 Hey everyone, today we're going to be talking about an all digital future for gaming. The pros, the cons, why I actually think it's a mostly good thing, why we don't need to worry about it yet, but why there's still some concerns that exist and have existed for quite some time that aren't necessarily specifically to an all digital future but do have to do with the way games are being delivered to us currently and why personally I've been embracing digital more and more and more for even some reasons that aren't on this list that are just personal to me. So first off, let's go over the cons because I think it's the easiest thing to talk about other cons and before I do that, I do want to remind you, we do still have a giveaway going on right now for a $100 Nintendo Switch, PlayStation or Xbox gift card for a copy of Monster Hunter Rise which by the way arrives in three days and the thing is getting like high 80s reviews, it's pretty crazy so definitely going to be a big mega hit on Switch. We also have $220 Nintendo Switch, PlayStation or Xbox gift cards to give away as well for four total winners this month so head down to the pinned comment or the description to enter. Alright, so I got a list of stuff here that I want to go over. This is stuff that I was able to think about and research and look into and see what people's real concerns are and obviously the big concern about going with an all digital future is the internet is required, not everyone has internet, not everyone has fast internet. This doesn't really necessarily apply to people watching my video, most of you guys if you can watch YouTube videos probably have good enough internet barring data caps to be able to partake in an all digital future but it is a concern. A concern I think is lessened by the fact that on everything but Switch you have to install games anyways and those take forever but yes it is a concern if you're someone who is in a place that doesn't have internet or has really slow internet or has data caps and all digital future is going to be pretty difficult to swallow at least this time. I think that concern is slowly going away by the way and obviously we know Elon Musk is trying to launch this global mesh satellite network but anyways that's just a concern that does technically still exist because there are still some people that have to worry about it. Probably not people watching my video but people who can't watch things like YouTube. Alright concerns over companies shutting down online services on older hardware causing a loss to game access. This is obviously a concern that's always going to be around until something changes in the industry. Right now if Nintendo shuts down the Nintendo Switch online servers not just the service but they shut down the actual eShop I can't redownload my games so if my Switch breaks I can't get those games again. This is in addition to some games that require online checks and verifications to even use them even if you own the physical version it can still require online checks and verifications to play the games. So once those servers are gone and they get rid of the shops you can't get those games back at least you can't get them back from Nintendo. We'll get into that later because you can technically still get your games and eventually play them on those systems again but it's still a concern it's a valid concern and it's one that something has to change in the industry for that to happen the industry actually needs to lean more into PC gaming not less but we'll get into that later why this isn't really a concern on PC and could be alleviated on these platforms especially to keep going with a unified style of development of their hardware moving forward where they're using the same architecture but we'll get into that towards the end of the video. Another con is in regards to games as a service because obviously one way in all digital future works is games as a service like Game Pass you don't have any control over what games are added or removed from that service even though as we have seen with TVs and movies what typically happens is a movies removed off one service it gets added to a different one so if it gets removed on Netflix it'll appear on Hulu it'll appear on various other services Amazon Prime sometimes the movies are just outright removed altogether same with certain TV shows I understand this can be really frustrating and it is something that I even get frustrated well I've seen you know House MD is an example bounce between three different services it is what it is that's just part of dealing with the as a service part but you can obviously still purchase them individually digitally technically like House MD you can actually buy physically as well physical media is not actually gone for movies and DVDs but our movies and TV shows but anyways getting into this even deeper getting into this even deeper technically you don't own your games that's obviously a concern for many people they want to own their games they want to have a physical product they can hold and that's again a valid thing outside of the fact that technically even when you own the physical product you just own the right to use a license that can be revoked you don't actually own the game itself very technical details not sure if this has ever been tried in court to even see if this holds up but obviously that affects things like your ability to resell games you can't resell digital copies although some people do try selling their digital Steam accounts illegally it's kind of weird but you can't resell copies of games and so that's kind of all tied into the hood you don't own it you can't resell it we're getting to that but later too I got some personal reasons why I actually kind of like that to be honest alright it's slightly harder to share games it basically right now like if you own a switch and you have a copy of Mario