You're not wrong but I feel like getting rid of discs helps move things in the opposite direction. Yes it was licenses even with discs, but now we truly can't resell or trade.

So it's gonna be a live service (online only) and die one day just like The Crew did?

No, Half-Life 2 came out as physical media. The controversy was that you had to have a Steam account to activate the copy. Which, when you think about it, is not a whole heck of a lot different than what's going on here. But Steam has basically institutionalized the use of a platform to access games rather than simply having a physical copy for yourself. Which is why I'm glad companies like GOG exists.

The major difference here is that this game is a console only game. And typically with major console releases you would be able to take your physical copy and put it on a different machine and play on that instead if you liked. Whereas you can't do that now. You download this game to your console and that is your copy. It is tied directly to your account. Which is essentially how steam works. Which is why I find it absolutely hilarious that Rockstar is locking out platforms like Steam because of their concerns over people hacking the game and distributing it.

I sincerely hope somebody finds a way to crack it in less than a year. These fucking companies need to get kicked in the balls a couple times.

But you could sell a disk (as long as it doesn't need an activation code) which is one of the good things about consoles (said by people that have consoles)

Yeah pretty much. I was gifted a collectors edition copy of starfield for xbox when it released, and the media was a metal credit token replica with a download code printed on the side, rather than a disc.

The smart watch it came with was pretty shit too fyi, but that's probably no surprise lol.

The physical media should be a 500GB M.2 SSD containing the game. Plug and play haha

A disc with a licence on it is better than a single use download code.

thumb drive? Should easily fit into a case

I hesitate to ask but you know Nintendo already did that yeah? Like it sounds like you may know but just to make sure.

Designed car crash, aided by subsidized digital only console variants.

No, the whole point of consoles is that you can just play a game and it just works. Physical has been dead for generations.

I'd imagine that the game would still be unplayable with physical media when it likely requires an Internet connection anyway.

NFS most wanted was like 6 cds. Jokes on you I'm into that shit.

Even if it requires a download, a license you can sell or trade is better than one you can't.

They wouldn't release it on floppy disks. It shouldn't need more than a few blurays.

or just three, which is not unheard of

Steam used to have a way of backing up installs yourself; if it’s still a thing, I have no idea where it’s hidden now.

Library -> Game context menu -> Manage -> Back up game files...

The game files are just directories you can archive however you want anyway. No stinky 'installer executables' necessary. (:

They're less known, but ZOOM-Platform are DRM free for everything, and given you the offline installers.

https://www.zoom-platform.com/

You can back up your Xbox digital games at least via transferring them to an external drive. Not sure about PS, they’re always more restrictive.

Almost all of my Nintendo games are physical. If I had a Playstation or an XBOX I'd go for physical copies as well. Why? Collector and resell value, also you can't just disable my physical game, you'd have to come by and physically take it away from me.

On PC, I care less about it. If Steam shuts down tomorrow, I download everything today and unlock it via Goldberg or just pirate it on demand. On console, I either can't do that at all or it is quite challenging to do so (with some exceptions).

Its a line, some people like to buy and own. Remember this moment when you spend the rest of your life renting your media.

Because I like to actually own the stuff I buy. I don’t want to purchase access to a product for the same price as buying it outright.

I’m also salty every time I see a digital game available for pre-order. Pre-order is to make sure you get one of a limited set of copies. There are unlimited digital copies. The only thing pre-ordering a digital game does is ensure upper management is less stressed about bug fixes and botched releases.

Literally all of them because there is no way for a game to exist without physical media. If it's on your SSD/HDD, it's on physical media. If it's in "the cloud" it's in someone else's SSD/HDD. It's always on physical media, just not a nice little disk in a box.