Topic: The grimdark future of physical collecting.

When a 50GB double-sided blueray disc (100GB) isn't enough to house the whole game, what hope is there for physical collectors on the next generation of consoles?

Mandatory download for Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

@Magician "what hope is there for physical collectors on the next generation of consoles?"

None. I refuse to buy such crap! If the download was for some extra definition graphics, then ok. But if I am unable to even play the game from the disc installation then this disc has NO DAMN purpose.

Such practices do not deserve money!

If this is the future of gaming, then I will go back to being Captain Jack Sparrow and still "get" games on launch day.

For me digital only is for PC/Steam Deck.

Good thing is that I have a backlog to have me entertained for 2-3 lifetimes

@Magician never thought of that

Actually, I can see a really expensive future that is exclusive to LRG, SRG etc. Where you pay big money and they prepare a disc/cartridge version just for you.

OR self-burning discs for a hacked console at home, the old way style

For me honestly, It wouldn't matter. I have found myself moving more and more away from physical media especially after having a house fire a two years ago. I don't need shelves filled with games all over my house cluttering everything up. Plus with a system like the Switch that can be mobile I rather have digital games for it so when I am on the go I don't have to worry renting a truck to carry my entire Switch library. Heck even with my Series X 90% of that library is digital as well.

Besides you can still collect games via digital why does it have to physical to be a collection?

I mean it probably is enough, they just don't compress files because **** you.

One of the underappreciated things Nintendo did in the Wii U era. They had updates that would improve certain features of Xenoblade Chronicles X (I wanna say it involved draw distance) that were optional, probably because they were very large files. If an EA did this, it would be in every copy as a mandatory download.

Aren’t physical games missing updates and DLC? How is that any different to a collector that has mandated download? Serious question, I buy physical but am not a collector so I’m curious about the difference.

@Tasuki "Besides you can still collect games via digital why does it have to physical to be a collection?"

There are different types of collectors. Me for example, I want just to have a playable game on the physical media otherwise why even bother with it? If no physical is available, then digital is fine.

However, if digital is the only option, then there will not be any second hand market and the gaming industry will have an ugly monopoly on that. They will screw over its users as they please. Every gamer will be required to get a copy from the store. This power will quickly turn into more greed because of no refund policy like the eShop.

One more thing with the practice above. Why even produce plastic if it is not even usable without internet connection? For marketing in the physical stores? That is pathetic. At least spend couple more cents and put the whole base game by using a second disc like The Last of Us Part II or Red Dead Redemption II.

One more thing, you are not collecting games, you are collecting digital licenses, that means you are given permission to play those games. Once the servers shut down for any reason you can't authenticate your "fake copy" and it will be unplayable.

Example for that is Diablo 2 Resurrected, once in a while I have to connect to their servers or I can't play my offline characters at all!

The only digital front for PC games that allows absolute freedom is Good Old Games (GOG). When you buy the game you can store the installation file on any piece of physical media forever. And install it on 10101001010101010(infinite) number of devices with ZERO server checks. Completely DRM free. They rely on people's honesty, and it works for them.

I would consider going all digital if games/movies were DRM free, but having an actual physical copy, however flawed they may be, are still superior to having a console/account-locked digital licence IMO as you can use them across multiple consoles, sell them, gift them etc.

They are not Blu-rays, but rather Ultra HD Blu-rays (different format/specs), which come in double-layer (66GB) and triple-layer (100GB) varieties, while standard Blu-rays come in single layer (25GB) and double layer (50GB) varieties. For whatever reason, it seems that publishers, either by choice or due to requirements by Sony/Microsoft, default to 66GB UHD discs for PS5/Xbox whatever series, even for very small games that wouldn't even come close to filling up a 25GB standard Blu-ray. I also suspect that cheapskate publishers will occasionally force downloads by using 66GB discs as opposed to the more expensive 100GB ones, similar to how we often get screwed over on Switch with cynical incomplete-on-cart releases.

I've done a quick search, and if the 150GB-ish file size is accurate, then they should have shipped the game on two discs (one 100GB and the other 66GB). I'm curious to know how much of the data is actually on the disc, or whether EA have done what Activision did with the last Call of Duty and included nothing but a tiny launcher on the entire 66GB disc (what a freaking waste!).

While I don't own any non-Nintendo hardware, it nevertheless annoys the preservationist in me that games on PS4 and beyond aren't actually running natively from the disc across the board. Fair enough if a particularly large game requires installation to the hard drive due to Blu-ray bandwidth limitations, but it makes no sense for extremely basic games like Puyo Puyo Tetris to require installation when the disc wouldn't break a sweat (incidentally, the Wii U could run an open world game like Watch_Dogs without any form of installation whatsoever while versions on rival hardware forced an installation), and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs have even more bandwidth than the formats that preceded it. Allowing for some games to run natively from the disc would also benefit users by not unnecessarily occupying hard drive space considering what memory hogs many modern games can be.