Odyssey I can hand it to my friend Eric and he could just play it you stick it in his thing and play right now if you want to play any of my digital games on switch technically I can log into my account on his switch and then he could play those games as long as I'm not logged in and playing those games so technically it's almost easier since I don't have to meet with someone physically I just have to exchange login details hopefully you trust the person you're giving your login details to and then hopefully have your card locked down on your account so you can't just like you know buy games on your account but the point is that technically it's a little bit easier since you don't even have to meet up with someone to share games and you can share a wider breadth of games at a single time but again it's not the same as handing someone a physical product that you own so again that's that's obviously a concern beyond all that there's obviously questionable aspects that people seem to have a universal concern about but don't actually hold up in the grand scheme and that particularly is game preservation so a lot of people worry that without physical media there is no game preservation and that's simply untrue it's been untrue since digital became a thing and we've been getting tons of indie games that are digital only you think those indie games are not preserved it's actually easier to preserve games when they're on a physical hard drive than on a disc or on a cartridge because you have to specialize tools and oftentimes to dump games off of those undo where are you dumping them to physical hard drives it's actually not as hard to get the data off of those hard drives as it is off of the actual cartridges and stuff so it's kind of a misnomer that game preservation is ruined or in threat without like oh my gosh mario 35 is going to go away at the end of the month you don't think that application has already been dumped off of a switch onto the internet stored in someone's cloud server or stored in someone's hard drive then you're dumb of course it is and fans are gonna bring that game back with online functionality by the way at some point down the road just because you won't be able to download it off Nintendo servers anymore doesn't mean that you're not gonna be able to play the game in some form in the future so game preservation isn't technically a real concern the concerns for that are just as relevant whether it's physical or digital you're gonna dump it onto a hard drive that's how you end up preserving games not by keeping them in sealed boxes on a wall or when the battery dies the cartridge doesn't work anymore or whatever like the old NES games some of the old NES games anyways the ones with saves and all that all right let's get into some of the pros now we talk a lot about the negatives because I feel like the negatives are what people cling to and I'm here to tell you right now that I'm not trying to convince you that you should be all for an all digital future I do want I do think you need to be less scared of it than you probably are and I do think that there is actually positives and the positives to an all-digital future are essentially the same positive we already have today okay mind we are currently not all digital we do have consoles that are all digital digital only PlayStation 5 all digital addition Xbox series s guess what all digital I'm surprised we don't have an all digital switch at this point that they actually allowed cartridges to be put on the switchlight I thought for sure they would make switchlight digital only but they didn't there's probably gonna be future Nintendo platforms that are digital only we've seen it in the past PSP go was digital only thanks shout out to player essence for reminding me of that also by the way player essence by the way staunchly against on all digital future so it'd be interesting to see if he makes a response video or live stream to this I love that man I mean it's already him and I often but once a year or so has some very differing opinions on things and this happens to be one of them and I'm sure you guys are gonna differing opinions and I do but gets let's get into the pros because yes there's advantages to all digital there's advantages to digital period in fact those advantages are exasperated the more people that actually take advantage of them and start to realize that maybe things aren't so bad so first off quicker access to games you don't have to change out discs you don't have to change out cartridges seems mundane I know but it is it is what it is you know you get to preload games so you don't have to wait for day one installs typically like if you pre-order a digital game you don't have to wait for for a pre-order you know you don't have to wait for an install at midnight you can already have it installed sometimes you can even play it before midnight which is awesome so you get quicker access to games it's easier to swap between games it's just easier period you know take advantage of one of the main things that the Xbox series X right we have the suspend feature we're able to quickly switch between games well if you had to keep swapping on disc it's not really any quicker than is it so quicker access to games it's just a convenience it doesn't have to matter to you but technically it's an advantage it is something that everyone can agree is good in general I think I don't think there's anyone that says hey getting into your games faster is a bad thing unless the games crashing the faster you get into it I don't know no stock issues can't find a copy of a game I know this doesn't happen as often anymore but it does still happen games could still be sold out don't have to worry about that digital it's always available well until Nintendo removes things out the eShop on March 31st but you know what I mean in general digital games are always available