A Cheaper Way to Play
Games are an expensive hobby. There’s no denying that. Once you’ve taken into account the cost of purchasing the hardware, any additional accessories, the games themselves, and any subscriptions, you’re looking way above the initial price tag of the system itself. While some players have enough disposable income to get absolutely every new release that they want, not all of us are quite so lucky. Even so, doesn’t everyone want to save themselves a few extra bucks whenever they can?
A digital-only future has its own fair share of niggling issues that need to be resolved. Namely, the fact that fast internet speeds just aren’t available for everybody right now to facilitate it. Not without pissing off a lot of people, anyway. But it could have its fair share of perks, namely in passing some of the savings publishers make onto consumers by reducing the cost of games. We’ve already seen instances of digital games being priced lower than their physical counterparts, but by cutting out the middle-man retailers, costs can be cut. Whether this would actually happen is down to the discretion of the publishers, but just look at PC gaming, where titles tend to be significantly cheaper on the platform than their PS4 and Xbox One counterparts (other factors do play a part here, though).
Even so, there are still other ways the digital-only future can make gaming more affordable. We frequently see digital store sales slashing the prices of games, and if more money is being spent on these platforms, chances are we’d see these kinds of sales more often. Or… there’s always that subscription-based model that Xbox Game Pass is a prime example of, too.
