Oh yes I can. It's high maintence and I'm lazy.

No, a lot of games needed the disc inserted on startup. For example to play IL-2 Sturmovik in Lan or Need for Speed Porsche unleashed, we had to pass the disc around on startup. At least you could play 1 copy on upto 4 PCs over LAN. I don't know how many actually as I always downloaded the no disc check crack from a BBS. Others needed some random word from a manual which was also easily removed.

Then the internet became standard and online activation took over making the discs worthless. Pretty much silently killing the second hand PC game market. Physical PC games nowadays are nothing more than an install disc with online activation code. Playing over LAN with one copy was killed at the same time. Now you get a small discount when you buy a 4 pack to play together, rip off.

My point was the disc was used as the main check, since 1996, like the PS4 and X1 do now. You just explained why I said it. I didn't mean it continues now, on pc. Steam, Origin etc. all became legal no-cd cracks. Going down to their basic level. I simply meant PC people have been doing this 17 years before the PS4 and X1.

Just go digital if you want no disc. Because what you want to do is GO DIGITAL.
the point of having a disc is HAVING A DISC.
if you then have to tie it to your console, then it is automaticly DIGITAL!
so why bother in the first place....

My idea:

All discs and consoles have a unique ID.

When you put a disc in a console, Microsoft/Sony/whoever register that disc ID to that console ID. From that point on, so long as the console is connected to the Internet (so it can verify the console-disc ID mapping), it can play the game without the disc.

When you put your disc in another console, the unique disc ID is then registered to that console.

The downside is that it requires an online connection for discless play, and also an online connection for the first time you play a game on the console. The actual process of registering the console will require minimum bandwidth, so it wouldn't be a problem in 99% of households who actually have the means to buy these machines.

People didn't want to have to go online to play a game from disc and I doubt 99% of households with consoles have them connected to the internet 24/7 or at all. Adding a unique disc ID costs extra as well. Much easier is to add a code for a digital copy with each new disc sale. Same way most blu-ray movies give you a digital copy. Register it to your account after installing and done. However publishers have no doubt most gamers would immediately sell the disc afterwards. Hence all these complicated online and registration check procedures.

They could make the ownership of the disc more desirable with extras like with blu-rays. However they don't want to do that, margins on digital sales are simply to good to pass up. This conspiracy theory that retail stores keep digital prices high is just that, a conspiracy theory. Publishers realized that digital is the perfect way to raise prices for the simple convenience of no disc swapping and offering preload on the much desirable pre order business.

Discs have only been made less desirable, flimsy cases, no manuals, no extras on the disc, have to install everything to hdd, no benefits from loading from blu-ray simultaneously next to hdd. The only thing they haven't been able to take away yet is ownership. With a unqiue ID and registering discs to your account, that last major point can be made history as well. It happened to PC games already.

That again comes back to always online DRM ect, which nearly cost Xbox everything.

People hate DRM, and the unique ID for the discs will drive prices up.

Waste of time and effort to do something silly everyone just ends up hateing you for.

I feel like these are all bad ideas, and dont know why people keep rehashing them.

Why is everyone so eager for more and more DRM?

My idea:

Let people damn well own the copies of the games they buy and do with them as they please.

Anyone notice how happy people where when Sony announced that? Let people enjoy their games, the end, none of this online DRM crap.

brilliant idea. only problem is that the only way this works is if at the time of inserting any disc your console must be online. cause it has to be a system wide thing for the console to check online to first verify if the disc is locked or isn't from the license database.

which brings us to the same MS issue. always online.

Doesn't require always online at all. Only the first time you use the disc on the console, or if you want to play discless. Seeing as most people buy a handful of games each year, "always on" becomes "online 5 times a year".

I didn't say 99% of individuals, I said 99% of people who have the means to buy a game console. The kind of functionality I'm talking about could be achieved using just a few kilobytes of data, meaning it could work on cell network, satellite, hell, even dialup, with barely any time delay or cost to the end user.

The unique ID is part of the data on the disc that is written. A 5 digit code using alphanumeric characters allows for 50 million different unique codes for one game, and takes up 175 bytes.

It's not always online drm, see what I just posted above.

Albeit, I admit I have no idea how it would effect the disc manufacturing process.

Nothing realistically changes with what I suggested for anybody except the very first time you insert a disc into a machine. Compared to the 7gb patch you'll have to download when you insert that disc the first time (and, every time if you're like me and have month long gaps between play sessions), 175 bytes is hardly going to effect anybody.