so long as the shop is available okay like it's just there's no stock issues you never need to worry about when a game's gonna go out of stock just period you just don't have to worry about it it's better for the environment now we don't like to talk about this very often because there's a lot of ins and outs in technology in the environment slave labor and what some really bad crap that's happened in China and all this stuff but when it comes just strictly to waste when it comes to plastics that don't easily break down and often aren't recycled when it comes to the metals and the certain fabrication methods used to make discs and cartridges at the end of the day no physical media means less waste ending up in landfill someday and you might argue I'm gonna hold on to my collection forever that's fine but you know your children are going to or the people after that the people of that it's eventually gonna end up getting thrown out it's just is it is what that's just what's gonna happen with most of them and even if you're someone who can guarantee for life of the planet earth that your copy of a game is never gonna go on a landfill okay what about the millions and millions and millions of millions of other copies of that game that are going to end up in a landfill I mean copies of ET they couldn't even sell they buried in a desert like let's just be honest okay it is better for the environment to be all digital it is maybe not an advantage to the consumer outside of creating a you know slightly improved way of life for future generations all right I know you can argue it's a pretty weak argument but I wanted to bring it up because it's technically true all right so all your purchases are actually backed up if someone steals a copy of your physical game you have to go buy a new game plain and simple you bring switch games of school you drop on the bus you lose it you got to buy a new one digital huh you break your switch you break your Xbox you break go buy a new system your entire library is there when you log in now they might hold it at ransom especially certain cloud save techniques they might hold it at ransom behind a paid online service but technically it's there technically you do not need to rebuy your games so it's a massive advantage to not losing any of your games at least for the lifetime of that platform which we're going to get into in a little bit technically right now on every platform that isn't switch you install every game you won't so you put your disk in so PlayStation 5 XO series X what or you know Xbox one PlayStation 4 you put your disk in you know this way or this way whichever way and you install a game can take minutes could take hours usually many hours and there's day one updates so the disk just acts as an unlock key yeah I'll have some data on it to help with the initial install but it's still basically just an unlock key it doesn't do anything but protect you from not being able to play your game without the disk in games aren't right off the disk anymore the disk is just e-waste it's just an unlock key okay so the pro here is that since you already have to install all your games you already need day one updates why the hell do should we have a disk to unlock it now look this doesn't get into some of the other reasons that you probably like physical as an example your collector collectors like to have physical copies of things they like to have physical products to hold they like to you know be able to take those products and use them and have them on a shelf I have physical copies of switch games and you'll in fact over here I've got you know what a bunch of DS games I've got you know I don't know maybe 10 physical switch games or so I got a few game cube games over there I got some what three Xbox games maybe four a couple old school PC games medieval Total War 2 and Witcher 2 I have those physically and dishonored I also have physically and you'll see even though Mario 64 copy or like an NFL game for the Sega Genesis you'll see I have some physical copies of games but that's about the extent of my collection I own between switch PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X and my PC I must own like 2,000 games my physical collection makes up like maybe 1% probably less than that why I grew up being a PC and Nintendo gamer I'm still a PC I mean you see see giant monitors back here that this this one here's like my big giant widescree one 144 Hertz and then you know what if I don't give a crap for about that and I want to go 4k 60 I got this other monitor back here like okay cool like I have always been a PC gamer and I've always been a Nintendo gamer those are the two things I've consistently been and I went with PC when it went from physical media to now you don't even get disk drives with your laptops and computers anymore unless you special order them in and it's really hard to find really good laptops at good prices that even have a disk drive why is that because everything now is digitally downloaded through Steam through other places you know good old games the epic store like there's just all these other delivery methods you know the Windows store the Xbox store like there's all these other delivery methods for games that ended up being this thing where we were initially irked we couldn't install games off of discs but then you know what happened PC gamers accepted it and PC gaming grew PC gaming is bigger right now in 2021 with basically no physical media then it's ever been there's more people enjoying games not last now this is the argument that goes against consoles being all digital because the reason PC can get away with it is on my PC I can go back on my PC and still play a game like return to Zork from you know 50 years ago like before I was even born the game people and maybe came over the around the town anyway it's it's over 30 years old I could go back and play