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How does the lossless-analog movie idea work? I never looked into it... surely not laser-disc right? Would be great if someone can educate me and the benefits over blu-ray (besides the obvious post-processing filters and crap).

With music I would say vinyl does what ZenErik is saying: wear out with use over time. A good compromise... if the source is better on the vinyl you can make your own rips (or download them) with a high-end rig and A/D converter... there are lots of awesome sounding DACs out there that sound very analog and faithful to the source to listen to them on, and there you have a good digital "archive" of the music as well as analog. Also liking video game music would be kind of strange from your point of view since it's completely digital?

With the rare exception of a bunch of games I got cheap off Steam and GOG during the holidays for my PC, I never buy digital. At the time, I was just interested in diving headfirst into PC gaming and those sales were hard to ignore.

Typically though, I never buy anything digital unless it is only available digital. You look at all the digital games I got off XBLA and PSN and it's stuff like Guacamelee or The Dishwasher Samurai, or Double Dragon Neon, etc, etc.

If it's available physical, that's the only version I buy, because gaming is my main hobby. It's not just about playing, I love owning this stuff. I don't give a shit when it comes to music though. 90% of my music collection is mp3s, with a few FLAC files here and there for really good stuff that I may want to listen to in high fidelity at some point(though I doubt my ears would notice the difference).

With comics, I'm a little of both. I get a lot of stuff digital(so easy to find for free on the internet), but I go to my local shop for stuff I really care about like Batman, Buffy, Angel&Faith, The Walking Dead or Fables. Though sometimes I wonder if that's just my excuse. Thing is, the shop owners are quite nice to me and I like having a few books on subscription to give them some financial support and give me a reason to pop in every now and then.

No surprises from me. I buy nearly all physical. I'm tightfisted, a stickler for preservation, and sometimes I just want to buy used so don't support (or minimally support, depending on your perspective) the content's original publisher (as most know by now, I tend to be easily agitated by corporations). The one exception is GOG.com. I have bought a few old games on the site because it's DRM free. I want to support that, even if inherent format limitations prevent resale, which does leave some mild preservationist concerns for new titles. The games I've bought have already had physical releases though.

Gamerforlife wrote:90% of my music collection is mp3s, with a few FLAC files here and there for really good stuff that I may want to listen to in high fidelity at some point(though I doubt my ears would notice the difference).

IMO it's really only worth it if you have an audio rig revealing enough to hear the differences as long as the mp3 isn't encoded horribly.

Music, Movies and Television shows are all DRM-free digital downloads (with a few exceptions). I will only purchase physical copies of these types of media if I really enjoy it or want a "collector's edition".

Games I have tried to go digital with, but it's already bit me in the ass. Steam is pretty great for most of my PC gaming, and since the majority of my PC gaming is Indie games anyway, this really doesn't bother me.

I recently started purchasing a lot of my games in digital format on the PS3. PS+ gave me a taste of how easy it was just to download full titles and enjoy them without leaving my couch. Unfortunately, I made a LOT of purchases a few months before the PS4 announcement with the "peace of mind" that they would just carry over if they ever came out with a new console. With them stating it's not backwards compatible, I'm not worried that I made a huge mistake and will not be able to carry over my PSN purchased games. Really bummed out.
Made a similar mistake with my old Wii. A few of my games were digital, thinking I could leave my old Wii with my dad, and purchase a new one for myself. Now that I'm looking into getting a Wii-U, I realize I won't be able to get those games back.

Until they find a way to "fix" digital games, I won't be buying anymore (unless that's the only option). Physical copies only for me.

I'm still not figuring out how digital games not carrying over to the next generation of a console is an issue for a community of people who regularly purchase Saturns and SNESs to play games of a previous generation.

MrPopo wrote:I'm still not figuring out how digital games not carrying over to the next generation of a console is an issue for a community of people who regularly purchase Saturns and SNESs to play games of a previous generation.

I don't have an issue with backwards compatibility over-all, but to me there's not much of a reason to not carry over digital content. I can understand if the game isn't going to be ported over to the PS4, but if I purchased a digital copy of a game for the PS3 and it is ported over to the PS4, I feel that my purchase should carry over. I guess it's just a different mindset. "I bought the game via PSN, I should be able to download it from PSN regardless of the system."

jinx wrote:I don't have an issue with backwards compatibility over-all, but to me there's not much of a reason to not carry over digital content. I can understand if the game isn't going to be ported over to the PS4, but if I purchased a digital copy of a game for the PS3 and it is ported over to the PS4, I feel that my purchase should carry over. I guess it's just a different mindset. "I bought the game via PSN, I should be able to download it from PSN regardless of the system."

I think it depends on the amount of work required to port it. Some digital purchases, such as PSOne Classics, or SteamPlay titles, are basically like that. The HD collections and the like we're getting now have a good bit of work put into them, but could easily be download-only titles in the future. In that case, I don't think it'd be improper for the PS4 version of a game to be considered a separate product.

Since the PS4 is x86 while the PS3 was Cell, then I wouldn't expect anything that's currently on the PSN to be able to run on the PS4 without engineering resources being spent to get it ported over. Maybe PS1 classics, in that the data on the PSN is an ISO with some metadata so they'd just need to roll a PS1 emulator, which they already did to allow PS1 classics on the Vita.

I only go digital with PC games if they're on Steam or GoG.com. Consoles I only do digital for network games, and never for full retail titles. I refuse to pay $60 for a license to a game that I most likely won't be able to play once they stop supporting the console.