GameCentral readers discuss exactly how many games they own in total, with some readers boasting of collections in the thousands…
The subject for this week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Xane and includes both physical and digital copies, but not games you have access to via a subscription service like Game Pass.
Unsurprisingly, those with the biggest collections also tended to prefer buying physical copies, with a lot of talk about admiring them on shelves. Few were outright hostile to digital though and all seem to agree it is the inevitable future of game collecting.
Next gen change
After checking my PlayStation and Switch library, it turns out that I currently have 443 games on the PlayStation, although 167 of those are PS Plus games. Of the remaining 276 games, eight of those are on a disc. I own 99 games on the Switch, and only one of those is on a cartridge.
Of those games, only a handful of them would have been purchased at full price – either multiplayer games where I feel you are at a disadvantage by not coming in as early as possible or sequels to games I love (Dishonored 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, etc.). The rest will be games that I bought in sales, years after their release, at heavily discounted prices.
I don’t think I’ve paid full price for a AAA game since Red Dead Redemption 2; I plan to get Cyberpunk 2077 day one but will happily wait for something like Ghost Of Tsushima to come down to around £20 before I even think about getting it. It’s why I’m not too bothered about re-selling games once I’m done with them; if I’d paid full price for a game that I was done with then I might want to, but I’m not bothered about it when it’s something like Tomb Raider, for which I paid around £3.
It’s also why I plan to get the digital PlayStation 5 when I get around to upgrading to the next gen. My music collection has been entirely digital for years now and I recently got rid of all of my DVDs and Blu-rays so it makes sense that my game collection would follow suit. I don’t think the industry will every fully go digital; some people will always prefer to own something physical and some people will want to own collector’s editions but for me the convenience that a digital library offers outweighs everything else.
Eiichihoba (PSN ID)
Buy to sell
Currently I own 10 physical games across PlayStation 4 and Switch. Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Untitled Goose Game (which I won in a competition), Luigi’s Mansion 3, Judgment, Horizon Zero Dawn, God Of War, Dreams, Crash Bandicoot 4, The Walking Dead: The Final Season and Rachet & Clank.
These are all games I will play and then trade in, as trading in is a major factor in funding my game purchases. I do however have a good library of digital games across all platforms, but they are all indie games that don’t have a physical version. Basically, if a game has a physical version, in most cases that will be what I buy.
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Crash Bandicoot 4 (PS4)
Digital issues
Currently I own Mario Kart 8, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, and Super Mario 3D All-Stars, all physical copies, for the Switch and NBA 2K20 digitally.
For the PlayStation 4, the only physical games I own are The Last Of Us Part 2 and FIFA 21, which I won’t be able to play until next month when my PlayStation 5 arrives. The reason for this is that I sold most of my PlayStation 4 games a few weeks ago to get some money towards games. Digitally however, I own Resident Evil 2; The Last Of Us Remastered; Far Cry 4, 5, and Primal, God Of War; Horizon Zero Dawn; Uncharted Collection; and Journey.
You might think therefore that I’m a fan of digital purchases. However, for the most part I’m not. All of these games I purchased digitally were heavily discounted. I got Uncharted and Journey for free and spent only about £70 on the rest. I would definitely consider digital sales but for new games I only buy physical copies. I had a quick look at some of the most high-profile releases so far this year: Doom Eternal, Ghost Of Tsushima, The Last Of Us Part 2, Crash Bandicoot, and FIFA 21. The only one cheaper digitally was Ghost of Tsushima, by only a few pounds. The others were on average around £10-£15 cheaper when bought physically.
In the case of Doom Eternal, it’s currently priced at £24 at Currys for both Xbox and PlayStation 4, whilst a digital copy will set you back £55. It’s not always new releases either. I recall once buying an older Call Of Duty title for a fiver at CeX and saw it still listed at the full price of £60 on the Xbox/PSN store.
I can’t ever envision buying full price games digitally unless there are real tangible benefits. For example, FIFA 21, which I just bought, was £50 at Morrisons. However, I am able to access, through family, the 15% employee discount so got it for £42.50. I will likely trade it sometime next year and probably get £20 trade-in.
If I purchased it digitally it would set me back £60, yet Sony/Xbox lose nothing through trade-ins, retail costs, manufacturing costs, etc. I read somewhere that 80% of game sales are digital. Honestly, I despair, who is paying £10 and more over the odds for a product they can’t sell on afterwards.
matc7884
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Definitely a lot
How many games do I own?
Sorry for the length of this but it turns out I have a lot of games. How many games do I own? I don’t actually have a definite number. I’ve done a quick tot-up of all the games I can lay my eyes on, but really need to get round to finishing off an index I started to track the games I have.
Physical games: 1,000+ These are split across the following platforms:
PC – 6 – not really a buyer of PC games. Seems nowadays a lot are just keys on a disc, which is not for me.
N64 – 26 – a few more to add to the collection, which will probably finish up around 30-35.
GameCube – 143 – my first console purchase, and the inspiration for my username.
Game Boy Advance – 5 – only recently started on these. There’s not many I want and those I do want are expensive. This will likely only increase to a max. of 15 over time I reckon.
Wii – 190 – It was the Wii catalogue that really got me into growing my games collection. I have virtually everything I think is worth owning. Off the top of my head there are only three titles that I’ve got my eyes on to add.
DS and 3DS – 230 – I’ve bundled these numbers together because I keep the games together and play nearly all of them on my 3DS. There’s still a few I can see myself adding over time, but probably won’t exceed 250.
