Pachter Factor Episode 106: Taxing Violent Games

Pachter explains why next-gen consoles will Have disk drives, talks Growing Xbox Play anywhere importance.

[chrisx]

I trust PlayStation and Nintendo will have disk drives(or cartridge in ninty case). but we all know ms wants to go diskless and drm based, but they won't cos that'll be the final nail in the xboxs coffin.

[affrogamer]

I like the option of being able to sell my games when I have no use for them anymore

[optimus]

microsoft announced they are working on a way for consumers to sell back their digital drm, granted not for the same price you bought it for.

[darthv72]

@optimus, funny you get disagrees for saying something that many have been asking for and Steam and MS are working to make happen.

[Smitty2020]

What if they made a market online so u can sel ur game?

[optimus]

@darth... That's because if that were to happen then it wouldn't fit their embedded hatred for everything Xbox. Not realizing that if Microsoft were to make that happen then sony would eventually do the same and then they would praise sony for "revolutionizing" It. 🙄

[bloop]

Everyone seems to forget about internet access when the "all digital" topic comes up. Where I'm living I have access to 1,000mb fibre. If I drive 5 miles down the road there are places I can't get a 4g signal on my phone. A friend of mine bought TW3 on the PS Store the same time as me. I was in the game literally 10 minutes after starting the download. It took him 3 days to be able to start the game as he only has access to wireless internet where he lives. Until the day we see at least 5g speeds EVERYWHERE, we'll still have physical drives. Console manufacturers would be cutting out a HUGE chunk of potential sales going all digital.

[darthv72]

@bloop... your example is a bit off. You mention you have access to fibre but yet you go down the street and can't get 4g signal. you know those are two different things right.... right? Most times if you have internet to your residence, it is direct wire to your home from the pole on the street (or under ground), not OTA like old school TV. The only time it is OTA is if you choose to go wireless, but if the service is offered... it is working.

As for the 'down the road'... that is the issue with cell towers. Blame the cell carriers for not having enough towers or towers with strong enough transmitters in your area. Besides, if you are going to download anything, chances are it is going to be at your home because of that fast connection.

As years have gone by, the inroads internet companies have been making in rural areas has increased. Sure it may not be 1000mb fiber but even if it is 1mb it is still better than the days of dial-up at 28.8k, 33k or 56k.

[Dragonscale]

@optimus, think its one of ms' better ideas. Theres nothing worse than buying a digital title and finding you don't like it but are stuck with it 4ever which is very possible nowadays with the lack of demos available. A refund or money towards a different title would be great tbh. Hopefully it'll happen on PS4 as well.

[bloop]

@darthv72: Yes, I fully understand those are two different things, and that's exactly my point!! Where I'm living I have fibre with speeds up to 1,000mb but my friend that lives less than 5 miles outside of town has no access to any type of cable broadband, only wireless and gets on average about 3mb. The infrastructure just isn't there, cable or wireless to cater for everyone and it will be a long time coming. Even in Ireland we've had great improvement with internet access through government schemes over the last few years but with that, cable is still really only available in built up areas and cellular has a long way to go in rural areas. I know plenty of people with consoles that can't get internet above 3-5mb speeds in their area. None of those people would be willing to buy a digital only console and have to wait 3 days for a game to download. I don't think we're anywhere near ready to go all digital.

[Darrius Cole]

@optimus - It's not just about being able to sell back you digital rights. In order to truly own a game, you have to be able to give it away for free if you want. You have to be able to give it away to a perfect stranger and you have to be able to sell it for your own negotiated price. If that was possible for digital copies it would break the single game model and thus it will never happen.

[bluefox755]

I know they WANT to do that, but I can't imagine they'd be stupid enough to literally repeat the original Xbox One's announcement E3, I don't think they're quite THAT out of touch, not yet at least.

[InKnight7s]

Canaceling exclusives and still lying about cloud without any proof yet with just one game that didn't release since ever. I think they are this stupid.

[Goldby]

They won't get rid of the disk because Bc is a huge part of their strategy.