that game still on this PC you can't necessarily do that like on switchers gonna be nest games you can't play on switch because they're not available through the online service or any other delivery method the big advantage PC has is no matter how much you upgrade your hardware you can always still partake in the older games sometimes are broken for a little bit that does happen sometimes fans have to go in and patch them there'll be there was a while I couldn't play Lords of the Realm 2 on newer versions of Windows when Windows 10 came out because it just I couldn't get it to run and then you know some fans came along they patched the game and now I can play it so there is a lot of things when you look back at the history of PC that they've dealt with and PC gaming has always been slightly more complicated I don't think it's as complicated if you make it out to be but I've also been PC gaming for a long time but the thing is we are perfectly fine being all digital on PC I think the reluctance to all digital comes from a history of always having physical products available I think our children today grow up not giving two shits about physical games think about think about what are they probably gonna be primarily gaming on when they're older just think about it like realistically what are young adults using more than anything a cell phone there's no physical media I plug into this how do I enjoy games on here all right I download them off an app store right doesn't matter what phone you have you download your games off an app store you digitally game all right well maybe VR maybe my kids are gonna get way into VR well okay most VR games are delivered digitally there's I can't even think maybe beatsaber there's hardly like any that are available physically so you're gonna be playing those digitally they're growing up where they have Netflix and Spotify and they're just used to you use streaming services and you use digital downloads for everything that's their world the world that I came from where we have physical products that we care about owning and collecting is going away and the reason personally that I am now really deep in them in the digital and it's not because I'm a PC gamer even though that happened ages ago no no no no the reason that deep in the digital now is when I was in a financial crisis back in 2019 I had a hard time in 2019 not 2020 I ended up selling my entire physical collection of switch games which numbered almost 70 physical copies of games it was a lot I sold it because I needed the money and that is right there a massive advantage to owning physical games is that I had the ability to resell them get a bunch of money and pay some bills whoo chalk one up for physical games but I find that by having digital I am less inclined to make poor decisions and this is a personal thing but as an example let's say I really want to see the new movie at the movie theater and I realize there's other ways to get movies now and I just don't happen to have the money you know my friends are all going on this day I'm not gonna have the money for a week well you know I could grab a couple games off the shelf go to GameStop sell them and there's my movie in my popcorn in my drink or I could just wait what am I more like to do grab a couple games off the shelf and go actually go to the movie with my friends or wait a week and go by myself probably gonna grab a couple games and sell it but without that option available to me I end up holding on to my games I end up having a larger game library because I'm less tempted to sell games because I can't sell my digital games when I buy a digital game when I bought the PlayStation 5 right I have the disc version of PlayStation 5 because it was the only one I could get you know with how hard it's been to get those and I have no regrets I am perfectly happy with that purchase but I've yet to stick a physical disc in that wasn't a Blu-ray disc I played movies on it but I haven't used it I haven't actually used it for anything but playing games digitally every game I own is a digital download because I don't see the purpose of buying a disc when I have to install the game anyways if I have to install the game anyways unless I plan to resell it like a Madden or an NBA game which you know they get replaced every year so maybe you want some resale value on that what the hell's the point and then I'm on Xbox Series X I own a single physical game that's specifically for that it was Assassin's Creed Bahá'u'lláh otherwise I just use Game Pass and the big thing for me is I'm saving money steam sales saving money I'm saving money in this all digital world you can hate Game Pass I love it oh they're gonna remove games someday okay but they're also adding more Netflix removes things but then adds more it's okay to not just play the same game for 20 years it's okay to move on to newer stuff you know the fortnight goes down one day it's okay to move on to whatever a newer thing is like apex legends or something I'm just saying that it's okay to just partake in the digital and not feel guilty about it my guilt went away a long time ago when I started realizing that you know what it's more convenient and it's just better now there's things that need to get improved right we recently just heard about PlayStation 3 and I think PSP and Vita I haven't all their online shop shut down and there's a bunch of concern because hey look there's games that require online checks on PlayStation 3 you won't be able to play them anymore there you know if you're all digital there and your PlayStation 3 dies how are you getting your library back well I'm telling you right now how you get your library back as you go online you download the ROM because every single PlayStation 3 games already been dumped online and PlayStation 3's have been hacked so you just hack your PlayStation 3 you dump your ROM you put it back