Wii U – 69 – a treasured set of games for one of my favourite systems, that I use regularly to play Wii and GameCube games on too. Off-TV play was a killer feature for me. Just a couple of games I can think of that I may add.
Switch – 85 – … and very constantly growing. It’s remarkable to me how many games I have for the Switch, seeing as it’s only 3.5 years old. Normally I pick up most of my games at the end of the generation, but the Switch is nearly everything I was hoping Nintendo would produce before they announced it, so I intend to support it all the way.
PlayStation – 4 – just been buying a few classics recently for the collection. Will add a few more but my interest in the system is limited and I have the Classic Mini console.
PlayStation 2 – 53 – I came to PlayStation 2 ownership only relatively recently. This number will grow a bit, but the lack of backwards compatibility on later PlayStation hardware, and the number of remasters, etc. limits my interest in getting very many more.
Playstation 3 – 71 – Don’t expect to buy any more PlayStation 3 games.
PlayStation Vita – 15 – Only a very few that I haven’t got that I expect to possibly add at some point.
PlayStation 4 – 50 – Still a fair few to pick up, and I’ve only got a couple of PlayStation VR games so far so there’s a decent amount of those to add at some point.
Xbox – 12 – I don’t own an Xbox so these are mostly just those that are on the Xbox One backwards compatible list, plus Project Gotham Racing 1 and 2, which are essentials to me.
Xbox 360 – 21 – I only bought the console for the Project Gotham Racing games. Most of the rest are compatible with the Xbox One.
Xbox One – 26 – This will likely grow a bit more as I’m a fan of Microsoft’s commitment to backwards compatibility and, while I’m not planning to buy a next gen console any time soon, I will likely get a Series X eventually.
Digital games: I don’t have a decent answer here. The majority are on Steam, about 300, but it’s not my preferred platform nowadays, thanks to Nintendo’s Off-TV play. And I prefer physical console collections. And if I’m buying a digital-only indie game then I want it on my Switch, where I’ve got around 100 digitally so far, but this number grows almost daily it seems.
I’m in my late 30s and gaming has become my number one entertainment source. Having the boxes, the artwork and the instruction booklets is really important to me, as it not only gives me something tangible to drool over, but it also means I retain nearly complete control over the games I play, and acts as some form of investment in comparison to digital licences.
gcunit
PS: I forgot to mention my other classic consoles. I have the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16, and Neo-Geo mini consoles too. So that’s about another 150 digital games.
Visual confirmation
I’m fully digital and can’t remember the last physical game I purchased.
I won’t Include Steam titles (though I’m guessing a few hundred) and I don’t currently own a PlayStation 4 or Switch, though at last count I believe it was about 80+ on PlayStation 4 and 35+ on Nintendo Switch.
Instead, I wanted to share my complete digital collection on Xbox, but will not include the 100+ Game Pass titles (although my Game Pass Ultimate I prepaid for another 18 months, I appreciate these are only active while the subscription is, and change intermittently).
I’ve attached an image for confirmation.
Xbox original and Xbox 360: 182
Xbox One: 614
My current list shows 846 titles but I’ve obviously removed betas, demos, etc. Which brings the total down to 796.
Certainly not a bad collection and thanks to Microsoft’s backward compatibility approach, I’ll certainly have plenty to play on the 10th November.
Lee Walker (LAW3 – gamertag)
Cheaper for someone
I’ll be honest: I couldn’t be bothered to count them all but I’d estimate I have around 100 physical copies of games. I do sell some on but I’m both a bit of hoarder and never get around to playing half the games I buy so I’ve got a huge backlog.
The only digital games I have though is indie games, since you’ve got no choice but I resent having to buy digital because you’ve got no option to sell them on. It’s obviously the future so I’ll be looking at prices for the next gen and looking to change my way of doings, but somehow I doubt this is going to work out as cheaper for anyone but the game companies.
Grhol
Fearful number
I definitely would need a long time to count up my games, of which I haven’t the time right now. Also, I’d be too fearful of what the number would actually be! As you can imagine over the years of my life, that is a lot. From SNES, N64, and Game Boy cartridges to GameCube, PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 discs, and Xbox 360 discs. Now with the PlayStation 4, the collection is vast! Definitely will not be including my Amiga 500 Plus collection.
My digital versions are limited though, which include a Mass Effect 2 DLC of Lair Of The Shadow Broker, which was a much needed link to Mass Effect 3, Beyond Good & Evil, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night and I think that’s about it. I do prefer the tangible disc for keeps but I am warming more to digital, as it’s less stuff to keep around the house. Along with DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs I feel the digital age is a lot easier to play, enjoy, and manage.
To me, the problem with games is making sure the connections with the main servers are good and you are able to re-download the games for whenever and however long you want too. A movie is a couple of hours, a music album is around about an hour long, and they don‘t take too much hard disc space up. I definitely find a digital copy is all I need from subscription sites like Sky and Apple, etc. Games on the other hand, take a lot longer to deal with and are colossal in size. And I need the confidence that games and console companies don’t eventually take the paid for game away from me in some distant future.
I watch films and listen to music from the early 20th century all the way to present times. They are mostly all available in some form and especially digitally. But games are always hit and miss, and that’s why I’d never get rid or sell any of the disc versions of my games. I may never be able to get them again, which would be a shame.
So like music and film, I’d definitely jump on the digital gaming wagon but not until I have the promise of bigger hard drives, reliable servers, and once bought – they are bought for life! It would definitely be a PlayStation 5 disc version for me for now, but the following next generation of consoles, I will more likely buy a full-on digital console. To be honest, I’ll probably have no choice!
Alucard
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