I suspect that we've reached the end of the road as far as physical home media formats are concerned. I can't see 200GB or 500GB discs surfacing in future given the diminishing audience for home video releases of film (and games to some extent) and the diminishing returns of such high resolution presentations, but with boutique publishers out there servicing the demands of collectors, physical releases may live on in some form or another, possibly in more niche (and expensive) forms.

There are no burnable UHD Blu-rays (or burners) at present, unfortunately (I still author home videos and recordings for clients on Blu-ray every once in a while), so unless the UHD disc image can be split across multiple standard Blu-rays, this probably won't be possible (though the console would likely need to be hacked to read "yarrrrr" discs anyway). It would make more sense for older consoles to be hacked and games reverse-engineered so that they can essentially be preserved and played without DRM restrictions over burning them to discs.

Incidentally, as much as I absolutely hate software updates on Switch, at least they can be sent wirelessly between consoles, so, one could effectively have a back-up (or two) of everything so long as you own multiple consoles. DLC, not so much (a practice that I detest for physical console games, especially if a complete physical release doesn't follow).

as much as i love the touch of a game case and cool box-art and hearing that sweet disc spin

i don't care if physical goes away, the conveniency of digital is just too convenient.

It's an interesting time. There's clearly still a very healthy market for physical game purchases, but the industry is understandably happy to use the large file sizes as an excuse for crowbar-ing partial digital downloads into physical purchases, and thus over time no doubt hoping that it conditions the market to just swallow digital whole.

I've spent thousands on Switch games, and beefing up my older platform libraries. This slide towards digital is a turn-off for me, so unless I see a renewed commitment from the industry to respect my want for physical media, I shan't be spending nearly as much on future platforms.

I've little doubt that the industry is happy to let that happen, in the hope that the younger generation will fill the gap people like me leave. Good luck to them all.

I much prefer digital nowadays, it's easier and faster to switch between games - especially with fast resume.

The only disadvantage of going fully digital is losing the ability to trade games but that is surpassed by the convenience of accessing my game library on new consoles - recently picked up a new PS5 and instantly had access to my library. It is also significantly cheaper buyinh digital games on sale than buying the physical version.

I am also heavily leaning towards the subscription model with GamePass and PS+ making it easier and cheaper to play many more games, does it bother me that I don't "own" them? Not at all, In exactly the same way it doesn't bother me I don't own a movie when watching netflix.
I buy consoles to play games, not to hoard cases.

On consoles I prefer physical as one eventually runs out of hard drive space. Plus the collection looks nice.
On PC I can always just bolt on more HDDs and SSDs and rely on the digital platforms to maintain the games for download.
Consoles have a more limited lifespan, as we've seen with the Wii U and 3DS.

@Magician I've kinda been entertaining a fantasy of publishers starting to use OEM SSD cartridges or specialized USB sticks for games rather than disks. Would allow for larger media, because what's next with disks, holographics?

It doesn't matter too much to me if games mandate partial downloads at this point on home consoles, since you have to install the entire game on your hard drive in order to run it anyway. The game is on the console, like a digital copy, not playing off the disc. The physical disc is just there as a form of DRM now. The main tradeoff is simply the full convenience of not needing to hassle with the physical DRM before switching games vs boxes and resell value.

And anyway, most home console AAA games are a shell of their full selves without patches.

Basically, the industry has effectively gone full digital already on those platforms.

Switch physical media is the last gasp of true physical gaming, so I moreso understand the frustration there.

@Sisilly_G That is true, but a man can dream right?

I see skilled programmers do wonders for the "game preservation" community (I mean the crew of the Black Pearl ) so booting a game from external HDD/SSD is also a convenient way to sail the seas and bask in their torrents

I swear these kind of discussions really itches my nerves for whatever reason I cannot figure why...

Yet, liscencing issues is still a big Achilles for digital, you know. I amazed nothing has done to rectify that. Digital store closures are still a threat. I gotta wonder how that balances out.

I'm still going physical. That ain't changing for me.

Now if digital rot is avoidable...maybe I'll embrace the love of digital. Data can ROT, can it?

Yeah, the... ahem... preservation community has done wonders for saving everything that went overboard with the closure of the 3DS and Wii U eShops. Nothing is truly lost forever that way.

What's rather more troublesome is all the live service games that have failed of late. Since substantial components of the games only ever run server-side, there's simply no opportunity to preserve them. They truly are gone for good.

Welp, that's a fact we'll have to live with. Maintaining servers aren't exactly a cheap nor feasible for most live service games. Plus, the way technology evolves so quickly these days.

Definitely. I'm such a sucker for preparing Blu-rays. Just over 8 years ago now, I'd burned 80+ hours worth of VHS tapes to five 50GB discs in SD, broken up by scene/day, and presented in chronological order (where feasible). I intend to make a 20th anniversary Blu-ray of our trip to Europe/Turkey later this year (there's about 28 hours of footage there).

I also have a professional 4K camera and a couple of UHD cameras, and I would love to be able to burn footage from those cameras to UHD discs. I'm content with standard Blu-rays for the time being, but there is definitely room for improvement.

I ought to throw you overboard for making such naughty(cal) puns.