Future of Physical Media in consoles - end of disks?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The OP said "the end of discs" and I think that is the best way to put it.  I can agree that discs are going away.  I don't think carts are going away.

Nintendo is going to keep selling carts, because too many people buy mostly carts.  Also retailers are a great way to market games.  They do a lot of their own marketing which is basically free marketing for the game publishers and console makers.  On the other hand Microsoft is clearly going hard toward the all digital route.  It's going to be somewhat successful, at least, if for no other reason than they just bought Bethesda and a bunch of other game studios.  Hot exclusive games can make any platform successful regardless of how good (or bad) the idea fundamentally is.  So Microsoft wants to get to discless as fast as possible, and they are definitely going to be successful enough that they can't be ignored.

That just leaves Sony.  I think for Generation 10 Sony is going to have to choose who they want to compete directly with.  They will most likely choose Microsoft, as the path of least resistance, since they and Microsoft have been fairly similar in the past.  In this case PS6 will be a discless system that focuses on a digital subscription service.  They might also to choose be more like Nintendo if they feel there is more money on this route.  That means Sony will make something like a "Vita hybrid" with carts.  Either way Sony will have to toss discs aside for one of the other two paths.

Regardless I'd have to agree that the era of discs will end in a few years, but physical media will continue through carts.