36
votes
Best Buy is discontinuing physical media in Q1 2024
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- BREAKING/EXCLUSIVE on The Bits: Best Buy is exiting the physical media business for good in 2024
- Authors
- Bill Hunt
- Published
- Mar 4 2023
- Word count
- 755 words
Well, this is disappointing. Particularly as a gamer, I got my last two physical games from Best Buy, one because I underestimated its popularity and couldn't find it at other retailers.
I don't like the shift to purely digital media, both for games and all other media like movies and TV shows. Physical media is more permanent and secure. Licensing rights for streaming services expire and change all the time, and there are many more that won't ever get on a service's radar. I know from friends that a lot of obscure films and shows are now only available on DVDs, and can be pretty pricey.
And also, you can wrap it up to gift people at Christmas and birthdays. I love opening presents to find a game or movie, and I'm sad more kids won't get to have that experience. It's not the same to open up a gift card.
If I am reading the article correctly, it only refers to discontinuing DVD/Blu-ray sales. It seems they will continue to stock video games.
I'm finding conflicting reports. I couldn't get the article to load when I initially commented, so had to look up other articles to get the information. Some specify that "physical media" includes video games, others only mentions DVDs and Blu-ray. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether they intend to discontinue games.
Regardless of if they do or not, the loss of DVDs and Blu-ray is still going to be a hit to media collectors.
What percentage of physical games are really physical these days? I'm a happy Steam sellout, but I thought most physical game boxes these days just contained a code to let you download the game.
That does seem to be happening more and more. My first experience with this was when Skyrim came out back in 2011. Waited in line at GameStop for a couple of hours in the cold only to discover that my patience had rewarded me with a Steam code and a map!
I mean, at least the map being in the box was something, but I was pretty annoyed that I could have stayed warm for those couple of hours instead. These days I'm also a Steam sellout. I think if Steam ever crashes and burns my gaming hobby will almost certainly start to fall away.
Not sure. I haven't gotten many physical games myself lately, in part due to my tastes leaning towards indie titles which aren't likely to get a physical run. Nintendo is pretty good about physical copies though, and PS4/5 seem to be good when it comes to bigger titles. At least for Nintendo, I think the packaging would also be pretty clear if a game had only a code instead of a physical game.
This applies only to consoles though. I don't think many publishers bother with game discs for computers these days, only one I can think of might be the Sims.
This is a real disappointment. My most recent Best Buy purchase was a PS4 copy of GTA V to give as a gift. I’d previously purchased several movies from them. I liked being able to buy these items in person, without having to worry about damage or getting scammed.
It seems like suicide to me (one less reason to visit the store) but I'm a weirdo who resisted streaming services until I needed one to watch soccer.
Certainly Best Buy struggles with a product line that is spread too thin: they stock junk washing machines from Samsung,have 15 gas stoves but no induction stoves, try to sell cell phones when nobody seems to make a good business of that other than the carrier store (remember when Radio Shack tried it?), and will sell you a camera body, the kit lens, some memory cards and... that's about it. (But who'd expect them to really stock a full set of lenses like B&H photo?)
I do have to admit I'm a little shocked Sony isn't selling CD players anymore and suspect that Blu Ray players are not far behind. I still try to check Best Buy before AMZN for anything I'd reasonably expect to get at Best Buy because at least Best Buy invests in my community.
This seems very strange to me. Wouldn't the type of people who physically visit a Best Buy store be exactly the type of people who want to purchase a movie, TV show, or video game on physical media?
Evidently not, I suppose. The only ones with those stats are BestBuy, and presumably those shelves weren’t making enough to justify existing over other merchandise.
There are several things I have to wonder about when it comes to this move.
Though let me clarify something: I stopped buying at Best Buy YEARS ago- they were absolutely terrible with their stock and prices. Granted, for movies I would just rent from the library, and I always got video games at gamestop or other specialty store.
But with this move.... does it show a trend that people are more likely to use streaming services than get physical media now? And if so, let me ask the penultimate question: why ARE people shifting more to streaming services? I'm going to assume that originally, streaming services were cheaper in the long run, and people just continued the streaming. I will admit that I rarely bought movies and definitely not TV shows, because unless i REALLY enjoyed a movie enough to think about buying it... it would be something I watched once and then have no need for it otherwise.
