A major part of the digital/physical debate that people forget

[gigantor21]

Ah, but that enforcement angle is what makes all the difference.

That licensing agreement has been around for as long as I've been playing video games. They had "not for resale" warnings on the box for Sonic on the Genesis when I was little. But we still had plenty of flexibility, as publishers aren't going to millions of people's homes to try and enforce such rules for every game that comes out.

Digital makes it far easier to enact all the licensing restrictions that the industry so badly want to enforce. That's why MS wanted to push their restrictive DRM on used game sales so much in the first place. Streaming services like PSNow, which "#4thegamers" Sony wants to make the standard for content delivery, would be even worse. Physical grants me as a consumer far more ownership over the game I paid for, regardless of what the licensing agreement says on paper.