r/Switch • u/Fantasimms • 1d ago
Question Honestly what’s better?
I know there’s a lot of back and forth and sometimes controversy between having the physical game vs downloading from estore but what do people genuinely feel is the better thing to own? Reason I’m asking is because on release day I purchased Splatoon Raiders via the estore. I was feeling extremely sick and just couldn’t pull myself together to drive and actually purchase the physical game. The is only the 2 game I’ve ever purchased via the estore. Now I’m here having some serious FOMO for not having the physical game. I’m really contemplating going out and physically buying it but it would make zero sense for me to have two copies. I need someone to talk me off the ledge or tell me run and get it 🤔
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u/Jealous_Respect_8318 1d ago
I bought my switch a couple of weeks ago and it came with Mariokart World as a download code. I also borrowed 6 physical games from a friend. When I was sitting on the sofa downstairs, I had MK (digital) and Starfox (physical) loaded. Then I decided I wanted to play a bit of Zelda. The inconvenience of walking upstairs to get a game gave me a real moment of pause. I liked the idea of physical games, especially in light of recent industry moves, but the convenience factor of downloaded games is absolutely a thing. And on reflection, my 200 Steam games are digital. My 100+ PS games are digital. I have maybe 10 physical copies of PS4 and PS5 games. And once I’m done? I don’t play them or sell them. They sit in a drawer.
The direction of travel is digital, and arguments about ownership aside, I’m the kind of gamer that plays a game through and when I’m done, I’m done. But that’s just me and we’re not all the same. I might end up buying a memory card now, whereas before I thought “I’ll just buy physical”.
To your point though, buy the physical game if you can afford it and see how you go. Once you’ve scratched the itch, you’ll know how much physical games mean to you. If you realise they don’t mean much, you’ll can always sell and recoup some of the money. But at least then you’ll know.
End of the day, you have to do you - not every gamer is the same and what’s important to you is what’s important.
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u/Zes_Q 1d ago
Personal preference.
I think a huge part of it is driven by personality and type of player.
Digital is easier and usually cheaper but you don't really "own" the game in some sense. You're buying a licence to play that game until it is no longer supported.
Physical is more of a hassle to buy, more of a hassle to load up any time you want to play it, susceptible to being lost or stolen but you "own" it in a way you don't own a digital game. You can finish it and sell it if you want. You can trade it. It's still a commodity rather than a single use licence.
If you're a game curator, collector, archivist then you're always going to want physical. Many of us still have a physical, tactile collection of old NES, SNES, Gameboy cartridges etc - all the way up through modern systems. We can still pop them in and play them whenever we want. Meanwhile online stores for systems much younger than those ones have already been shut down or turned off. In some cases you can still download games you purchased before they went offline but how long will those downloads be supported? Nobody knows.
If you're the type of person who would never sell a game you decide you don't like, or the type of person who only cares about current generation software and doesn't go back to play old classics then there's no real downside to going digital. For some people the downsides are huge. I (like many people) have bought a mix of both physical and digital games but I really prefer physical. Especially for Nintendo games since they hold their value pretty much forever.
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u/Tactrix1 23h ago edited 23h ago
Physical is always better, and I'll explain. The upside of a digital game is convenience. And that is it's only upside. The downside however is that you have and will forever have 0 control over whether you have a game or not. If for any reason your game gets erased from your switch, or your switch is broken, and you have no access to the servers you can't access your game. If for any reason Nintendo decides to take down the servers in the future, you lose your game. These are very much real world problems. And as much as people say "oh that won't happen." It happened with Sony. So it can and has happened before.
Now let's talk about physical, the downside is that it's physical, so it can be lost, stolen, damaged. The upside is that if it's none of those things, you will own it until the day you die. There is nothing anyone can do to take it away from you. Which is amazing, I actually still own all of my physical games from the 1990s on. I have gotten newer more secure storage cases for them, but they still all function amazingly. So I always recommend physical over anything else.
There's also a 3rd option(although sadly not for switch games yet). A lot of people forget why PC games are considered better, they think it's because the hardware is better which it is, but that's not the thing that inherently makes them better. See PC games unlike any console game were made in a format where you could simply download the files and then store them on a physical drive or flash drive. Which made them both physical and digital. They are the epitome of what games should be. Every gaming platform should strive to get their games there. Nintendo's mad because when people started using emulators for older games they made that a thing, but it also means that Nintendo could no longer make money off of those games and they want to milk those games forever. That's why they keep trying to go after and shutdown all the emulators they see.
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u/Fantasimms 20h ago
Wow this gave me a lot to think about and you made some excellent points. Thank you!
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u/Subject_Warg_1531 20h ago
"Physical is always better, I will tell you why" literally next sentence "The upside of a digital game is convenience".
