There’s a digital revolution taking place at the moment – and Ubisoft is well-placed at the centre of that progressive push into cloud-hosted and digital gaming services. Now that the Microsoft acquisition of Activision has been completed, Ubisoft will prepare to onboard a host of Activision Blizzard games to its Ubisoft+ gaming service.
In an internal interview, Ubisoft’s SVP of Business Development, Chris Early, spoke about the future of digital – and physical – media. He was insistent that while the sale of physical games may decline over time, they won’t ever completely go away – no matter how popular digital downloads and cloud-based games become.
It’s a Digital World
There’s a digital-only version of the current Xbox and PlayStation consoles – and rumours have been circulating that the next Nintendo Switch console may have a cloud-based version, too. However, there are still plenty of players who pick a physical game over a digital one, and even Sony’s latest update to the PlayStation 5 console included the introduction of an attachable disc drive.
Speaking as part of an internal interview, Chris Early explained:
There’s a collector edition market. There’s the aspect of gifting physical items and allowing access for people to be able to easily purchase a game in a store and gift them to their friends or family. Some people will always want to own a physical disc. I just don’t think it’s going away. Do I think physical sales might get lower over time? Sure, but will it ever completely go away? I don’t think so.
Early did take the opportunity to talk about the advantages of streaming games, though. He stressed how users can try out a game without waiting for a download, for example – and as technology gets better, so too does the service itself.
Do you still buy physical games?
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Bobby Kotick is leaving Activision
