Pros and cons of having a game on disc vs. having a digital copy

Specific to Xbox One, Digital allows for play without a disc present. It prohibits resale. Games purchased digitally can often times be refunded with a call to Live Support. I did this for the Xbox One version of the Destiny Digital Guardian Edition after
the news came out about the buy on 360, get it on Xbox One for free.

Disc-based games must have the disc in the console to be played. They can be resold. Disc-based games routinely go on sale unlike Digital, though MS has been better about sales on digital titles as of late.

There is no "size" difference as both digital and disc titles deposit the same bits on to the Xbox One HDD. In fact, installed-from-disc titles can be converted to digital titles (and thus obviate the need for the disc) by simply buying the digital version
of an installed-from-disc title. No re-downloading is required.

 

Regarding Feed's post, I find it interesting that we're now in the slow-going process of eventually going all digital - I used to read sci-fi books that would mention how the future physical medium would be in something akin to crystals, because it could
"hold information in 3D" and have over 1,000x the space of discs. I think back on reading that and have to laugh because we just went ahead and skipped that part.

 

Physical:

Pros: Can trade/sell, can loan; might be a collector; and possibly if you are not buying day 1 or in the first week or so can be cheaper.

Cons: If you do not take care of your stuff could get damaged; Need a little storage pace although very little; Have to physically change discs although it takes very little time or effort

Digital:

Pros: Does not break; No physical storage needed; can be switched almost instantly

Cons: Costs more past the initial launch and you can see full priced games when new digital is 1/2 the price; no loaning, selling, trading;

I generally go physical just for the value. I have actually sold older games for more than they were new quite a few times. And a few times Amazon had a double trade in deal and the games were really high value and I received a lot that way. With digital
I do not have that. Plus, if a company so choses they could shut down the servers for said console. That would make getting my games back hard if I was to have a hardware failure. And eventually these consoles all lose popularity and appeal to most and
that could happen. Most probably would not care but I know I will actually go back and play several of the games I have.

And I have been burned a time or two digitally. Game being removed and I could not re-download. Happened on some music as well.

 

For me digitial is the way to go also. Digital games should be cheaper than disc but as long as I'm doing my Bing rewards I'm getting $20 knocked off of the games I buy. The Destiny Digital Guardian Edition was $89 and I used $20 in my Microsoft account
from my Bing rewards and only paid $79. That's only $10 more than the regular edition of the game.

 

I prefer discs over digital. I guess I am old school when it comes to that. I enjoy opening my chest and seeing my collection of games dating back to the 6th gen.

The pro's to Digital, is obvious. Don't have to move to insert/eject disc. It is essentially eternal.

Con's, you can not trade it in.

 

I'd like to point out a flaw for many of you that decide to go physical: the primary purpose of going digital is so you can resell your games. However, many of you also said that your physical discs taking up a lot of physical space is not an issue because
you can just throw away the game cases and keep them in a book-sized folder or sleeves. Doing so however, I'm fairly certain, will reduce the amount you could get if you attempt to resell it. So, from my experience, you can either get a decent resell value
by taking up a lot of space, or save space but not get a decent resell value - either way, you're not necessarily going to get the best of both worlds.

 

Sometimes I wish I bough physical copies of games, there are games I would sell or trade in namely Ryse, Forza and Titanfall, but now I am stuck with them

 

Another good reason for digital is that even though you can't trade them in you can delete them from your console and if you choose to go back to the game later you can just re-download it instead of paying for it again.

 

I think that disc is better, like many have said, you can sell and trade the disc version compared to digital. It's perfect for those games that you buy and don't like, or have beaten already ready and no longer want to play, and want to sell the game. You
can't do this with digital games. Besides, I like looking at my tower of games sitting on my entertainment center. = )

 

The world will never be ready to pay $99 for a digital game only, I'm sorry but it's unrealistic to consider that every country and every gamer has the meens to download every game as they get bigger and better. We may not always have discs, we may have
usb only or SD. The option is there for everyone now, it's not the future it's now. Just the thought of digital only is enough to sway people to PC's with trainers etc etc, That option currently exists and is cheap enough to consider digital only. Developers
want to sell their product, not just some ISO that's easily open to copy.

@Avadox - I don't mind my over filled games room either, However having both choices is a good thing imo.

 

The funny thing is that before all of the fuss regarding the console's release and DRM, MS actually stated that they were working on a way to allow for the trading/re-selling of their digital games. Sadly, since everyone caved, it didn't happen.

 

Disc will always be better for me, for probably most of the same reasons as above, and i have 2 kids, both now 12 and 10. And i have never lost a single disc to them. I have cd's going back to 1988, that still work just fine. So i don't honestly know what
people are doing with them, to have to actually worry about damaging a disc.

And sorry GG, When did Microsoft actually "State, before the fuss about DRM" that you would be able to trade/re-sell your digital games??

 

Calling All Aussies, Just bought Destiny for $67 at target, thats $32 discount. Also, if the XB1 is doing so bad then why was there no copies of Destiny left for it? Yep, bought the opposition version, sorry. It's 360 and then against my will, digital for
xb1.

 

Hello everyone

I too like looking at my shelf and seeing my collection on display

Have a nice day or afternoon or night everyone

 

Try downloading Forza 5, BF4, COD Ghosts on Xbox 1 at ADSL Broadband speeds which average 7-14mb/s down and 0.9mb/s up. Plus families may have monthly data limits on their plans. That's why disc version are better. Also you can trade them in.

Pros with digital is no disc required can play straight from the console.

I too like looking at my physical disc game library but I do get some games digitally including Minecraft.

Even at Microsoft's Xbox Headquarters, Microsoft keeps DISC games and buts them up on a big wall. Search for a video on Youtube titled "Microsoft Campus Tours - Xbox Headquarters" It's an 8 minute 20 second approximately video. Skip to 5 minutes 30 seconds
in the video has Major Nelson in it with Tina. Ahh.... gotta love physical.