It's only a matter of time now until physical media is phased out completely

[Remij 4,687]

 

 

Pretty safe to say that PS6/XSeries2 wont include optical drives, but will sell as an add on for backwards compatibility.  There's no way they release devices in 2027/28 which come with them as standard.

 

Maybe by then Sony/MS will have allowed you to link those game discs to your accounts permanently so they can be discarded if you choose to not want to buy an optical disc drive add-on?

Edited July 31, 2023 by Remij

[madmaltese★ 2,588]

Will obviously happen eventually but I think the movie/tv space is well ahead of gaming in regards to this. 

[Remij 4,687]

7 minutes ago, madmaltese said:

Will obviously happen eventually but I think the movie/tv space is well ahead of gaming in regards to this. 

 Yea I have to agree with that... but 4-5 years is a long time.  Sony's already quite clearly gearing up for this with the PS5 digital and the rumors of the drive add-on for it as well as the potential PS5 Pro/Slim.

 

But yea, games are obviously many times larger than your typical movie stream.. but with already half, or more than half, of the market completely embracing digital... it's not hard to see that once the dominos like this start falling, it all happens quickly.  We also have publishers releasing digital only versions of upcoming games, like Alan Wake 2 for example.

 

I think by the PS6/XS2 generation it goes full digital.  Seems logical.

[madmaltese★ 2,588]

1 minute ago, Remij said:

 Yea I have to agree with that... but 4-5 years is a long time.  Sony's already quite clearly gearing up for this with the PS5 digital and the rumors of the drive add-on for it as well as the potential PS5 Pro/Slim.

 

But yea, games are obviously many times larger than your typical movie stream.. but with already half, or more than half, of the market completely embracing digital... it's not hard to see that once the dominos like this start falling, it all happens quickly.  We also have publishers releasing digital only versions of upcoming games, like Alan Wake 2 for example.

 

I think by the PS6/XS2 generation it goes full digital.  Seems logical.

I think it makes a lot of sense to take out optical drives in future devices and have them optional. Any cost cutting approaches like that I'm all for. For eg my XSX is purely a GP device so I've paid for the optical drive for no reason essentially. 

 

I think Alan Wake is a bit of an example of how gaming maybe isn't ready for it. There was a decent amount of backlash against their decision to not have physical, to the degree that publishers actually reached out and offered to publish the physical version for them (i think it was 505 Games in this case). Other than the whole file size issue with games and not everyone everywhere having access to fast or unlimited internet I also think there is more of a collectors community in gaming. 

[Twinblade★ 3,933]

Those will be sad days for gaming. When I was organizing my game collection I came across so many classic boxed PC games, and It made me realize just how much I miss buying them in that format.

[Playstation Tablet 1,730]

Nintendo will hold strong. Believe! 

[Remij 4,687]

1 minute ago, madmaltese said:

I think it makes a lot of sense to take out optical drives in future devices and have them optional. Any cost cutting approaches like that I'm all for. For eg my XSX is purely a GP device so I've paid for the optical drive for no reason essentially. 

 

I think Alan Wake is a bit of an example of how gaming maybe isn't ready for it. There was a decent amount of backlash against their decision to not have physical, to the degree that publishers actually reached out and offered to publish the physical version for them (i think it was 505 Games in this case). Other than the whole file size issue with games and not everyone everywhere having access to fast or unlimited internet I also think there is more of a collectors community in gaming. 

It does.  It's honestly a smart idea and perhaps should have been done to begin with.. but Sony knew they needed a system with a drive for at least one more "transitional" generation.  To which I believe the PS5 is it.  But realistically, it just makes more sense to have them separate.  These drives are only used for basically installing games now, as well as a security/authenticity check.  Having them optional solves a lot of problems, for both the platform holder and consumers.  Less moving parts the better.  Drives were often one of the biggest causes of consoles not working.  We all remember PS2 DRE errors and even PS3 drives had issues.. lol.  So that makes sense.  They can also save a bit of manufacturing costs on the consoles themselves, and make a few extra bucks from the drive separately.  

 

I think Remedy has good reason and data for supporting their decision though.  More people probably just buy digitally and the ones that don't can't cover the costs/risks of manufacturing all those discs which potentially wont sell.

 

The collector community will push as hard as they can for as long as they can.. but I still think once these big media conglomerates start dropping physical, it will ricochet throughout the media industries and a ton of those "physical until I die" people will make the jump to digital.. with only special cases offering collectors editions with physical media.

[Playstation Tablet 1,730]

On a more serious note games aren't movies they cost a lot and aren't 90 minutes long. Physical is here to stay.

[Remij 4,687]

8 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

Those will be sad days for gaming. When I was organizing my game collection I came across so many classic boxed PC games, and It made me realize just how much I miss buying them in that format.

I miss the big box PC releases more than anything...and PS1/SAT long boxes!  I wish we could go back to those days for that, but alas the world moves on and we have to go with it.

[Playstation Tablet 1,730]

Watch the PS5 Slim disk drive work on PS6.

[DynamiteCop 2,087]

This only bothers me for movies because they are entirely driven by bitrates to which digital is massively inferior.

[Mr. House 3,371]

Physical games sales as increased apparently in 2023. I think I heard that in a Capcom report.

[lynux3 2,107]

With how many games are being delisted and discontinuation of printing physical media this is quite sad. Physical games aren’t like they were anyways considering everything is patched all the time or requires an initial download to even begin playing.

 

I for one would love to see physical media continue to exist, but it’s time to reduce their actual physical size. We don’t need paper flyers or manuals these days. Make the cases as small as they can be like jewel cases for PS1.

[lynux3 2,107]

5 hours ago, DynamiteCop said:

This only bothers me for movies because they are entirely driven by bitrates to which digital is massively inferior.

Agreed. Give me my 4K HDR goodness. Although not all of them are great releases.

[lynux3 2,107]

5 hours ago, Remij said:

I miss the big box PC releases more than anything...and PS1/SAT long boxes!  I wish we could go back to those days for that, but alas the world moves on and we have to go with it.

My StarCraft OG releases and the Battle Chest.  

[TLHBO 2,162]

It's sad but inevitable. "You'll own nothing and be happy", more control for them and less for you. This is why its better to invest in PC, at least you will have backwards compatability, picking the best optin if/when it comes to it.

 

I think download speeds need to increase for gaming though, some countries are stuck with primitive speeds (my own included). Downloading every game when they are 100gig+ is not feasible.

[-GD-X★ 7,760]

Good

[Playstation Tablet 1,730]

FFVII Remake being on two Blu rays is a sign of things to come imo sizewise.

[Ike★ 2,919]

Switch successor is said to have physical cart port so at least one company still keeping tradition.

[Mr. Impossible 411]

8 hours ago, -GD-X said:

Good

This is actually kind of terrible.