[TheCommentator]

Agreed. The ability to play movies is also a plus from a multimedia standpoint. I can't imagine any company ditching the physical drive any time soon, but perhaps an optional model may release without one at some point like "mid-gen".

[JackBNimble]

Wouldn't digital work with BC say for next gen if they think a little bit ahead?

[Goldby]

Yeah but it would be preventing people who still own the discs, or buy them used from being able to play them only way around that would be to have Blu ray disks mandatory for any new win 10 pc and add them to your library via a system check on the Xbox marketplace. Only issue with that, hassle and dome people don't have Blu ray readers in their pc

[nitus10]

One of the main reasons for having an inbuilt hard disk drive (HDD) and even the option of playing of a portable HDD via the PS4's USB is the fact that the read performance of an HDD is about 90 to 100MB/sec which allows for faster load times.

The current Bluray read performance is about 27MB/sec which depending on the game can result in longer (by a factor of approximately four) loading times hence the reason for using an HDD. Of course, if you have a solid-state disk (SSD) read performance will be in the order of 500MB/sec plus which is a five-fold increase over an HDD. Obviously to get this performance improvement your console should have at lease a SATA3 bus (up to 600MB/sec) compared to a SATA2 bus (standard in XB1 and PS4 up to 300MB/sec). Unfortunately, SSD's are more expensive than an equivalent HDD although over time the SSD will eventually win out.

It is possible to stream games but you would need a high-performance network and unlimited downloads (cost does factor in here) and for the majority of people worldwide that is not a viable or cost-effective option.

So for the foreseeable future consoles will have either an HDD or SSD to store games on.

BTW. In regard to a portable (ie. Nintendo Switch or Sony Vita) a cartridge is the best solution, however, a cartridge or SD card has about the same performance as an HDD but cost wise an HDD can store considerably more for the price. https://havecamerawilltrave...

[RosweeSon]

For this gen, nothing to say they’ll continue that next Gen certainly not from day 1

[kevnb]

I’m not sure what you mean by drm based, all consoles are drm based. Are you talking about having to always be online or something specific?

[Iceball2000]

I think your right. MS is the only one I can see going with maybe two SKUs at launch. One with a Disk Drive and one without at a cheaper price and probably a free digital game for good measure.

[wheresmymonkey]

The PC and mobile markets says hi. Remember them, the much larger sectors. With far more players than consoles.

Every console manufacturer wants to go download only. Its only a matter of time. It really is in their best interests to. With no discs their profit margins will skyrocket.

And every console is already packed full of drm if you would be able to play copied games on them.and run unsigned code.

[nitus10]

Most games are still run off a hard or solid state disk drive for performance purposes and that includes both consoles, mobile and PCs.

It must be noted that in the case of consoles and PC's to a limited extent that some gamers do prefer physical media to digital download although I do think that over time (approx five to fifteen years) games will be digital download only and physical media will be a thing of the past.

Yes, it is possible to stream games (eg PSNow) but you really do need to have a decent network connection and an unlimited or very large data cap. Most people worldwide don't have that.

Pretty well all games have some sort of DRM associated with them be they for console, mobile or even PC. DRM is a mechanism to thwart piracy but no matter how tight the DRM, pirates will eventually find a way around it and this is very much the case for PCs.

One major issue with PC gaming compared to console gaming is cheating and this can spoil any players online experience. In addition, allowing unsigned code to run on your machine is taking a huge chance of installing malware.

[Cobra951]

The console market isn't either one of those. I have far more control over what I install on PC, how I maintain it, and how I safeguard it. I don't need optical discs to have effectively full ownership of my PC environment and software. That wouldn't fly with closed systems like consoles. I would not accept it.

[PUBG]

Microsoft has turned into one of the most customer friendly video game companies in the business next to Steam, so I think you're way off the mark.

