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    PlayStation 4

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    PlayStation 4 is Sony's fourth home video game console, released on November 15, 2013 in North America, and November 29, 2013 in Europe. On November 10 2016, Sony released the Playstation 4 Pro, an updated version of the console targeting 4K gaming.

    Digital or Disc?

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    nightriff

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    Edited By nightriff

    Poll Digital or Disc? (193 votes)

    Only Digital Purchases 11%
    Only Disc Purchases 26%
    Mix of Both 62%

    Which are you going to favor with these consoles?

    I would like to do all digital this generation like Steam but seeing the file sizes and hearing that the download process isn't as "seamless" as they have made it out to be, I'm starting to lean towards getting all discs again (which is ok but not ideal, means I'll need another box to but all the cases). I'm a little OCD and don't want to mix unless a game is really cheap compared to the other format but even then I would rather have all digital or all discs.

    Have you guys decided? What factors into your decision?

     • 
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    zeforgotten

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    Both for me.
    Unless there's some PS4 out there with a 60.000 TB HDD in it I don't know about yet.

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    Teoball

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    Both.
    Downloading 25+GB games takes some time with my shitty internet, but I will do it if I don't feel like going out.

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    MooseyMcMan

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    Aside from stuff that is digital only, I'm going to be going discs. I don't have slow-ass internet, but with file sizes as big as has been reported, it's still going to be faster for me to drive to the local KMart and buy a game than to download it. Plus, that 500GB hard drive in the PS4 is going to fill up quickly!

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    pr1mus

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    Digital.

    No sales tax. I don't know how much taxes are elsewhere but here that's one more game i can afford every 6 games i buy. Also a lot more convenient when you keep jumping between games as much as i do.

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    toowalrus

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    I'd love to go all digital this time around, luckily I don't have to deal with bandwidth caps and my internet speed is pretty good. I know the HD will fill up quickly, but I'll treat it like it's my PC- I never have more than a few games installed at one time.

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    MattyFTM

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    #6  Edited By MattyFTM  Moderator

    Disc is almost always going to be cheaper. So I'll be sticking to Disc. I'll be using digital for digital only games, PSN freebies and any particularly good sales, but I'll be sticking to disc in most cases where it's an option.

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    thebunnyhunter

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    I went mostly digital late this gen with Day One Digital on psn.....but the higher size of games and wanting something to put on the shelf is gonna make me go mostly disk for a while.

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    sarahsdad

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    It's going to depend a lot on how long I expect to be playing the game. If I knew there was going to be a PS4 x-com game, I'd get that digital because why trade in something like that.

    Something like Assassin's creed though, where there's a good chance I'll only play for a couple months...sticking with the disc.

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    noremnants

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    For launch I'm going disc because I don't trust Sony to have a stable online infrastructure on launch day. After that I'll probably go digital only.

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    devilzrule27

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    #10  Edited By devilzrule27

    I still prefer owning a physical copy of any form of media i buy. Only digital games I own are the PSN stuff and the free games I get with PS+. Oh and obviously he PC games that I can't get on disc anymore because companies suck.

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    bmehlers

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    #11  Edited By bmehlers

    @mattyftm said:

    Disc is almost always going to be cheaper. So I'll be sticking to Disc. I'll be using digital for digital only games, PSN freebies and any particularly good sales, but I'll be sticking to disc in most cases where it's an option.

    This. I am pretty behind when it comes to playing current releases, so I usually buy most games months later for less than $30 on Amazon. Digital prices do not drop nearly as fast as disc, if they drop at all. If they want people to buy digital, make it cheaper than disc.

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    mcmax3000

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    I've got a 60GB per month data cap, so on PS4 & Xbox One, I'll be going disc whenever I have the option.

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    Aviar

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    I'll be doing both just like this generation, although I am starting to go more digital. I have boxes and boxes of old PSOne game and PS2 and original Xbox games. While I do like to collect the games, they just start taking up so much space.

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    deactivated-5fc86d541ecee

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    I plan on going all digital this gen(except 3DS and maybe WiiU since I'm not sure if Nintendo actually understands the internet yet). It's a combination of the convenience factor and I'm so done with physical media and the space it takes up.

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    mosespippy

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    I'll get the disc usually. If something that I own comes up on PS+ then I'll probably hand off my disc to a friend. They usually get their systems 2 or 3 years after me so it'll be fresh for them.

    On Vita I have one cart (P4G) and I plan on making the rest digital so that I can have my entire collection accessible at once.

