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Comment by pb7 | Hacker News Reader

For those that won’t go past the headline, it’s $399.99 for the digital-only version.

Which, frankly, no one should buy. It's a bad investment long term.

A few years after release, physical copies of games are usually cheaper—often much cheaper—than what's available digitally. I picked up a new copy of Horizon Zero Dawn for $12 a couple of years ago. I got Uncharted 4 for $20, also new. I don't remember what the equivalent digital prices were, but I'm pretty sure they were closer to $40.

I honestly think it's a bit of a shame—and a problem—that game prices fall so quickly. It puts too much emphasis on the first few months of sales (even more-so than other media), and in turn forces companies to churn out new franchise entries that don't actually do anything new. But as long as this is the state of the world, I think you'd be crazy to get the model with no disc drive.

I never buy discs because I just hate having to swap them out. Games aren't that expensive (at least, for me). I'll just pay the PS Store price. I mean, I deal with switch game pricing, PS store prices seem downright cheap in comparison.

Saving $100 is just the cherry on top.

Depends where you live as well. In Taiwan I find that I never get the deep discounts on physical games which I became accustomed to in Canada. Prices seem to remain at the $40 level for about three years. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is about CDN$55 new, still. It’s on sale in the Xbox store for about $20.

I have an xbox one and I rarely buy new games. Once every three months, I get an offer to try Gamepass for a dollar.

Selection can be an issue as well. I was in the local game store yesterday and they didn’t have a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2. I already have it but it’s kind of funny that I couldn’t buy a physical copy here of one of the biggest selling games if I wanted to.

For me, saving $100 on a digital-only console isn’t such a terrible purchase.

Living in Taiwan as well, and physical PS4 games are much cheaper after some time. I buy most of my games at around 500-600 NTD (17 to 20 USD). But PS4 (and Switch) seems to be much more popular here than Xbox, so that might be a reason.

Yeah, in many ways I wish I got the PS4 instead, especially because of where we are living. The Xbox exclusives weren’t that great compared to PS4 and the people out here seem to strongly agree which is why it is unpopular. I do think it’s a much cheaper system to own. The Xbox store is very generous. Three free games each month (half the time they are pretty good ones) plus gamepass is a really good deal.

I had a Switch last year but sold it. The Nintendo store would be a very distant third in the generosity department.

I guess it depends on if you are motivated enough to find discount games. I tend to buy 1-2 new releases a year and very few old releases. With new releases I like the bundled upgrades you tend to get with the digital releases, I also like not having to swap disks if I want to play something. Then I subscribed to the new Xbox game pass a year ago and love how many old games I can play for $15/month. Can't see myself buying physical games again.

I suppose if you're price sensitive or play a lot games or both then physical makes sense. Personally I'll play 1-3 new games per year and all bought on release. The few bucks difference doesn't make a difference for how much value per hour of entertainment I receive. On the other hand, not having to store and swap out the games each time I switch is actually a tangible benefit to me.

I think the average gamer cares about how much they pay per game.

I have got all major titles digitally at super cheap rates on PSN sales. God of War at $10, Horizon Dawn Zero at $12, Spiderman at $20, Devil may Cry at $19. You just gotta check r/PS4Deals subreddit everyday to know when a new sale is up.

Sure, and power to you for doing that—but I've gotten these prices on physical games without checking a website every day; I'm not really one to chase down sales. Worst-case scenario, having a disc drive doesn't preclude buying digital copies, it just adds that many more options.

Most of the people I know with PS4s share primary accounts for PS+ and games. (if you account is primary, any account on the console can play your games. You can play your own games on your own account, as long as you're online, and logged in.)

I'm waiting to see how this changes exactly, before I form an opinion on which one someone should buy. (on the PS3, you could have your account on 5 consoles, and each one could play all of your games)

For reference: I will only buy a console once it's hacked to the extent that I can run my own homebrew software and backups (morals aside, piracy usually gives you the best user experience for any kind of media.) on it, and even then I will only buy it second-hand, iff the price is right. Hence why I never bought an xbone: since you could load developer code onto the thing easily, nobody's bothered to find out how to totally pwn the console yet.

So that means it doesn't have a Blueray Player.

I thought they might have been selling a digital version of the whole PS5. Both stupid of me, but will happen at some point I guess.

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