Part of why Sony nowadays is a game company with a movie hobby is that discs were dirrrt cheap compared to cartridges. They’d fund any stupid bullshit people wanted to make, get finished cases on shelves, and know whether consumers loved it, before N64 developers had finished negotiating a production run. Their cost per disc was measured in cents and their manufacturing turnaround was measured in days. One of the slowest and riskiest aspects of game publishing suddenly cost next to nothing.
Digital distribution isn’t necessarily cheaper per-gigabyte… but there’s no mastering. There’s no lead time. There’s not even the concept of a production run, anymore. Developers can ship whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want, essentially for free.
In cost of the game itself for sure, but then you’d have costlier price in the disc too.
With the discs the scratches and storage were a bitch of a problem and later games even needed internet connection to activate games running on disc. It had pros but wasn’t all rosy either.
As someone who has exclusively bought games for download this generation, it ain’t economical lol
It’s economical for distribution.
Part of why Sony nowadays is a game company with a movie hobby is that discs were dirrrt cheap compared to cartridges. They’d fund any stupid bullshit people wanted to make, get finished cases on shelves, and know whether consumers loved it, before N64 developers had finished negotiating a production run. Their cost per disc was measured in cents and their manufacturing turnaround was measured in days. One of the slowest and riskiest aspects of game publishing suddenly cost next to nothing.
Digital distribution isn’t necessarily cheaper per-gigabyte… but there’s no mastering. There’s no lead time. There’s not even the concept of a production run, anymore. Developers can ship whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want, essentially for free.
In cost of the game itself for sure, but then you’d have costlier price in the disc too.
With the discs the scratches and storage were a bitch of a problem and later games even needed internet connection to activate games running on disc. It had pros but wasn’t all rosy either.