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We haven't quite gone all digital on consoles yet, but I expect it will be happening with the next generation. It's clearly the way MS and Sony want things to go and they are easing us into it now with the all digital models of the PS5 and XSX so we'll be used to the idea by the time the next generation comes out.

If I've learned anything from the mobile phone industry over the past decade it's that companies give zero fucks about what the customers want and will absolutely remove features people actually use when it suits them and never bring them back. It's going to happen, the question is when. Because it benefits them greatly to not have to spend their profits on disc pressing and logistics.

In a fair world, digital games would be cheaper than physical, because they are cheaper to make, and you don't get a physical item so in a sense you also get less. And on PC, that is actually the case (although you'd be hard pressed to find a physical copy of any PC game these days) because of all the crazy Steam sales. At least if you are patient, you can get a great deal.

I'm not opposed to digital only as a concept, it's worked well for PC for many years now, but on PC when you run out of storage you can just add more drives. And if you own a game on Steam, you have it forever even if it gets taken off the storefront, and the chances of Steam itself closing down are slim. Things are not as easy on console and storage is a much bigger concern.

And if you run out of storage on your console and choose to delete something in order to fit a new game you bought, you've now created a problem for yourself once the digital storefront closes down because you don't have space for all of your purchased games and whatever you deleted to make room will eventually be inaccessible forever.

And if they start to include more invasive DRM actually requiring your console to connect online (like Microsoft tried but got backlash on) then even games you have downloaded could also be made inaccessible when servers shut down. So even if you had all the storage in the world your console will eventually become useless. I hope they never do that.