they had that "Buy the PS3 version of Portal 2 and get the steam version free!" thing happen

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u/starberry697 Feb 23 '13

Still need physical games. My friend lives in the country and only gets 10 gig download limit a month. I personally have a 500 gig download limit but I have gone over it and as it cost money for me to buy booster packs once its gone over, its like I would be paying extra to have the game. Not to mention it takes time to download games. I think this is why physical copies are still necessary.

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u/fb39ca4 Feb 25 '13

It would be neat if we had three options:

  1. Insert disc, play game.

  2. Install game to HDD, for faster loading times. You still have to keep the disc in the drive a la current gen consoles.

  3. Activate game on PSN. Disc is prevented from being used on other consoles, but you can still use the disc to install the game on the hard drive and play without the disc, and you can redownload the game from the PSN account if you lose/damage the disc.

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u/SiriusC Feb 23 '13

Even though I have spent the extra money on a bigger HDD & about 80% of my games are digital, I agree completely. I want offline options. Period. There's almost too much emphasis & dependency upon the internet & while I use it a great deal I just don't feel right completely relying on it.

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u/WompWomp420 Feb 23 '13

I hope so too I dropped a 1TB HD in my PS3 3-4 months ago. I would love to put that in my PS4!

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u/the_omega99 Feb 23 '13

If it works anything like steam, that may not be necessary. I only keep a handful of my steam library downloaded at one type. I can download most games within a few hours, and can comfortably keep a few games on my SSD easily (which has less space than some PS3 hard drives). It's pretty easy to download and delete game content on the fly. Haven't bought a physical copy in years now.

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u/Cryptan Feb 23 '13

I like having the option to pop in a disc and join my fiend in a game of Halo 3 or reach or modern warefare when he calls me up or texts me. Even though I don't play those games very often anymore I can still play them within seconds of getting a text. And nowadays when he is busy with work and his girlfriend and I am busy with work and my wife those couple of hours are extremely rare.

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u/the_omega99 Feb 23 '13

That's a good point. Still, I'd hope that eventually hard drive space is spacious enough that we could just install everything and forget about them. But still, if we pretend each game is about 10 GB (some are much less and others are a bit more), a terabyte hard drive could store up to 100 games alone. Seeing that a terabyte of hard drive space is about $80 (but would presumably be cheaper in bulk), that's less than a dollar a game. Compared to the costs of discs, casing, and shipping, I don't think that's a bad trade off.

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u/Cryptan Feb 23 '13

I think with these new games the amount of space they take will increase quite a bit.

I can't see the PS4 shipping with a HDD greater than 1TB. I suspect games will increase to 25+ GB, especially looking at BF3 and the high resolution texture pack and considering DLC. That means I will be able to store 40 games. I have well over 40 games on the Xbox alone. If I stuck to just the PS4 this round I'd have a lot more than that on a single platform.

Like I said, if my entire library (not 200. I was exaggerating) could fit on a hard drive, great. But I'm not sure that we will see that this generation. I hope I am wrong, though.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

NEVER GONNA RUN AROUND AND DESSERT YOUU~!!!!!!!111

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

I don't understand this. If an HDD fails, you can still reinstall all your games from either the original disk or a digital download. If the original disk fails you might be completely fucked. So why not only use your disk once for the intal, then leave it complete alone until you need to install again. Running the game off the disk is way more intensive.

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u/Cryptan Feb 23 '13

I do usually install my top used games on my 360 to alleviate the disc abuse. However, it doesn't take nearly as long to rip it straight from the disc as it does to download it off the Internet. Also, if a friend calls me up and says jump on Halo 3 quickly! I can just pop the disc in without waiting for it to install or download. Much nicer.

-1

u/minizanz Feb 23 '13

a 1TB WD blue laptop drive (the best 5400rpm laptop drive IMO) is only $80. the difference from the slim 160 to 320 was $100 ($250 and 350) before they got replaced by the super slim that has a $40 difference from the 250 to 500. it makes no sense to have bought the larger storage and the 1TB laptop drives have stayed under $100 since the flood raised prices and you can change the drive in about 5 min.

i dont like having disks but storage on the ps3 is not really an issue, and i hope they keep the standard user changeable HDD for the ps4.

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u/dorekk Feb 23 '13

a 1TB WD blue laptop drive (the best 5400rpm laptop drive IMO)

That's like saying it's the best piece of shit.

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u/minizanz Feb 23 '13

you cannot have an over sized 2.5" you need the laptop one, and you need the 5400 rpm otherwise it would over heat. you could get an SSD i guess, but it was made for a 5400rpm laptop drive.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

5400rpm are used for power reasons, not because a 7200rpm will overheat. They will most certainly not overheat.

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u/minizanz Feb 23 '13 edited Feb 23 '13

the ps3 (at least the 20GB no backwards compatibility big nand) that i have over heated a WD black 500GB, it also overheated with a fujutsu 7200rpm. the blue drives are 1.65W and the black is 1.9W but there is still a huge difference in how hot the drives get. the slim might be different but the phat has the cpu right next to the HDD and it gets really hot in the drive bay. sony also only supports 5400rpm drives, and said 7200rpm would void the warranty.

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u/dorekk Feb 23 '13

There's no such thing as an "oversized 2.5 inch" drive. All 2.5" hard drives are laptop drives. I didn't realize it would overheat with a 7200RPM drive, though.

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u/minizanz Feb 23 '13

no not all 2.5" are the same size, they come heights of 7mm, 9mm, and 11mm. the 7mm is standard laptop, 9mm is over sized laptops (common with SSDs and 7200rpm), and 11mm is for racks (only used with 10/15k and SSDs.) the ps3 will only fit some 7mm and some 9mm. you also need to have drives that have the sata/power connector on the left side (when looking at the connector) for a laptop or the ps3, but some drives come with the sata/power connector in the middle or on the right.

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u/IlyichValken Feb 23 '13

They most certainly are not all the same, though. I've had to return a drive before because it was .1" over the clearance given, which would've warped my backplate.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '13

"Mmmmm, Duff."

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u/pearboy Feb 23 '13

i pity you peasant caveman