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    Cameron

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    As long as there continues to be no tax on PSN, I'll probably stick with that. It saves be about $8 on a new game. I also don't trade in games anyway, so there isn't much of an advantage to having discs for me.

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    gokaired

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    It's healthy to mix them especially older games, but you'd be surprised how quickly you can fill up digital space. I'll probably get limited/special editions for discs.

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    johncallahan

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    I would love nothing more than to go all-digital. Unfortunately, my internet is horribly slow (Last of Us took TWO AND A HALF DAYS to download).

    I'm going to go digital when I can, but I can't see it working all the time.

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    chaser324

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    #19  Edited By chaser324  Moderator

    If it weren't for the 50+ GB sizes, I probably would go 100% digital, but instead I'll probably go with a mix of digital (especially if/when preloading is available) and discs.

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    Nodima

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    I would love to say all digital, but considering what happened with the PSN version of GTA V, I have to admit I'm wary of the whole process despite totally fine version of every PS+ game I've received, Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us. Not having to pay a sales tax is nice too although I doubt that lasts for much longer (across the internet in general not just PSN).

    Interestingly, I also had problems with Max Payne 3 but I've heard that game had some serious bug issues on disc, too, so I'm not willing to say Rockstar has a digital problem. But GTA V certainly does.

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    spraynardtatum

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    All digital is a pipe dream right now.

    Games are too big, hard drives are too small, and streaming has too much latency.

    Digital and physical

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    deactivated-64cd222f5c6ac

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    I would like to go all digital, but I think itll be a mix for now.

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    Nadafinga

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    Ever since my 1 year old son chewed the shit out of my Last of Us disc, I've been leaning more towards digital.

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    Wemibelle

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    Two things prevent me from going all-digital. First is my lack of faith that Sony can speed up the abysmal download speeds that PSN currently has. Who knows, it may happen, but I won't assume anything about the speed of their service. Second, I just recently had a bandwidth cap added by my ISP (in an area where congestion shouldn't even be a problem, but I digress). Downloading 40+ GB files on a regular basis will chew through that cap way too quickly. If these two concerns weren't an issue, I would have no problems downloading all my games.

    I have some concerns with this all-digital future everyone's talking about. Download speeds aren't climbing as fast as file sizes are, meaning we're quickly approaching the point where even the fastest connections are looking at several hours to download even one game. Combine that with the ever-increasing number of ISPs instituting bandwidth caps (another huge block to forward progress) and it's hard to see how all-digital is going to happen anytime soon.

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    benderunit22

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    I'd love to go fully digital, however I'm concerned about harddisk space as well as pricing. The online store I usually buy from offers new games for very cheap, a lot of stuff in the PS store is quite a bit more expensive. My hope is they take enough lessons from Steam with daily or at least weekly sales.

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    Nodima

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    #26  Edited By Nodima

    PSN does have weekly and monthly sales, especially for Plus members. There are a ton of discounts up right now plus the $10 back for every $50 spent promotion going all month. Sony's been excellent about their perks; I always find the MoneySaver break down on Kotaku dramatic. I can't believe Microsoft, for how robust their Live service is touted as being, still isn't competing with Plus in any relevant way.

    Playstation Plus (Spend $50, get $10 back on PSN through Oct. 29)P

    • FREE Poker Night 2P

    Ultimate Plus Editions (Game with all DLC)6P

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    Other Plus SalesP

    • Bionic Commando Rearmed $3.49P
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    • Capcom Arcade Cabinet All-In $10.49P
    • Devil May Cry HD Collection $10.49P
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    • Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles Of Mystara $5.24P
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    • Remember Me Combo Lab Pack $1.39P
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    Xbox 360P

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    Deranged

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    I'm a bigger fan of Digital and to be honest, I was digging the original plans Microsoft had with the XONE. Sadly, my internet is a load of garbage and can barely handle miniscule downloads on Xbox, I can't even imagine how long the 40GB download for Uncharted 3 will be. I'm glad that both Sony and Microsoft are giving us the choice to utilize physical copies.

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    TheManWithNoPlan

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    I'll go with both where it makes sense.

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    Wuddel

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    I am not a collector of boxes. I would like to go all-digital, but sometimes it is needlessly expensive here in Switzerland. I am better of getting UK-imports. On the plus side connections speeds or volume caps are not an issue.

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    Spoonman671

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    #30  Edited By Spoonman671

    I'm hoping I'll be able to get all of my games digitally. I won't know how practical that actually will be until I've had my PS4 for awhile.

