Microsoft just sent us their brand new Xbox time to make a whole video on all
the big changes well it's an Xbox series X all
right with no disc drive and some cost
optimizations and it's
white okay very funny but there is
legitimately more to this story the new model will also save you $50 that is if
you're willing to commit your soul to the digital only future and give up
playing dis based games probably forever should you take the deal I mean on the
one hand $50 that's a lot of money to save but on the other hand the
conventional wisdom says that physical games are much cheaper than digital ones
especially in the long run does that make diskless consoles like this a bad
deal how many games would you need to buy before you wipe out that $50 savings
that is the question we set out to answer and it turns out
it's kind of complicated or well really complicated the good news is we did the
complicated part for you and when you're done watching this 11 and a half minute
video you will be equipped with some very practical tips that will save you
money and you'll also be equipped with this message from our sponsor ovhcloud
they're a leader in providing cloud computing and hosting services and
coming up on November 28th our very own Luke lafrenier is going to be at ovh
Cloud Summit as a guest speaker it's going to be streamed live live on their
twitch and xplatform so don't miss out
and click the link in the video description to learn
more we began our price comparison journey by adding the top rated and top
selling PlayStation 5 titles to a spreadsheet then culling any of the
games that didn't have a physical release that left us with a healthy mix
of 67 games we've stuck with the PS 5
this time around because the crossplatform licensing on Xbox is a bit
more complicated so leave a like if you want to see a deeper dive that includes
the Xbox and the PC also about twice as
many people have ps5s than current gen Xboxes so PS5 step two was to populate
our spreadsheet with both digital and physical pricing now some individual
prices may have changed since October 15th but the overall story shouldn't
giving us the answer to our first question right away how many non-used
games would you need need to buy right now to break even on the $50 that you
spent on a dis Drive version 29.8 which
I got to say is a lot more than I expected I mean sure if you bought our
entire sample Library here it's clear you'd come out way ahead with physical
games but let's be real that's way more
than most people are going to be buying over the entire lifespan of a console so
digital wins brother we are only at the first
nest of this rabbit Warren to go deeper we need to add these columns tracking
historical sale pricing where digital
extends its lead not only is it cheaper
for a gamer with an average size library but it's even cheaper overall and not by
a narrow margin we're talking a savings of
$419 per game for the patient gamer that's
$281 for our complete Library but before
you physical media enthusiasts finish typing that comment we're not done yet
so backspace backspace couple more times there you go let's break this down Tech
tip by Tech tip although we've been focused on digital versus physical so
far the most important metric is really current price versus sale price which
was a difference of $ 13 to $20 per game
or $900 to $1,300 for the entire Library
so that right there is Tech tip number one be patient seriously if you take one
thing from this video that's it using some of the same tools that we used like
PS deals or camel camel camel you can not only view historical sale prices but
in many cases you can even predict future sales both the timing and even
the pricing I mean look at this it's like clockwork these days especially for
digital you can also follow social accounts that are dedicated to keeping
you informed on Regional sales we're going to have links to some of those tools as well as the consoles we're
talking about down below now of course I understand you can't always be a patient
gamer you want to jump into that new release while all your friends are playing it but especially for single
player games guys you can save as much as $5 to $10 simply by waiting a week or
two and picking up a secondhand copy ah yes the ace up the sleeve for team
physical used games these are going to
change the math in a big way but first let's talk about where to get them
that's tip number too it turns out that if you want something right now your
local GameStop might not be as bad as we expected on average pricing on used
games at GameStop and Amazon is remarkably close and that's before you
include promotional offers we did find that used prices on Amazon could be
significantly lower sometimes but the availability was pretty inconsistent of
course if you're patient and willing to emerge from your gamer Den once in a
while buying on Facebook Marketplace is King for finding the best deals on
YouTube games our spreadsheet makes that clear already and we haven't even tried
to lowball anyone yet so so much for everything else I said physical for the
win video over or is it the whole
convenience argument against Marketplace that's a real argument picking up all
your games in one shot really is a lot easier than meeting up with 67 strangers
on the internet but if we're going to talk about convenience in our equation
then it kind of reopens the door for digital doesn't it Click Click Boom you
got a new game to play your time has a value and I'm not just talking about
driving to and from the store cuz the discs we're buying these days are
pressed weeks in advance of launch meaning that even on day one there are