And it also leads to this danger: the dystopian nightmare phrase of "You will own nothing and LIKE it.". Paying for something that you can't even keep, and ultimately ends up at the whim of corporations whether you can even experience it or not... it's extreme, but I feel like we're slowly headed that direction.
Slowly? That's not just been the trend for the last decade, we're at the tail end of the trend. Physical media is absolutely a minority of the market, and a small one at that. We're way beyond the point where people prefer streaming services over physical media.
I think the only device most people even own that can read a physical disc is their game console at this point - and that's an IF, because the new Xbox Series X won't have an optical drive, and Sony already offers a cheaper version of the PS5 without an optical drive. Computers don't ship with optical drives, not to mention many people watch these days on their smartphone or a tablet.
I am one of the people who exclusively watches via streaming services, AMA (not that it's particularly rare).
I actually am going to take you up on the AMA part, though really it's just one question:
The one major benefit of physical media is that it means once you have it, you can watch it ANYTIME. Sure, you always have the risks of misplacing it or it gets cracked/scratched or something... but the major point is, it's YOURS. Meanwhile, with streaming... well, and what my question is: let's say you find a movie or show you you actually REALLY like. However, with the way licenses work and otherwise just whims of the streaming services, do you ever get FOMO? In other words, how do you deal with the very real possibility that the movie/TV show is on the stream one day, but could very easily be gone the next day? You pay a subscription fee, but the content that fee gives you tends to constantly change. Are you the type of person who is actually okay with knowing that you're arguably paying money for a crapshoot of movies and TV shows?
Sure. I don't really feel FOMO, no. I'm not particularly married to any of the streaming services. I subscribe only to services with shows that I'm actively watching, or want to watch, and I usually do so by subscribing and immediately canceling (so it's effectively purchasing a 1 months worth). For example, if I wanted to watch the Office, since it moved from Netflix to Peacock, I would subscribe for a month on Peacock. If I keep wanting to watch the Office, I would renew it. If I no longer had any shows I was watching on Netflix, I would allow the subscription to lapse.
So I am paying for exactly what I want to pay for - timed access to a particular piece content.
While you didn't ask, my main reason for going all streaming is convenience. If I want to watch something, I want to watch something, not go to the store or wait for an Amazon order. If it's something in my library, I don't want to dig through my closet for the disk. I often juggle multiple pieces of media, swapping between 3-5 TV shows or movies in a few hours. That would be quite the pain in the ass if each were on their own disc.
Furthermore, I barely have any devices that can even play discs. I actually do a majority of my content watching on my phone (as to why, it's because it's the only device I can watch without glasses/contacts), and certainly it's not viable to hook up a disk drive to that.
To be honest, it’s not even much of a choice. The vast vast minority of my content occurs on my TV at this point, and there’s no way I’m hooking up a chonky disc player to my phone or laptop just to watch something.
Funny, I find when I want to watch something specific I have to go searching the dozens of streaming services, find out that it isn’t available on any of the ones I’m currently subscribed to, and then have to buy it or rent it anyway. It’s been a long time since having only a Netflix subscription meant you could actually watch that one movie you remembered on a whim.
I don't know if I'm some ultra rare exception, but I rarely read, watch or play anything twice, so it makes absolutely no difference to me that I continue to own the thing after I'm done with it.
I love physical media as much as the next guy, but has anyone quantified the environmental impact physical media has? That is an actual question.
I haven't read anything as such, but in the grand scale of things it's actually not too terrible. The majority of a physical release will be made up of plastic, but unlike a lot of stuff people buy it's actually useful; the case protects the media and the media gets used. It also keeps for a very long time without spoilage so it's not very wasteful. They're even lightweight so the impact from transportation is relatively low. Buying a DVD might have less environmental impact than buying a jug of liquid laundry detergent.
Well, I get my Blu-rays from Goodwill for $2 so I doubt they'll miss me. And I cant remember the last time anything in Best Buy was a better price than Amazon, plus I dont have to have an annoying salesperson hovering over me.
Is the link not working for anyone else?
Not working for me either.