Topic: Retail or Digital?

At the moment, I prefer buying the physical copy at retailers since I only have an 8 GB memory card. When I do get a 16 GB or higher one though, I'll probably download most games that have high replay value like Wipeout, Disgaea, etc. So yea, do you guys prefer downloading full games or buying the physical copy for the Vita?

I usually just buy retail, I want to save the space on my memory card until I can upgrade to a 32GB card. I have a 16GB card right now.

I have a 32 gb card, but I'm pretty sure the only things I'll download are PSN games, minis, PSP, and apps. I'm pretty sure I'll always buy retail for full retail games, unless they blow me away with a very, very significant discount.

I greatly prefer digital for many reasons. The only reason I've bought physical a couple times was to get it earlier and because I've been out of space since launch basically.

Still holding off for a 64gb card or a price cut on the 32

While I no longer have my Vita, I had quite a mix, but I agree it depends mostly on price and resale value. A good example is something like Resistance Burning Skies. Much hyped, premium price, ultimately disappointing. I bought it at retail for £35, played through to finish then got £32 trade from CEX.

So in that case it makes sense to buy the full game, I had Ridge Racer too- which isn't worth much at all second hand so I got the PSN download.

Generally though, if there is a significant discount on retail price for the download I'd go for that- I much prefer to have a physical copy- but it's nice with the Vita to not be swapping game cards.

I almost always buy at retail even if I had a 32 GB mem card I'd still want to save the memory space. Only time I buy a game digitally is if it's only available that way or if it's one that is extremely hard to find at retail.

I'm 50/50. But I prefare digital on handhelds.

Digital versions are better also for gamers and developers. First of all there are cheaper than physical copy and it's better keep all your games in one place on mem card. But it's only my opinion

It's easy to say that digital copies are cheaper for gamers, but unfortunately while it should be, I don't see that happening. I'm speaking from a ps3 standpoint since I don't own a vita, but it seems like a) companies aren't making them cheaper online, and b) the price doesn't often come down on them once set. So while the industry lowers the price at retail, it takes a long time for the digital versions to go lower. You end up with ridiculously priced digital games.

I agree.

The recent ebook price fixing controversy mirrors this attitude. Over established infrastructures (such as PSN) digital delivery is neglagable in cost versus priducting a physical copy.

Like ebooks- games either hold the set price for the duration of their availability or only cheapen via sales and discount offers rather than a sales based reduction in price employed by many retailers. This is of course a consequence of not have excess physical stock lying around that needs to sell- that said, it should be perfectly apparent to publishers what the sales figures are for their games.

In games, I fully accept that a huge team is responsible for the content, and as such we shouldn't expect to pay significantly less than a retail copy- but at leat the cost of the disc/cartridge/card, manual and case should be deducted. Possibly more in Europe for the manual as they tend to run larger than those in the US.

I had a Sony PRS- 505 for a number of years (2007-this year in fact) It was fantastic, I read mostly free books and cheaper Sci-Fi/Fantasy options available on it usually. When it came to new books- best seller, big name author types, I never bothered as more often than not the price seemed so inflated (and we know know that it very much was).

Even now, there are huge issues with delivery of ebooks. For a medium that takes up minimal memory, as such requires a tiny amount of download time and only requires the physical presence of a server to host unlimited units- you can, and most likely will, pay more for a new ebook than the hardback version of the same text.

You can easily find similar examples for the majority of new retail games, most notabley Lego Batman- £39.99 on PSN, £29.86 on shopto.net

Obviously, this isn't always the case- with ebooks or games. But it should absolutely become a media standard that content bearing fewer costs to produce should in turn be cheaper.

Pretty much my thoughts.

I don't have a Vita either but I'm a big fan of digital on PS3. That said I have found that I can get "most" of the games on PSN cheaper on Amazon.

Sometimes I spend the extra 5-10 dollars anyways to get digital but if I can find it $15 or more cheaper with retail I'm doing that.

Keep in mind I don't have PS+ so I can't take advantage of those kinda deals.

It also depends on the game. If it's a trilogy like Uncharted I like having the retail set and if it's a time consuming open world game like Infamous and RDR I like having digital.

DIGITAL!

For the more expensive games I go for retail.  For cheaper games I go digital.