almost always crucial patches that turn your disc into little more than a shiny
license key that takes up space on your shelf we downloaded three whole games in
the time that it took to install and update one game via disk though of
course your internet speed is obviously a big variable there making matters
worse though let's say you bought six games one at a time as you build up your
game library and you bought them from the store at a median us hourly wage you
just added at least $ 12 to $15 in time
and transportation to your cost now the full picture is obviously going to vary
from person to person you can clearly order a physical game online as well but
what we can say is that with waiting around factored in digital absolutely
obliterates physical but we're not done yet what
about game preservation buying digitally is just leasing a
license that was literally settled in court not that long ago and when those
servers go down you lose your game point
for physical then well yeah but
Counterpoint when that happens you're also going to be losing access to
crucial updates for those physical games so if you're really concerned with
preserving your gaming experience for all time this key point that used to go
to physical media now belongs to
piracy but since the current gen systems haven't been jailbroken yet we're going
to cut that conversation off here changing gears though there is one huge
W that physical still retains transferable licenses you can lend your
friend a game without account sharing Shenanigans and you can even sell your
games outright to partially cover the cost of your next no life Addiction in
fact if you're trying to minmax your gaming and if time means nothing to you
because hey it's your hobby anyway this is the clear winning strategy you find a
deal on a used game you finish it in a week or two then you sell it directly to
the next Consumer not back to GameStop
if you can time it right you can usually get your money back or even make a few
bucks here and there now if that kind of flow sounds exhausting to you don't
worry you're perfectly normal but if it's your jam power to you and I get it
as for me I think the most interesting finding from our investigation is
probably how subscriptions Factor into the equation let's match up our cheapest
overall category of historic low used prices against the historic low digital
prices but this time let's include 2 years of PlayStation Plus extra that
adds $270 for the subscription but we get 24 out of our 67 games for free
giving us a net Savings of $1 136 that makes the price difference
between the lowest allused and All Digital just
$37 for the entire Library so once you
factor in the $50 discount for a digital console all of a sudden you're ahead $13
by going disc free and you've got two years of online play extra features and
access to hundreds of additional games of course you're going to have to keep
paying for PSN forever and even if you do some of those games might get taken
away at some point are we going to have a conclusion
here gauging value for these things as you can see can be reallying complicated and
that ignores the fact that depending how you do the math and which games you look
at the numbers can bear out very differently if we used median values for
our initial analysis for example it might have only taken us half a dozen
games to make up the cost of our disc drive rather than the original
29.8 which is why we focused on the overall trends that make it easier to
make generalized tips for you so here's one more in the real world the best
deals are on a per game basis and if you want the cheapest version of our
complete Library it's probably no definitely going to involve a mix of
used and digital games that right there
I think is the conclusion because that is the most irrefutable argument against
the removal of the optical drive because what it costs you is not only measured
in dollars it's measured in flexibility with this console I don't get to choose
anymore what kind of game I'm going to buy that is why David who wrote this
video is going to be doing a second exclusive over on LMG g/ Floatplane
going through the spreadsheet in a bit more detail and admitting he was wrong
about the PS5 Pro's lack of a disc drive he said he didn't think it was that big
of a deal he wrote this video and then immediately went out and bought a disc
drive for his I look forward to watching that and I look forward to telling you
guys about our sponsor vessie are are you ready to step into fall well vess's
new Courtside Classics bring a vintage tennis shoe style to their collection
that is perfect for unpredictable fall days whether it's rain or Chilly Winds
or a walk at the pumpkin patch that looks cute but ends up being muddy
vessie it's going to be there for you they say their shoes are so waterproof
you can Splash through puddles without a second thought they feature a padded
tongue and collar plus a lightweight design that makes you feel like you are
walking on clouds whether you're crunching through leaves on a scenic
hike or enjoying a cozy evening in the city vessie keeps your feet comfy and
dry our team loves vessis because they're super versatile and you can rock
them all season long so don't wait grab your pair today and if you use our Link
in the description you'll automatically get 15% off your first purchase if you
like saving a buck on your video games why don't you check out our video about
five mods that Nintendo wishes were illegal seriously go watch it now before
their lawyers try to take it down which isn't a challenge Big Red