It's safe to say that digital is the future. You needn't look any further than the current generation of consoles, where the PS5 comes both with or without an optical disc drive, and the Xbox Series S doesn't come with a disc drive at all. The vast majority of PC downloads are already digital, and game streaming is even becoming mainstream.
Still, there’s something to be said for physical media. It’s hard to feel a sense of ownership of a thing that’s just made of ones and zeroes. Being able to hold your games, even when they’re as small as a Nintendo Switch cartridge, just comes with a certain sense of satisfaction that no digital download will ever be able to match.
But maybe that's just a factor of age. As Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima, the day when all physical media disappears is coming, whether we like it or not.
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"One day there will be no more CDs or BDs. That day will come for sure. As a person from the Showa era, I want to physically own the things I like," wrote Kojima on Twitter. "I guess it's because I grew up in a time when there were no goods or information like now.”
That said, Kojima did admit that “streams are more convenient." Kojima also admitted that even old-timers like himself can shift to a new media standard, although it took “a lot of courage to switch from LPs when CDs arrived."
It’s highly likely that the current generation of game consoles will be the last to feature a built-in disc drive. Future consoles probably won’t even both to save both space and price. But there is one downside to a digital future, and that’s when a game gets delisted or loses its online hosting. If a digital game gets delisted, it’s gone for good, but a physical game will last as long as the disc does.
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