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    CynicalBuzzard

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    Disc, I do not trust digital copies of games.

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    THRICE_604

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    Was ready to go all digital until the size of games started getting out there. I have pretty fast internet but even at that I can go buy a game from a store a lot faster than it would take to download 50GBs. And it sounds like discs on both next gen systems will be mandatory installs anyways so deleting content to make room for games and reinstalling as needed will be a lot less of a headache if I just have the disc.

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    notdavid

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    #33  Edited By notdavid

    I'll mix it up, but I'll probably lean toward discs. My hard drive space is way more valuable than my physical space.

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    zaccheus

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    #34  Edited By zaccheus

    Probably mostly discs. All the big games seem to cost 10€ more on PSN and there is no resale value, no thanks. Also it's probably going to be faster for me to get the disk than download 40 gigs. If they offer games cheaper and the whole play as you download thing works out I'm in. I doubt that's going to happen, the pricing seems pretty set even though it makes absolutely no sense.

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    Corvak

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    #35  Edited By Corvak

    Discs where I can. Games are getting bigger, and it seems that pack-in HDDs are not. Since pricing is the same for both, i'll use discs and save the cost of a bigger HDD.

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    jayjonesjunior

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    Both, 500GB is not much.

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    RonGalaxy

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    #37  Edited By RonGalaxy

    Gonna put a terabyte drive in the ps4 when I get one, so I should be good with downloading huge games. And they've said you can start playing when a portion of it has downloaded, which is appealing. I'll still get disc games though

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    John1912

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    i sell my games back, so I try not to buy digital. I can only hope the PS4 is not fucking insane with its installs like the PS3. Xbox, dload and done with most demos, games,, or very short install, and restart such as system updates. PS3 took 2-3x as long just to dload, then like another 15-20 mins to unpack the files, install, reboot. It was ridiculous. Even the system updates were ungodly long. PS3 installs were just fucking awful.

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    reckless_x

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    I'll take advantage of the digital sales, but I can't hide the fact that selling my old games feels like free money for some reason.

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    PolygonSlayer

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    Will be a mixture for me. Mainly considering the size of some of those downloads and the fact that it only comes with a 500gb hard drive. I will probably upgrade it at some point though, so will have to see.

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    Guesty_01

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    #41  Edited By Guesty_01

    Disc. Much cheaper plus I actually have something physical that I can put on a shelf and see a collection come together.

    Obviously this excludes psn only games.

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    lumley

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    Mix of both. Mostly depends on the digital cost, from my experience the Xbox on demand store is stupidly expensive compared to UK stores.

    I'm going with the PS4 this time so I'm eager to see how cheap (or expensive) the PSN store will be for full retail games.

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    Cold_Wolven

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    #43  Edited By Cold_Wolven

    Both. I still want to have discs so when i flick though the binder i know what i have and also with the file sizes of next gen games that 500GB HDD will fill up real quick. Also retail will still be cheaper that downloadable and I don't want to pay too much for games especially if they're digital. I really hope Steam like sales occur for next gen consoles as that's a good way to adopt digital more.

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    SomeJerk

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    #44  Edited By SomeJerk

    I'm going to buy digital of overseas releases so I won't have to wait or import a physical, but in general, no thanks.

    I live in Sweden, you can guess the quality of my internets and non-existent download limits. I'm not going to do even an intelligent per-stage download of a digitally purchased game unless I have to. 50 gigs at 100 megabit per second still takes a while.

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    morningstar

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    #45  Edited By morningstar

    Disc if available.

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    Yummylee

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    @mattyftm said:

    Disc is almost always going to be cheaper. So I'll be sticking to Disc. I'll be using digital for digital only games, PSN freebies and any particularly good sales, but I'll be sticking to disc in most cases where it's an option.

    Yeeeeeup.

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    matt_f606

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    I prepared to go all digital but it all depends if they actually try to compete with retail pricing. I'm sure it's been said but just as an example GTA in the UK was £34 on Amazon and £49 in PSN.

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    Lord_Xp

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    I like being able to own disc games because I can trade them in. Plus I can physically organize my stuff. But I'm definitely going to be more digital than I was on the ps3.

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    Hunter5024

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    If it's a brand new 60 dollar game I don't think there's any chance I'd buy it digital unless they cooked up some sort of bonus for doing so. There are a lot of advantages to buying physical, and I don't think the advantages of digital media stack up. Buying digital games just seems short sighted to me.

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    phantomzxro

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    I still will mostly buy disc but if the deal is good i'll go digital.

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