Physical or Digital - what is your preference?

Obviously with PC almost all of my games are digital, which is convenient. I do remember the days when you actually got a physical cd and it didn't come with a download code either. For console it can go either way, but I tend to like physical in the event I want to resell it. Also, the special editions for console games usually has some nice cases and commemorative artwork. But I do get annoyed when I have so many boxes and cases laying around. Thankfully I do about half of my gaming on PC now so it's less of a problem. What about you, SW? Physical or digital?

Digital because I'm lazy. But will get everything on disc anyway because games I have bought digitally like Quantum Break that I won't play through again I can't sell.

I'm getting tired of swapping disks, leaning digital atm

digital only on both consoles and pc outside of a few specific limited-collector's editions(such as Fallout 4 for example)

Obviously digital. this is 2016 and not 1993.

digital copy donot waste our space and no chance of bieng lost and broken. what if physical disk broken or lost? you lost your game. this case can not be apply to digital.

Digital, it's just easier to close out of a game and just quickly launch another without having to get up cause I'm lazy.

For my Vita/3DS games, they'll most likely be physical due to small storage space I have for them.

Digital, convenience

Physical when available.

Physical for me. The convenience of digital doesn't come anywhere near close enough to outweigh the advantage of being able to sell your old games anytime you like. I'm just never gonna be so lazy that getting up to swap discs is an issue for me

If given the option, I'll always buy the disc.

Physical

Physical is best

on consoles its 100% physical because i get rid of my games when im done playing them.

Well, I no longer have a choice. The last local game store in my area has "refocused" their business. In other words, they no longer sell games. So I'm 100% digital now.

Digital

PC digital unless it's for collecting purposes/ older big box games.

Console, physical always unless there is great digital value or only available digitally.

Physical is so much better, so that.

My collection of games: Only digital.

Personally prefer physical and think digital especially on consoles is a rip off.

No man's sky is an example of that, I bought it physical for £44.99 my friend who's a digital junkie paid £49.99 off PSN we both hated the game the difference is I traded it in and got £42 back while he's stuck with useless £50 code that'll he'll never use again.

• PC/PS4/New 3DS/Xbox One-all digital only.
• Wii U-Physical.
• Xbox 360/PS3-mix with physical & digital.

Physical if I can help it. I like to have a collection. However, since leaving my wife and moving into an apartment space is limited. I have been going more digital due to that.

It depends. Right now, I prefer physical. I'm in Australia and I have awful internet speeds (1-5mbps). When I go back home in Canada, I prefer digital (150mbps).

So, if internet speeds aren't an issue, I'll go with digital. It's more convenient and I don't care for collecting. I hate clutter. However, in the back of my head, I know that a possibility exists where something can happen to one of my accounts or that a hard drive can bite the dust. Then I'm subject to a frustrating scenario.

Digital.

Digital. Full stop.

I wanted to play Nier the other day, and had to go digging to find the game box. It was buried behind a bunch of 40K books on the shelf and I had to go through probably 5 cubbies to find it. Had it been a PC game, I would have gone into my Steam or GOG library, installed it in roughly 20-30 minutes and been playing almost effortlessly after that.

Then I ran into issues of my RCA-3.5mm audio jack playing FULL VOLUME through headphones and realized that I needed an analog volume control and still haven't fixed my secondary TV audio problem. But that's irrelevant to this. The search for the game disc, and constantly having to swap discs, and have space taken up on shelves is just a hassle these days.

Physical!

Indies in digital.

Console gamer here and I feel more comfortable going digital on Xbox than PlayStation because Xbox officially supports external hard drives for games, backward compatibility and Play Anywhere. My brother and I game share so it's nice playing these digital games together at the same time, and I love being able to lend my account to other family members so they could play my games. There's Bing Rewards, Xbox Rewards or Microsoft Rewards and other mobile apps that gives you Xbox credits so that helps with cutting down prices on new releases but I usually could wait until these digital games goes on sale. We save more money going digital.

