The Convenience Store

Ah, the humble convenience store. It’s where you go when you just need a quick pint of milk, or a few cans of lager, when you really can’t be arsed to go all the way to Waitrose / Sainsbury / Tesco /Aldi (delete as appropriate to your social class). Of course, it’s a little bit more expensive, but it’s the price you pay for that quick, easy gratification.

I’ve found myself increasingly using the Playstation Network store in much the same way. Ridiculously, many of the games are still more expensive in the digital marketplace than the physical disc copies that companies have to actually print, make, and physically transport around the world. What they are though, is convenient. Partly because you can get games without even leaving the house or having to wait for a delivery, but mainly because you never have to actually get up and swap the disc.

A few weeks ago I got up, put my shoes on, and went to the front door, with the idea of walking to Argos to buy a copy of Sniper Elite 3. I had been tempted by hearing that it is by far the best “shooting a nazi in the balls” simulator around. Well, in the top ten for sure. Anyway, as I opened the front door I discovered that it was tipping down with rain. Absolutely hammering it down. I closed the door, opened the PSN store, and happily paid £5 more than Argos wanted for it.

Partly because you can get games without even leaving the house or having to wait for a delivery, but mainly because you never have to actually get up and swap the disc.

The Last Of Us Remastered was a no-brainer for a digital purchase, given that it was more or less exactly the same price as the disc copy. But I’ll also be buying both Destiny and the next generation GTA V digitally, and it’s purely down to the fact I’ll be playing both a lot, and don’t want to have to swap discs continuously. It was bad enough last generation, when much of the game was actually on the disc, but with the fact that the full game is installed on your next gen hard drive, it feels almost perverse. Discs have become little more than giant, ungainly shiny tokens that do little more than prove you still own the game.

Almost everyone I know with a PlayStation Vita has pretty much gone fully digital, despite the still ridiculous pricing of the larger Vita specific memory cards. It’s probably a combination of the large digital back catalogue available, and the ridiculously fiddly size of the Vita’s tiny cartridges.

It’s  not a popular opinion to have, so I’ll say this bit quietly. Lean in now, that’s right, gather round… I can’t help but wonder if maybe Microsoft were on to something with their original Xbox One ideas, where you only needed the disc to install the game, and then it was done. Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Perhaps… they were right?

Hang on, there’s someone at the door…

OH MY GOD IT’S THE SECRET GAMING POLICE! NOOOOOoooo-

(sound of truncheons flying, limbs cracking)