Series S/X Xbox: Physical game sales barely exist anymore

[Badseed Badseed]

Xbox hardly exists anymore...

 

[DjQuick2008]

X box will be lucky to see 2026 out im abandoning ship soon. My series S has enough 360 and fighting games on it to play offline to still entertain me.

 

[Sfjeov]

Xbox ---> X_Xbox

 

[Vardalis]

I'm not surprised. The aggressive push into the Game Pass model kind of defeated a big chunk of the reason for most people buying physical. I mean hell, why spend $60 or $70 on a physical copy of some upcoming game when you could try it for a weekend on Game Pass then never look at it again? And when the game itself isn't even on the disc most of the time these days and needs tons of patches it's also more convenient to just get it digitally.

 

[PhaseJump]

I stopped buying physical Xbox games when they lit up Games on Demand.

 

[Zerpina]

I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I bought a physical game from a store, thrift shops not withstanding.

I mean like a Walmart, K-Mart, etc....
I know the last physical one I bought was for the Xbox 360, I know that for a fact since it was the last new console I bought. So there you go. I do find physical games in thrift shops from time to time and buy them.

But Xbox, being greedy as most if not all companies are, have dug their own grave with how they are doing. And who in their right mind is going to pay a thousand dollars for a handheld? If I were going to buy a pricey handheld, I’d buy a Steam Deck. At least I could put Batocera on it and play what I wanted.

But no. Game sales are more or less gone the way of Blockbuster and well K-Mart is gone. I give it another two maybe five years and that’s being generous, and you’ll basically only be able to buy games with Microsoft points or whatever the hell they call them now.... Not because they want to sell the cards but because they’ll make more by doing that.

Nope, you can't buy the game without MS Points. You’ll pay ten percent more that way and like it.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

It's sad but it may be the end of physical gaming...

 

[iamthemilkman]

It's sad but it may be the end of physical gaming...

Physical collecting is actually making a comeback. It started with vinyl, however enough people are seeing how ownership is important given the rising costs of subscription services and the fact that you don't actually own anything to watch/play/listen to if you let those subscriptions lapse.

 

[PhaseJump]

Physical gaming on PS and Xbox already requires optional optical drives. Physical gaming on Switch 2 requires you deal with a limited selection of games, or use of key cards that require downloads.


The internet will replace everything. The DRM laws will need to adapt to maintain consumer freedoms and property rights.

 

[Zerpina]

Physical collecting is actually making a comeback. It started with vinyl, however enough people are seeing how ownership is important given the rising costs of subscription services and the fact that you don't actually own anything to watch/play/listen to if you let those subscriptions lapse.

I know a lot of people have started buying Movie/ TV series DVDs and such again too, just because fuck the streaming services

 

[iamthemilkman]

I know a lot of people have started buying Movie/ TV series DVDs and such again too, just because fuck the streaming services

I've started doing that. While I own a good many, I was never a big collector of DVD's and Blu-ray's. I mostly collected games and music, but given how you have to own a bunch of different subscription services to watch classics, I'd rather just buy them. If I want to watch Charlie Brown holiday specials, I need to subscribe to Apple. If I want to watch The Muppets: Christmas Carol, I need to subscribe to Disney. And on and on. No thanks, I'll buy them for cheap and never have to pay to watch them again.

 

[Zerpina]

I've started doing that. While I own a good many, I was never a big collector of DVD's and Blu-ray's. I mostly collected games and music, but given how you have to own a bunch of different subscription services to watch classics, I'd rather just buy them. If I want to watch Charlie Brown holiday specials, I need to subscribe to Apple. If I want to watch The Muppets: Christmas Carol, I need to subscribe to Disney. And on and on. No thanks, I'll buy them for cheap and never have to pay to watch them again.

Now me, I don't mind all digital.

Now, the caveat is when I have it on a HDD or SSD and multiple backups of it.
I don't mind it being purely digital. I know drives fail, but again, multiple backups.

I don't have the room for box sets upon box sets of anime that I would physically have to have to replace the digital ones I have. Same with movies and TV shows, And Games pffftttt not even close....
I'm not for the big companies going all digital so they can screw us over. But if they are going for the "You'll own nothing and like it" mentality, well I would say I would go for the "Then piracy isn't theft" mentality.....

But let's face it, they would throw me under the damned prison if they knew how many <Cough> backups I have made of things.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

At this point im more optimistic about the modding community when the Xbox-brand finally dies out .

The series x on itsself is a powerful machine capable of everything when it finally gets its shackles broken . We are technically at the peak of gaming-tech and this could finally be an opportunity to stick to that console and stay only for indies , emulation and the homebrew scene alone .

MS mismanaged alot over the decades and never readed the room when the ball is at their own hands . Many projects cancled that could be huge , many ideas squandered because for the temporary money and trends that died out fast and oversaturated the market and clout instead of success .

I mean , who wants the next console gen when already this still running whole gen was mostly dissapointment after dissapointment ?
I rather wish that we stay with the tech at the moment , master the tech and finally learn to design games again that should experiment and gives us concepts that rock instead of formulaic mediocre output what we got lately with no innovation and even enthusiasm whatsoever .

 

[Zerpina]

At this point im more optimistic about the modding community when the Xbox-brand finally dies out .

The series x on itsself is a powerful machine capable of everything when it finally gets its shackles broken . We are technically at the peak of gaming-tech and this could finally be an opportunity to stick to that console and stay only for indies , emulation and the homebrew scene alone .

MS mismanaged alot over the decades and never readed the room when the ball is at their own hands . Many projects cancled that could be huge , many ideas squandered because for the temporary money and trends that died out fast and oversaturated the market and clout instead of success .

I mean , who wants the next console gen when already this still running whole gen was mostly dissapointment after dissapointment ?
I rather wish that we stay with the tech at the moment , master the tech and finally learn to design games again that should experiment and gives us concepts that rock instead of formulaic mediocre output what we got lately with no innovation and even enthusiasm whatsoever .

I absolutely agree with this, and even with breaking the shackles as you put it, of the console, it is still a locked-down device.

Hell, Dankpods built a PC equivalent of the PS5 <using Bazzite> but his has one thing over it....
It actually has Games to play. I think we are at the point where consoles are pretty much useless in the grand scheme of things. New consoles I mean, are basically just OS locked Mid tier PCs anymore anyhow.

Aside from Nintendo's proprietary stuff, most if not every game on each console gets a PC release anyway. So why have a box that can only play what they will allow you to?

PC Master Race

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Physical gaming on PS and Xbox already requires optional optical drives.

The PS5 Pro is expensive yet didn't have it by default...

Physical gaming on Switch 2 requires you deal with a limited selection of games, or use of key cards that require downloads.

At least first party games are physical... for now.

Aside from Nintendo's proprietary stuff, most if not every game on each console gets a PC release anyway. So why have a box that can only play what they will allow you to?

Basically (as long as the ports are good).

 

[DjQuick2008]

i have my gamepass paid to Jan will be experiencing assassins creed for the first time. Series S has no disc drive so i stack 360 games on there.

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

Well, xbox sales are just low, finding one can be challenging sometimes.


And it doesnt help that most of Xbox physical games have an empty disc with just the basic stuff so you can download the rest.

 

[Heinzu]

I would not take anything that is said seriously, it is clear Xbox is in trouble we know that now but I don't think that the exact truth is being told. It may also be that a lot of things are just staged as a show to keep the conversation going because it is important that you have people's attention. Microsoft is not stupid even if they act like it. I guess that's some kind of strategy they're pursuing but I don't think that the result that will come out of it will satisfy Microsoft.