Just look at digital game gifting, digital game refunds, backward compatibility that let's you use your old Xbox 360 and original Xbox game discs, the play anywhere program which gives you both the console and PC versions of a game for the price of one game, cross platform play, Game Pass for a very low price, including Microsoft exclusive games on day one for their service, and a very generous Games with Gold program, which gives gamers both Xbox One and xbox 360 games for free.

[n1kki6]

You realize a disc is DRM correct? Having the disc in your system is the license check. All of the game data lives on the machine after the initial install. I can't remember the last time I put a disc or cartridge into any of my consoles. Actually I can, to play backwards compatible 360 games, otherwise I am digital only.

[Cobra951]

Sure, self-contained, unobtrusive DRM. It works on any compatible console, with or without internet, with or without an account. Your game is as portable as the disc is. All you need to do is insert it, and play--the way it has been forever on consoles, with no added shenanigans.

[ccgr]

We use our as blu-ray players too

[Gardenia]

Yes no need to explain at all. It's so obvious that disc aren't going anywhere for a long time

[Kribwalker]

Or our Ultra HD Bluray players too

[KaiPow]

He's spot on about the retailer bit. Companies like GameStop dedicate 1/3 of the store to your console and if it's all digital, what's the point of displaying cases?

[Neonridr]

if it's all digital then what's the point of companies like GameStop?

[optimus]

...hence why they closed a lot of their stores and have changed their business to include collectables and clothing.

[Neonridr]

@optimus - I guess accessories too. But that would be a very sad store :P

[optimus]

Where have you been? GameStop has been and still is a sad store. Most of their collectables are overpriced. Most of the time, you know more about the games than the employees.

[Nyxus]

There's also a group of people who just want to own games physically, and that means there's demand for physical games, at least as an option.

[wheresmymonkey]

True, but if it's cheaper for them to not include a disc drive in their console, will make them more cash by not having to worry about the supply chain that surrounds physical media, destroy the used market, or allow them to.control it, and they know that most gamers will still buy the console regardless. Why would they not axe it?

[WolvesDude]

Err.. Once I've had enough of a game for whatever reason, why can't I sell it? I can for a movie, a car, a house.
I for one won't be buying any next gen console if I can't do this.

[mcstorm]

That true but all 3 will see the difference between digital and phicsal sales. I have bought 2 games from a shop this gen on my Xbox one the rest have been digital. The switch have been all phiscal though

[Duke19]

I still really wish the Pro had included an 4K Bluray player. Really hoping the next gen does

[TheEnigma313]

of course it will.

[shiva1]

They couldnt fit one into this gen and we are talking about next gen...hmmm

[darthv72]

but... Sony has statistics that tell them people arent buying movies... they are more interested in streaming. At least that was their reasoning for not having one in the Pro.

[Aurenar]

I prefer streaming to be honest.

[Duke19]

Streaming 4k quality still doesn't hold a candle to bluray

[jokerisalive]

I prefer having both streaming AND a dedicated UHD drive like the competition. Streaming quality is never as good as an actual uhd bluray disc. There are lots of people who buy discs and have a library of films they own physically.

[The 10th Rider]

@Duke19,

Yeah, I'd take a Blu-ray disc over a 4K stream. On top of dealing with compression, you've gotta have some really solid internet with no data cap for 4K streaming to be worth it. Comcast is the only option where I live and they just rolled out data caps to my state.

[nitus10]

@The 10th Rider

It looks like the removal of net neutrality is starting to rear its ugly head in your area.

[WolvesDude]

I prefer having the choice.

[The 10th Rider]

@nitus10,

It has nothing to do with net neutrality . . . Comcast started rolling out data caps to most states in 2016.

[jokerisalive]

it should and the Pro should have had one too. it would not have cost Sony much and would have been nice to have a 4k drive in a machine that can output games at 4k. I get its a games machine but the fact the competition includes it in both low and high end versions of their systems should be enough to make them include it as well for the high end Pro.

[OpenGL]

I think the PS5 will support UHD Blu-ray because they're going to need higher capacity discs, 50GB will no longer cut it. They didn't feel like including UHD purely for movie playback was worth the cost as games would still always have to be on regular 25-50GB Blu-rays to maintain compatibility with all PS4s.