I haven't traded, lend nor sold any of my games on discs in decades so having the option of going digital is better for my situation. I do have a nice collection of blu-ray movies with steelbooks, digibooks and collectors editions. I don't mind going physical for movies because they come with digital copies and I share them with family also. And you're guaranteed to have the best quality for movies if they're on discs because HD and UHD/4K is only as good as your internet if you stream that content, so it's nice having a console like the Xbox One S and most likely the Scorpio to include a UHD/4K drive.

Digital on PC and a mix for console. Reselling games isn't really a priority for me, so i've learned not to care as much about digital on consoles.

Physical, unless the games are digital only, or included as a digital game with a physical purchase (example with Dishonored 2 which comes with the prequel in Digital)

My question is. If I have a console with 1TB hard drive space and I use it up, can I do it like Steam and simple uninstall the games but never lose the right to them? I know on computer this is possible, but what if in some years the new console comes out and they change things; would I still be able to retrieve/play my old library?

Or do I have to buy a new hard drive and make a backup of my games there?

PC: Digital Only

Consoles: Prefer physical unless i get a great (cheap) deal on digital

digital, much more convenient, especially since I buy a lot of games, I'd have a hard time managing the shelf space too, plus with the $5 savings on sales tax the $5 in rebates, the $10 net benefit to buying digital is more than I'm able to get for them when I'd get to selling my physical copies to GameStop so not only is it monetarily more sound I also retain rights to my games

I still buy physical on PS4/WiiU, mostly because Sony/Nintendo have shit DRM, and Sony really shits on gamers whose accounts get hacked and charges made against their credit cards, they'll only refund you back in store credit, and if you have the CC company block the charge or reverse it Sony threatens to wipe out your PSN account, all the games you own, and your trophies those fuckers, Nintendo themselves have only got caught up on the unified account things about a decade too late, they still lack a lot of cross platform rights ownership you could buy VC Metroid on Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and you'd have to pay each time

Physical, unless the asking price is absurd...some day I will decide to get an Earthbound and Mega Man X2 cartridge...

physical.

With decent Internet speeds, digital by far. But, if I had to relocate somewhere where the Internet speeds are slow? Discs would be my choice.

It wasn't that long ago when I was against both digital downloads and laptop gaming. But, progress can change my mind.

Ditto.

Gaming on PC = Digital. Games can be found super cheap that I don't care about having physical copies anymore.

Consoles = Physical. I don't trust having everything attached to a single platform holder.

Digital. I bought the 2tb xbone s. Don't like having to swap out discs.

Digital on all platforms. It's easily accessible while taking up zero physical space. Never had a problem with it.

Physical... Even for pc games

100% digital.

more digital than ever.

PC = digital

Console = physical

Digital so I don't have to wait or go anywhere.

yup, this. its soo convenient thats why im all digital this gen on both consoles and PC.

@FinalFighters:

Yea but you cant trade/sell digital games.

I like to get physical winkwink

Physical when I can, not a fan of digital at all.

Physical for movies. Digital Quality is always gimped.

Games, eh. Kinda stuck with digital.

Cept for retro systems of course.

Physical.

And don't expect physical media to be completely replaced by digital-download services until the internet infrastructure is massively improved in western countries, especially North America. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would be excluding far too many people in NA (and the EU) if they went digital-only in the next 5 years.

Also, a real change in the policies of ISPs with regard to bandwidth caps on consumers.

If the infrastructure continues to advance at the present snails-pace, expect physical media to be around until 2030 if not longer. If governments and industry work together to start improving the infrastructure now, or soon, then perhaps digital only can happen a bit sooner, like 2025. Just a guess, and that's unlikely to happen.

So you can absolutely count on future next gen systems (i.e. PS5, Xbox Two, Super NX) to use physical media, of one form or another.

Physical. It's going to be a pain in the neck re-downloading 80GB+ games in the foreseeable future.