Topic: Whats the point of online retail games?

Ok, one of the Vita's trademark abilities is that you can buy and play full retail games without taking a trip to the local game store, only that this ability is useless due to the fact that you still need to take a trip to the store to put money on your online balance so you can buy those full retail games, just that you have to go to the store less often.  Sadly, without a credit card, there's no way to escape this.  So, I guess the point is so you can have loads of games and movies all on your Vita all at the same time, and that there's no way your games can freeze or hang?  Either way,  it'd be better if you could pre-order games on your Vita, and when they come out, you'll get a notification about how the game is released, and it'd be free if you paid all of the money, and you can pay the rest if you didn't, all on your Vita.

I enjoy the experience of going to a store to purchase a game. Physical copies are always cool since you can re-sell if you dont like a game or completed a game. I only have PSP games i've downloaded on my Vita. My 8GB card is rather full already.

Online retail games is the perfect way to get discontinued ones, these that you cannot find anymore in physical media.

If you dont want to use your credit card over and over, just go to a physical shop once and get a pack of prepaid PSN cards. I think this system is perfect, then sync your downloaded games with your PC or PS3 and keep in the memory card these games that you are playing at the moment. The drawback (if any) is that you cannot trade your games nor leave them to others.

Digital games:
Pros:
Can't lose
Can't break
Don't have to swap
No tax (most states)
No waiting

Cons:
Can't share
Can't trade
Storage space
Download time (seems silly to be, but some argue this)

online retail games will start to make a lot more sense to me when they significantly lower the prices.

I never buy online full games. Mainly because they just take up too much freaking memory. Plus they're usually cheaper on a physical copy.

I purchased need for speed hot pursuit via dowload and kind of regret it. It takes up memory space and I could have purchased it cheaper used at gamestop.

Now Game and Gamestaion have gone done the pan...........download is the only way to get a game same day as purchase! but I do pref a hard copy

@BudrSbastig Or there's always HMV/supermarkets/other shops -- remember not all GAME or gamestation stores have closed -- if you like your purchase same-day

No but they will......... have you found all of the vita games in HMV/Tescos? thought not!

No but I haven't found all the Blu-rays in there either, and nobody's saying digital is the way to go for movies, right?

Also sincerely hope not all GAME and gamestation stores close. That'd be quite a kick in the pants.

I've read that some of the reasons of GAME's crisis is the success of Steam and PSN. I have little experience with PSN but for sure Steam is a monster more than able to impact non-digital shopping severely.