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GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

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Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#11

Post by stuxnet79 »

This is bad for many reasons:

- Externalizes the costs of distribution to consumers. DVDs and Blu Rays cost a pittance compared to the $100 MSRP that GTA 6 is rumoured to retail under. GTA 6 will likely break records for the highest single day gross of a media release of all time. They can't allocate some of that top line to providing a physical token that gamers can collect?

- Sets a bad precedent for future AAA releases in terms of acceptable size. Forces gamers to have to buy more storage at a time when storage costs are astronomical. At 200GB I don't know how anybody can justify valuable space in their SSD for a single game.

- Genuinely leads to worse quality product. Without physical media there's no deadline and effectively no incentive to provide a polished product on release day. Have fun playing a broken game for the next 3 to 5 years.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#12

Post by stuxnet79 »

HDBaseT wrote: post #8
LandenLove wrote: post #3

In my opinion, disc based games have been a ridiculous way to sell modern games because they are physically incapable of storing the amount of game data required for modern AAA games. I understand that they still exist because of the resale value, but solid state storage similar to Nintendo Switch cards makes more sense to me. On an even more personal note, very few modern games, if any, are worth purchasing for my o…

A PS5 Bluray can hold 100GB of data, sure some AAA titles are in excess of 100GB, although that is still 100GB that the player doesn't have to download, plus they enable re-sell-ability and partially maintain the status quo of "owning" a title.

How much of that 100GB is actually optimized usage? I suspect that a hard cap on the size of the game would lead to a better quality product. The size inflation of games has literally gone insane. I was looking at my Steam library and Tekken 7 was taking up close to 100GB of space which makes absolutely no sense, because it has the same fundamental gameplay as Tekken Tag 1 which was released on a 700MB CD ROM for the PS2's launch.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#13

Post by basch »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #11

This is bad for many reasons: - Externalizes the costs of distribution to consumers. DVDs and Blu Rays cost a pittance compared to the $100 MSRP that GTA 6 is rumoured to retail under. GTA 6 will likely break records for the highest single day gross of a media release of all time. They can't allocate some of that top line to providing a physical token that gamers can collect? - Sets a bad precedent for future AAA rel…

"At 200GB I don't know how anybody can justify valuable space in their SSD for a single game."

What game plays off the disc itself? Most games copy to the ssd and then just download a new full copy of the game from the cloud the second the copy from the disc is done.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#14

Post by chillfox »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #11

This is bad for many reasons: - Externalizes the costs of distribution to consumers. DVDs and Blu Rays cost a pittance compared to the $100 MSRP that GTA 6 is rumoured to retail under. GTA 6 will likely break records for the highest single day gross of a media release of all time. They can't allocate some of that top line to providing a physical token that gamers can collect? - Sets a bad precedent for future AAA rel…

Yeah, guess I will keep buying games years after release when they have been patched and are cheaper.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#15

Post by LandenLove »

HDBaseT wrote: post #8
LandenLove wrote: post #3

In my opinion, disc based games have been a ridiculous way to sell modern games because they are physically incapable of storing the amount of game data required for modern AAA games. I understand that they still exist because of the resale value, but solid state storage similar to Nintendo Switch cards makes more sense to me. On an even more personal note, very few modern games, if any, are worth purchasing for my o…

A PS5 Bluray can hold 100GB of data, sure some AAA titles are in excess of 100GB, although that is still 100GB that the player doesn't have to download, plus they enable re-sell-ability and partially maintain the status quo of "owning" a title.

I was completely unaware that PS5 discs could hold that much data! But that leads me to the next question, what is the read time look like on that? lol. I found this manual on google for the ps5 disc drive, but I don't understand these units.

Read speed BD-ROM (66 GB/100 GB) ~10×CAV BD-ROM (25 GB/50 GB) ~8×CAV BD-R/RE (25 GB/50 GB) ~8×CAV DVD ~3.2×CLV

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#16

Post by Night_Thastus »

I'm honestly not sure why this is making headlines. The move to digital-only has been happening for years. I mean, when I got Skyrim's legendary edition, the box only had a code in it, and that was 2013! 13 years ago!

It saves the publisher money and cuts down on reselling, which was cutting into their sales. It simplifies distribution. It gives them far more control, especially if they use their own launcher. Is anyone surprised that they like it when it offers only positives for them?

Also: Many big AAA releases can't even fit on a blu ray anymore. Games are coming up on 200GB+, that will not fit on a disk.

This trend isn't reversing. And the average person buying the game doesn't gaf, so it'll continue.

Of course, there will be some 'protestors' (who will just buy the game anyways) or some """protestors""" (who never intended to buy the game in the first place)

I'll be honest, this discussion is so stale I just don't care at this point. The fight for this ended a decade ago.

And honestly, considering how much more expensive AAA game creation has gotten over the years, and how game price hasn't even close to kept up with inflation, I get it.

There are so many much more egregious behaviors publishers do than this nonsense. Fight them on microtransactions, or making games online-only even for singleplayer content and then shutting down servers. Literally anything than this waste of time.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#18

Post by klausa »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #16

I'm honestly not sure why this is making headlines. The move to digital-only has been happening for years . I mean, when I got Skyrim's legendary edition, the box only had a code in it, and that was 2013! 13 years ago! It saves the publisher money and cuts down on reselling, which was cutting into their sales. It simplifies distribution. It gives them far more control, especially if they use their own launcher. Is an…

> I mean, when I got Skyrim's legendary edition, the box only had a code in it, and that was 2013! 13 years ago!

Because PC and console games have (had?) different cultures.

This has been normalized for PC games for decades, but it absolutely is not the norm for consoles.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#19

Post by LandenLove »

dehrmann wrote: post #9
LandenLove wrote: post #3

In my opinion, disc based games have been a ridiculous way to sell modern games because they are physically incapable of storing the amount of game data required for modern AAA games. I understand that they still exist because of the resale value, but solid state storage similar to Nintendo Switch cards makes more sense to me. On an even more personal note, very few modern games, if any, are worth purchasing for my o…

> but solid state storage similar to Nintendo Switch cards makes more sense to me These likely degrade in 5-10 years, and have you seen the price of NAND lately? AAA gaming is going to get to be out-of-reach because of storage costs.

I don't know what the degradation for NAND storage is, but another aspect that I didn't mention in my original comment is the fragility of disc based media. In terms of scratches and other damage.

Re: GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box

#20

Post by klausa »

LandenLove wrote: post #15
HDBaseT wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A PS5 Bluray can hold 100GB of data, sure some AAA titles are in excess of 100GB, although that is still 100GB that the player doesn't have to download, plus they enable re-sell-ability and partially maintain the status quo of "owning" a title.

I was completely unaware that PS5 discs could hold that much data! But that leads me to the next question, what is the read time look like on that? lol. I found this manual on google for the ps5 disc drive, but I don't understand these units. Read speed BD-ROM (66 GB/100 GB) ~10×CAV BD-ROM (25 GB/50 GB) ~8×CAV BD-R/RE (25 GB/50 GB) ~8×CAV DVD ~3.2×CLV

Doesn't really matter, PS5 games can't be played from disk anyway; they have to be installed to the SSD first.
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