Do you still buy boxed physical video games?

Cliff Notes – Do you still buy boxed physical video games?

• The decline of physical game sales is evident, with digital purchases dominating the market, accounting for only 3% of Sony’s PlayStation revenue, suggesting a shift in consumer preferences.

• High-value collectibles, such as a $4 million Pokémon card, highlight the extravagant spending habits of the wealthy, contrasting with the altruistic dreams often held by those with less financial means.

• Despite the increasing popularity of franchises like Fire Emblem, Nintendo‘s reluctance to invest in high-budget titles raises concerns about the future quality and appeal of their games.

An old-fashioned concept? (Amazon)

The Tuesday letters page can’t believe Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is less than two years old, as another reader is enamoured with Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Vinyl logic
Even knowing how much more popular digital is nowadays, I’m still shocked that it only counts for 3% of the money Sony makes from PlayStation. Although I guess it might be slightly better if they actually released a new game now and then. I don’t imagine the percentage is that much different for other publishers though.

Which makes me wonder why so many people complain about Game-Key Cards from Nintendo. Not only are they still physical, in that you can at least trade them, but clearly nobody cares anyway, even if I assume that Nintendo formats probably have the most amount of physical buyers.

We have to face facts: buying a disc or cartridge is old-fashioned and it’s only going to get less popular. At this point it seems less relevant to gaming than vinyl is to music.
Banshee

In a rich man’s world
$4 million for a Pokémon card is so wild to me I can’t even talk about it. Something must happen to you when you’ve got that much money, where you have to spend it and because nothing you actually need costs that much to you, you have to waste it all on nonsense. I mean, I could print out a photo of the card and have almost exactly the same object.

It’s weird that when you’re poor you dream of being rich and generous with your money, giving it to help people and fight poverty and the like, but then when you become rich you just wasted life-changing amounts of money on absolute nonsense.

Expert, exclusive gaming analysis

But am I kidding myself? If I won the lottery tomorrow would I immediately start thinking about buying a diamond-studded Switch 2 instead of doing anything constructive with the money? Shame I’ll never find out.
Jonsey

Budgetary concerns
The thing that gets me about Fire Emblem is that while it’s been gradually increasing in popularity over the last few years Nintendo refuses to spend any money on it. They clearly upped the budget on Animal Crossing: New Horizons and it paid off perfectly.

Previous Fire Emblem games have been popular, and Nintendo obviously wants to push the franchise, but they won’t spend the money to make it look like anything but a cheap indie game.

But I guess I shouldn’t complain if people are suggesting that the reason the Switch 2 line-up has been so off so far is because games are getting too expensive, even for Nintendo. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to make at least one of them big budget though?
Cable

Ape out
I hate to join in with the Nintendo bashing, but the Donkey Kong Bananza DLC is an egregious cash grab. It’s shockingly bad.

DK Island is pleasant enough to explore for five minutes, but it’s not, as one might reasonably expect, a layer in the same sense as the others in the game, with a wealth of collectables to discover. Emerald Rush isn’t great either; removing all the upgrades from the Bananza transformations and locking them into a roguelite mode ends up feeling more like the basis of an unwelcome side quest.

I’d only just completed the main game on Friday when the DLC became available, so the timing seemed perfect, but there’s nothing of value added whatsoever. As a free update, at best, it’d feel superfluous. But given the game is less than two months old, this must surely have been carved out to be flogged for far more than it’s worth as paid DLC, and that’s inexcusable.
Needlemouse

Double dipping
I for one am looking forward to Virtual Boy games on Switch and even though I have two original ones already I will be buying the add-on for Switch.

Yes, it was a failure sales wise, and quickly abandoned, but it’s good that people will get the chance to play its games as some of them were genuinely good fun.

Wario Land and Jack Bros. are definitely 8/10, at least from me. Galactic Pinball is also good fun. Most of the games are worth trying at least. Only game that ever gave me a headache was V-Tetris. If you don’t want to buy the repo Virtual Boy at least get the cardboard viewer to try the games.
Mark Matthewz

No complaints
I enjoyed the Nintendo Direct on Friday, I was pleased to see that Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are being released on Switch 1 and 2 and in the same box physically or digitally. I was impressed with the Virtual Boy hardware and games shown, I noticed the Virtual Boy hardware is £66.99 on Nintendo Store, which is not too expensive.

I also liked the look of Metroid Prime 4 and I really want to get the Samus on a motorbike amiibo for my gaming shelf, as well as the Super Mario Galaxy Mario amiibo too! I have not played Donkey Kong Bananza but the extra content for it looked good and the new Yoshi game looked good too. I think all the mention of Super Mario Galaxy games and the film that Nintendo are building towards announcing Super Mario Galaxy 3 in future. I see other comments online have said they think there is going to be a Super Mario Galaxy 3.

I will be checking the Nintendo Store (UK one) on Monday to see if they have listed Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and the new amiibos for Mario and Metroid 4. On Sunday evening they have not listed them yet. My guess is they will list them at 9am GMT on Monday 15th September.
Andrew J.
PS: Donkey Kong Bananza physical edition is slightly cheaper than the deal that reader mentioned the other week on another shop. On Amazon, currently, it is £56.95 delivered.

GC: The Nintendo Store has updated with Super Mario Galaxy and the new amiibo, including the Kirby ones.

Turning point
It seems like forever since Spider-Man 2 came out, but I looked it up and was shocked to find it was less than two years ago. That feels like that point at which Sony completely gave up on single-player games though, because of its high budget – $300 million was rumoured, as I remember.

Clearly that is a stupid amount of money to spend on making a video game, but I’ve not heard anything to suggest it lost money, just that it didn’t make as much as they wanted. Considering they went from that to Concord though, it’s hard to see the change of direction as working out.

But with console sales still through the roof, what do they care? Here’s hoping the next State of Play is a good one (it won’t be).
Becks

Silky smooth design
I’m thoroughly impressed with how much there is to see, find and do in Hollow Knight: Silksong. Doubly so the fluid way that content is designed.

Hitting a brick wall or feeling lost is a common drawback of many a Metroidvania or Metriod-like if you like, but I haven’t felt that once in 37 hours of play. Every time I’ve gone to explore it’s resulted in new discoveries and things to do.

I did hit an area, after 30 hours, I clearly didn’t have the ability to access. I know now that area also unlocks a further ability to access other parts of the map.

It turned out I’d always had the key to the area that had the ability to access that originally found inaccessible area. I turned away from it as I wanted to more fully explore all the other stuff I had found.

If I’d done that long enough, I would have narrowed my choices down to that path. But that never happened, I had a few avenues to explore and just opted in one session for the path that would unlock two new abilities from amongst all the other stuff I had on my list to do.

The feeling of being stuck never arose and my progression down the path to progress the game further felt natural. That’s what I mean by well designed.

It’s a fantastic game.
Simundo

Inbox also-rans
I get the feeling that Randy Pitchford, from Gearbox, is that great a person. It’s just a feeling, I don’t know him personally.
Renton

I couldn’t tell you how many copies of Resident Evil 4 I own. Literally, because I can’t be bothered to go an check, but I think it’s at least three.
Robo

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