You know what, I'm about to say it: I don't care that Switch 2 games are key cards. They can be traded to GameStop and looked at on a shelf. Other physical game pros don't register to me.
Maybe I'm just over consoles in general.
What does your physical game even have?
Consider, as an extreme, Minecraft for 360. Which received 75 updates, adding textures, skins, animals, biomes, mobs... What fraction of the game is on disc? It may as well be a key card.
Day 1 patches and updates are everywhere today. Even beloved Nintendo isn't above "release now, update later," with Animal Crossing: New Horizon's cartridge release missing series staples like Redd's shop and many seasonal events.
How will you play that game in the future?
Physical advocates will often taunt, "how will you play your game when the servers go down?" As if the quickest and easiest way to play Pokemon Blue is find a cartridge (and change the battery).
If I want to make sure I keep a photo, I don't take a Polaroid. I keep a couple digital copies.
All those Minecraft updates are on Internet Archive, and you can load the game on 360 from a thumb drive today.
Modern physical games aren't what physical games used to be.
Now, if you want to play a Super Nintendo backup on hardware, you know that doesn't go on a thumb drive. Because it comes from an entirely different age of media.
Getting the game once had a tangible cost. As did what the game could do. Cartridges with extra chips afforded games more features. PS1 games carried technical advantages over N64 games because of what media they were on.
The game was physical. You experienced the media - CD sound quality, the space of a DVD open world. Modern discs and cartridges are little more than proprietary backups.
So what's even the point?
Why even have console games?
The Nintendo 64 and its cartridges let me game in ways that felt otherwise out of reach. And even up to the 360's time, PC gaming looked expensive and clunky. Now Steam sells consoles and Xbox controllers pair over Bluetooth.
Physical game conversations often involve talks about "ownership." It's a different sense of "ownership" that's stopped me from buying any Switch game with a PC port.
I have 360-era Steam games I'll probably be able to play on any PC I ever own, portably on laptop or steamdeck, with any PC accessory. I have 360 discs I can play with specific 360 accessories, on anything I can anchor a 360 to - if it still runs.
One might argue I don't own a Steam library (support GOG), one might reply games on physical media aren't owned either, but licensed. Yes, that ignores the practical difference that Nintendo likely won't come for your cartridge. Just as Gabe will not be ripping my hard drive from my PC. A media that can be browsed, where game files might get modified.
I think the time is coming to move on.
I think it's really about the ownership. I get people like having the box to be prideful of their consumerism argument but I think having a library you can always access is the core of the ask and that was capable through Steam, GOG or the other Console Platforms less people would care about physical media in general.
Physical media doesn’t always guarantee perpetual playability though. Overwatch was a good (but extreme) example of this, the physical disc is just a paperweight or display piece now.
But, if the physical disk doesn’t contain a complete and playable copy of the game then eventually you’re not going to be able to play it. It might be 10, 20, or 30 years from now but I can guarantee you that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo won’t be hosting file downloads for these games in perpetuity.
Yeah, a GOG download of The Witcher 3 will be playable forever, where a disc of The Crew is now basically a drinks coaster.
The media is a red herring. What really matters is whether you have to go online to install and play it.
you're not wrong but my point is that people just care about unrestricted unlimited access to the what they buy regardless of the form. If digital distribution and a guaranteed right to access was around back in the earlier days, people would have similarly opted for those editions too.
I'd agree that those platforms arent interested in hosting files like that for a long time but it's why something like stop killing games has the ground that it does because people want more ownership rights over what they are spending their money on.
I have an original copy of Baldur's Gate and I would need a whole retro set up to play it. I just keep it as a display piece.
Lmao I just think physical media is neat man hahaha. If it totally went away I'd be sad.
Reselling games is a huge thing for me tbh. Like knowing that I can resell the game if i know i'm never gonna play it again. Also the non key cards save space on the SD/hard drive or whatever.
That's fair, and I guess it makes sense I see it most from Nintendo fans, as their games seem to hold value best.
There's a lot of stuff I don't care is physical or not, but I would like legal guarantees that it will always be irrevocably mine, redownloadable, at my discretion on which updates to install, and playable, just as a physical version would be.
YOU WILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY!!!!
Agreed. Ive got games for the PS1 through PS4 and Switch. At this point tbeyre basically just kind of there. Like Im still glad I have a lot of them in the sense that its games Ive bought and played over the years.
But I dont have 6 consoles hooked up to a TV so I can play all of them. A lot of the games can even just be played on an emulator. Its the same experience ultimately.
But also now, as you said, if I want to play my PS3 games then I cant update them officially.
And there will always be a part of me that misses the rituals of buying a game from when we were kids. Car ride home looking through the manuals(which dont exist anymore). Juggling the memory cards and making sure it has space. I do think there is something nice about physically interacting with media. I have records, a few books, etc. But for the majority of the time, I just want to enjoy the media. I dont always want to change the record or put the blue ray in and the Kindle is so comfortable to read with.
Also, most of those games will never be played again. I get the idea of saying I own it and it will always be there. Even ignoring things break and disk rot existing, I own games I bought over a decade ago, played once, and now its just..... there.
I get that. Can't keep the time from slipping. Can keep the discs.
I'm continually surprised by the garbage takes I see on this subreddit
I think the arguement that digital is better than physical misses the point.
Like for a lot of Pokemon fans, owning a Pokemon Blue cartridge is cooler than just owning a digital copy of Pokemon Blue. For a lot of avid gamers, looking at a shelf full of games is more fun then scrolling on a screen. For parents introducing their kids to games, dusting off an old console is more of an experience than booting up the newest one.
Its not all about having access to the game. You're effectively asking why they should produce cool physical merchandise for collectors and fans.
I ask; Why shouldn't they?
I think you can still have the merch but for some people total access to the game with the least friction is what they seek.
but that is actually the quickest and easiest way for me to play Pokemon Blue
and it's still more convenient for me to just throw Super Metroid into my SNES and turn it on than to play it in any other way
and the fact that I have the discs for Warcraft III means that I can still play the original instead of that abomination Blizzard turned it into with Reforged
and while I've been playing games on my PS2 after dumping them from discs and running them off an SSD recently, they don't run as well as they would if I just fixed the disc drive and ran them off the discs
and of course you can't lose your physical copies because someone's app saw you moved to another country, thought that was suspicious, and banned your account
But of course, there's benefits to digital, too. There's no limited prints of digital games, and as long as you have your account and the company that's running the service doesn't go under, you'll retain access to the game. While I have Xenosaga III because I bought it new decades ago, buying a physical copy now will cost you $200-$300. If the series were ever released digitally, people who never had the game in the past could easily get it legally now.
For me, ideally you have both physical copies that have the entire game in its release state with no online requirement and digital versions of games. Basically what the Switch 1 had.