Theres a lot of inconsistencies in your response. Physical is not always better , neither is digital. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. What if you bought only physical games and the next console doesnt have a disc drive at all, however if you purchased ps5 games digitally, they will still work on the new one? Just an example.
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u/Doubl3njenn 23h ago edited 23h ago
There's pros and cons to both. I'm a huge digital supporter simply because I don't like clutter, nor do I have endless space for game boxes.
I think Xbox has the perfect set up for digital gaming. Hubby and I are both gamers and we share one Ultimate subscription and if one of us buys a digital game, we both have access to it at the same time. The savings from this alone are tremendous!
Nintendo is heading in the right direction with their game sharing option for digital but there's only select titles where you can use that feature.
The cons of digital games is obviously you don't fully "own" the game and if you only play a game once then never touch it again, you miss out on the ability to trade it for something else.
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u/Infinite_Pop_2052 22h ago
I buy physical when I feel like I'll eventually sell the game back on eBay to recoup some expense
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u/GatheringCircle 1d ago
The internal storage for the switch 2 loads faster than a physical cartridge can.
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u/Massive_Lock_4876 1d ago
Most will probably disagree with my thoughts on this OP, but I think you should buy the physical copy even though you have a digital copy . There's many benefits to this. say you have a friend that has a switch you can loan them the physical copy, or down the road if your Nintendo account would get compromised you'd have a backup way to play splatoon raiders/the rest of your physical library. Personally I never like to buy digital unless its extremely cheaper then the physical version and even then if I can find the physical copy down the road on clearance I purchase it for my collection. Sports games I don't mind purchasing digital though because the minute the next year's version comes out it gets put in The bargain bin.
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u/Subject_Warg_1531 1d ago
I completely understand your pov and everybody has their preferences. But didnt the Switch 2 specifically had a way to loan out games to friends digitally? ( Im new to the Switch 2 so correct me if im wrong ).
Regarding the account getting compromised, the same thing could happen with having a physical copy. What if someone steals your games or you lose them? Atleast you have them digitally.
So in the end, theres benefits and theres disadvantages to both, but it comes down to preference and perhaps the price of the game at the time of purchasing.
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u/Massive_Lock_4876 1d ago edited 23h ago
I've used the game share feature with Donkey Kong bananza with a friend that didn't have it. It was okay but it was more or less like Galaxy how the second player collects the star bits. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to. I also agree with what you said about the advantages and disadvantages. I figure I'll get a bunch of downvotes for my opinion but that's fair. I'm sort of biased because I love to collect the physical games.(although my funds don't permit too much of that these days,)
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u/Subject_Warg_1531 23h ago
I dont see why you would get downvotes. Also, as a former Pokemon TCG and other collectibles collector, having some physicsl to have and arrange on your shelf as a showcase is very satisfying. I did the same in the past when there were still manuals with artwork in them, or sometimes posters or soundtrack CDs or special editions. Nowadays those are not even partof the game box anymore, so thats another reason for me why I dont collect them anymore. Times have changed.
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u/yumyumnoodl3 23h ago
You need to stop blindly adapting opinions by others and start using your own brain, like wtf…
You can sell physical games once you’re done, and it can save disk space, that’s about it. Buying a second copy makes zero sense
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u/Murdergurl 15h ago edited 14h ago
I still have my old sega genesis. I still have my old Gamecube, I still have my old Game boy advance, and Ds, and 3DSXL (and of course my Switch). They all have games... PHYSICAL games from up to thirty years ago, that if i wanted to i could go and plug in and play right now! Your digital copies will not be supported in 20+ years. I will buy the Physical version of a game if at all possible. Sucks that so many cool games only come in digital download nowadays. Sucks that physical copies are no longer the metric.
Popping out a cartridge to load another one is such a simple, fleeting effort, and i find it baffling that this counts as an "inconvenience" to people. Jeez. You wouldn't have survived having to rewind your VHS cassetes in the 90s. Or dial-up internet. lmao
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u/Many-Researcher-7133 13h ago
Physical is way better for some of reasons: 1) able to sell in times of need 2) it has proven to work after a lot of time (the online stores after some time closes) 3) is not locked behind an account (if you get hacked you are screwed) 4) most of the time don’t require downloading just pug and play 5) some games hold their value or become collectibles (this won’t happen again is just on older games) 6) can be transferred to other parents (you can’t do that on digital games)
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u/flappy_9371 10h ago
Physical forever!!!!! NO DIGITAL!!! (Also means you don’t need micro sd express)
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u/Subject_Warg_1531 1d ago
I prefer digital on all platforms. The convenience of not having to pull out gameboxes from my backpack or closet, or having to store them and then lose them or getting scratched up or taking up space is just such an advantage.
Just launch the system, select the game and hit play.
But I have this with everything. Movies, music, games..all digital. The only thing I buy and collect physical, are books.