[TheEnigma313]

Of course they will have disk drives that's obvious. I love physical. I think they should release 2 sku's; one diskless and one with a disk drive. I do think digital should be about $10 cheaper than psychical.

[shiva1]

Yup. I agree to this two SKU approach man. Im all digital this gen and am not planning to buy any disks going forward.

[TheEnigma313]

That would definitely work. Make the diskless version like $50 cheaper and everyone is happy.

[ILostMyMind]

I said that a long time ago and people disagreed. In fact, I think Sony should launch a PS4 without a disc now, as an option.

[TheEnigma313]

It would stop the bickering between fans arguing physical vs. digital.

[WolvesDude]

@ TheEnigma313 I'd rather pay $50 more for the console and less for the physical content I own which I can do with as I so wish. Oh wait...

[Iceball2000]

I could see two SKUs of Xbox’s. One with a DiskDrive. And the other with no DiskDrive cheaper.

[showtimefolks]

The day there is no physical gaming is the day I stop being a gamer. All digital sounds nice but now a day every net provider has a limit on how much you can use in a month

And than there are still areas within USA and especially world wide where you don't have the best of net availability

In middle east/India/pakistan other Asian countries a lot of people bought over Xbox due to the fact Xbox patches are much bigger than ps4. Yes it doesn't sound that important but when the reality of the situation is to download a update or patch for ps4 game in 5-8 hours or Xbox patch in 1 day than you start to realize just how important physical media really is

At the end of the day digital will never be 100%. I see it being 60/40 digital/physical

[shiva1]

Bro... At the start of this gen i had 60mbps 75gb. Now im at 100mbps 750gb cap. Im from India. Ive moved two different cities and im getting the same in these two cities... From south. Im not going in search of physical media on day 1.

[showtimefolks]

I understand but you have to understand not everyone is in the same situation or even can afford the same

I am in Nola and have 1000GB limit but I can't look at that and assume others have the same

I don't understand why those who like digital want those who like physical to be pushed aside or forced into a choice. Why can't both survive together

[Hardiman]

Good for you but I assure you there are many, many who aren't offered the same!

[Stevonidas]

Why haven't Sony or Microsoft allowed gamers to trade their digital licenses (and any associated DLC) with other users yet?

[Niv]

Games are gonna be like 200GBs next gen. Hope the bluray capacity is going up

[_LarZen_]

I dont think Pachter is right regarding retailers not wanting to sell consoles if there is no physical games. Because games is the thing retailers is earning the least from. It takes up allot of space and the price goes down relative fast on many titles. It's the same with movies. All over Norway stores are taking in less and less movies and games. People buy digital much more or buy online where the prices are more competitive.

You can still buy Blu-ray players at retailers even if the selection of movies is smal. Same with PC. You can buy PC's and accessories but PC games is more or less gone from all stores.

So at least as far as my country goes what Pachter is saying regarding this I dont think that would be the case here in Norway.

But then again this country have a good established internet infrastructure and people are always hungry for more fancy tech.

[ClanPsi1]

Retailers make around $15 per game sold. Even if they made $50 on a console, which they don't, they'd still make more on game sales over the life of the console by a very large margin.

[_LarZen_]

It probably depends on the store and country. But I have friends that works at the biggest electronics store here in Norway and they all say the same.

They don’t earn enough on games to make it worth taking up allot of space in the stores where they could have products that would interest more consumers and earn the store much more money.

And is why games are slowly disappearing from stores here. PC games are more or less completely gone. Xbox and Nintendo games have a small collection of the newest in stores. PlayStation have for the most part more games available atm. But they are being thinned out also as people buy digital or online.

Would be interesting to see how the situation is like in stores in USA. Anyone know?

[Hardiman]

Yeah the day will come when there's no physical media but it's not any time soon. Way too many people like to own games and movies and still don't have access to great internet speeds. There's lots of rural areas out there.

