Jester,

I don't have figures on what percentage of games are now a download, rather than a store-bought product. My guess would be that it's increasing, at least by some amount y/o/y since, long ago, we figured that the margins would be much better for the vg's as more people chose to purchase this way. And one of our thesis was this move away from stores why we expected GME to eventually fold. It has been cut in half in terms of stock price from when we saw the writing on the wall, while the vgs themselves have exploded upward insanely. Seems you're saying that the connection with GME is still very strong. It'd be clear if I knew the numbers.

I'm also curious about if you download software, how easy is it to switch it to a new computer as you upgrade. MSFT is hell on that, I wonder if it's the same with vg's. And not that the next thing is of great importance, but it's an interesting idea: A while ago Steam began selling a device called 'Steam link"? (Not sure of the name of the product. $50 list, I bought it for $20 on sale. Read a review that mostly praised it for it's performance with some hiccups. It lets you play a game on any sceen/monitor in your house. There's a companion controller for another $50, but you can use your own if you like. Interesting.

The most recent estimates are from EA, saying about 30% of full games to be digital currently. That's up from I think 20% a couple of years ago, and 10% a couple of years before that. Then there are all the DLC and MT sales on top of that of course. While it's true the pubs get better margins from digital, they still need that 70%, some of whom will also be buying BF1 season passes etc. All I'm saying is, if you removed all retail stores overnight, game sales would crash. I think there's no doubt that just as more places to buy games is bullish, fewer places to buy games is not.

Console digital sales have no guarantee to work on the next console cycle, and they have essentially no resale value even when selling the console. For example all PS3 digital downloads only work on PS3, not PS4. Steam is fine, within reason of course with regards OS requirements for older games.