NPD study says that gamers prefer retail

Small titles that are around $10 or maybe a little more i'll download at any time. But for actual full games I want retail. I love the "new game smell" and it is intoxicating but that's not even the reason.

First of all, owning a physical copy makes me feel anyway that I really did just make a purchase of something for my cash. Second, the price differences that can occur between retail and online don't really make sense to me. Why can retail go cheaper sometimes than a digital distribution source? Third, in the case of XBL, the fear of having to transfer it to another console down the road with all the restrictions are rather ridiculous. Granted most are XBLA titles, but I don't want to lose anything there either. And fourth, I want to be able to trade them in if I want. Trade them in toward a new retail purchase.

This is just more of the same. Most consumers are morons, that's the end of it really.

Most consumers prefer to spend $100 on an HDMI cable over spending $5 on an HDMI cable, because they're ignorant.

This is the same kind of thing here. It's not that most prefer buying retail, it's just that most are unaware there is another option.

People who buy everything at retail overpay out the ass.

i like to own the box when i buy games. i can't stand downloading it, you will always have the disk but what happens if the service goes under?

I will concede that this is probably true, but I don't think the facts are as high as they say they are. It is in the NPD's best interest to say that retail will never die, because well, that's their business. If retail dies, they die, leading to a pretty big bias in my opinion.

Whoa whoa whoa!

"75 percent of game players say they prefer a boxed product, and 58 percent had never downloaded a game."

That's not saying SHIT about who prefers retail or not!

Has everyone conveniently forgotten how popular shopping (yes, for "boxed products" even) online is?