Also just because things are a certain way now, things can change! What about net neutrality and how the government wants to change the way internet is provided?!?!

[KwietStorm_BLM]

We talking about disk or disc* here?

[Mikey Mike]

I think Patcher is losing his mojo. I get his old brick and mortar stance that game companies need games and shelf space to sell. However, can he explain why companies are pressing less discs and embracing digital. With stream becoming the norm for Gen X and Millenniums, I don't see the disc as a selling point anymore. I see all three companies eventually going that way, and I think it's coming sooner than later.

[ps3rider]

Disk granted for the next gen .. reason being current games should be played back in the next gen ... more there a wide player who play games in countries that don't offer a high speed internet .. cannot imaging a next gen 60+ giga will take at least 2 days to download with my current speed. Finally resell value added
Disk will always exist along with digital ..

[Father__Merrin]

Xbox just wants to destroy you to the bone with chips 'n dip

[DaGreatOne]

I'm personally more curious about what kind of storage capacity we are getting

[Mylove1516]

I will never go full digital purchases but if we as gamers could sell and trade games digitally I think it would be more accepted by the community.

[MorpheusX]

@Mylove1516

My question is: Can Big Business be trusted in general?

I think the nature of the beast is they are always " anti-consumer" at it's core.

I don't trust their intentions in general. Give them an inch & they'll take.......

[stamps1646]

Disc* Drives

[mastershredder]

“explained why he believes” yeah Pachter you are a real genius.... I think we all talked about this for low cost effectiveness you complete armchair hack. Way to make it your own discussion.

[OpenGL]

Of course they will have disk drives, digital distribution isn't going anywhere. The question is whether they will have disc drives, as it's spelled disc when referring to optical media.

[bolimekurac]

ms pushed 4k blueray, the drive is not going anywhere. next gen there will be drives, they will be super cheap to just throw it in there and forget it.

[PiNkFaIrYbOi]

Of course it will and will for the foreseeable future. Games are getting bigger and bigger. Most ISPs have some sort of data cap, and unless these game publishers don't want to sell a lot of games it is in their best interest to have physical releases.

[Smokehouse]

Okay let’s not quote everything he says just because he was right one time recently.

[Sokol]

In the last few years i have been moving towards digital more but occasionally i always have need for the blu ray drive.
I dont see the physical media going anywhere for the time being.

[battlegrog]

Its beyond me to why people would want a clutter of useless discs when we're living un a digital world. Less is more

[Drakul]

Why not???!!!!

[BQ32]

If i were ceo or a decision maker at Sony i would put out 2 seperate skus at launch so they dont have to compromise on specs and power. I would put out one that included 4k blu ray playback and one that had no drive at all. It would be the best way to pack more power while achieving that sweet point on price. For those that want the drive, and ability to trade in disks they would have that option , but some would have to consider which is.more important to them, the drive or the price.

[Kaii]

Paid out the ass for Samsung ssd for PS4 :p Perhaps 2 Generations later we can look forward to no disc drives, but we're not there yet

[Tross]

When it comes to the physical vs digital debate, I'm pro-choice. Ergo, companies that give me the option to choose will continue to get more respect from me than ones that don't if it should come to that.

[DivineAssault]

Im sure PS & Nintendo will have media drives. They sell in territories that dont have very good internet if they have it at all.. Messed up since so many games need patches but what can you do? Anyway we have another gen or 2 before going all digital is even an option for them

[Stanjara]

For once I agree with this guy

[NickAwesome]

They better have to or i will get really angry! Long live physical media!

[xYLeinen]

The next Playstation needs to support 4k bluray..

[SenorJepeto]

Sometimes Pachter changes opinion like a pair of shoes. He first predicted this gen of consoles was the last https://www.gamezone.com/ne...
He predicted next gen would start in 2019 and now he predicts 2020. His consoles winner predictions also change over time. Most gamers predicted next gen would still be with physical games and consoles... I guess I just don't understand what makes Pachter's prediction still doing headlines on n4g