on hard drive bada bing bada boom and you're playing your PlayStation 3 games on a PlayStation 3 I know again that's a game preservation they've already been preserved they're just taking away a convenience for you and that sucks and this is what needs to change about game systems we need to be able to carry over our library system to system to system this is where game consoles are behind PC you need to be able to carry games and game saves from system to system to system to system it doesn't matter if the PlayStation 5 PlayStation 6 PlayStation 7 doesn't matter if it's a switch switch to switch 3 switch for Xbox X Xbox Y Xbox Z Xbox ABC D eFG doesn't matter you need to be able to bring your games and your game saves across all of them now look game pass and X cloud are probably one of the more forward thought processes and game streaming we're not getting quite in the game streaming at this conversation because that that is part of the digital future is game streaming well that's a whole different conversation it is again part of the equation but not I'm not a part that's relevant to today's talk I just want you guys to honestly look in the mirror and go look if you play on these other systems why does it matter if you have a disk or not most of the games you play require updates anyway so if your system dies and you put that disk in a new system and the online shop goes away you still won't be able to play the game you still won't be able to so what's the difference I'm actually imploring you what is the difference now look there's gonna be a lot of arguments down in the comments I'm sure people on one side of the fence or the other problem I assume most fans of my channel are probably all for physical media and I'm not here to poo poo on you we don't live in an all-digital world right now okay unless you're a PC gamer if you are a console gamer that's not the world we live in we have all we we are living in what I feel is the best of both worlds we have every game available physically except for obviously some indie games a lot of indie games and then we also have digital and we also have games as a service we have the whole world right now this current generation of PlayStation 5 xbox series x in switch is quite literally the best of all digital and physical worlds at once this is maybe the greatest gaming generation ever for user choice and that's awesome but obviously do we think this user choice is gonna continue forever do we need to worry that physical games are going to wait maybe I don't care physical games stay around by the way I'm not here to advocate for we should have an all-digital future and physical games suck it should just get I'm just saying that if it happens I don't think it's the end of the world maybe I'm just embracing the younger generation that's coming up without physical media I don't know but maybe it's because I have a father with three kids and I'm starting to understand the value of digital over physical where my kids can't lose things you know when you switch games I've lost because of my kids I don't worry about that anymore I I guess I'm just in this world where I actually am kind of appreciating the old digital and I'm appreciating that I own an entire platform in Xbox Series X that I just pay like a yearly subscription fee and I get pretty much all the games I want they're adding all the EA games are adding all the Ubisoft games soon they're trying to get Ubisoft Plus fully on there you know they keep expanding that service we get all the Bethesda games on their before like I don't really have a reason to ever open my wallet again on that platform just pay my yearly fee and move on I like that I can access to more games than I would normally because it makes it cheaper I like that there's a lot of digital game sales and I'm not talking about I don't want to go to be in the sales because some people argue it you know there's more digital sales and physical sales I think it's a negligible thing because obviously there's times that you can get like physical games that are 40 45 bucks the even for switch like breath of the loud get it for 45 on Amazon still selling for 59 99 on switch digital shop so I I think it's kind of a wash when it comes to sales but and I think maybe the biggest downfall is obviously user choice when you go all digital you're getting rid of the choice we have now right now as consumers we have the best of all worlds and we have a lot of user choice that user choice if we do go all digital does go away and it just turns into do you buy individual games digitally or do you use a service and that that'll be the only choice we have someday if an all digital future comes I'm okay with that future I'm already starting to embrace that future most my switch games are digital I have like 80 something games something like 70 of them are digital you know all my games on PlayStation 5 and series extra digital I don't really see a reason to change that besides having a cool collection of cartridges in the background of videos that I'm never gonna touch I can't remember the last time I opened one of these cases they just sit there they're eventually gonna rot out and be junk and garbage but I mean hey looks cool I'll give you that all right that's just my take though I also don't keep my games in those cases so that that's also part of the reason that don't get touched I keep them in a separate one of my switch cases of nothing anyways you guys let me know what you think about this down in the comments below I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this it's just all personal opinions do you prefer physical do you prefer digital are you afraid of an all digital future do you think in all digital futures coming and what are your concerns and what are the things you do love about digital maybe things I didn't even bring up all right guys I'll get you in the next video