Future of Physical Media in consoles - end of disks?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

DPsx7 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

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.

I don't think so. The problem they have is no games. Sure you'll say "but they bought..." when that doesn't guarantee a damn thing. Rare anyone? Personally the only thing I'd miss is Doom. Burned out on Dishonored and Wolf. Prey was neat but I dunno what they'd do for a sequel. Haven't played anything else. Anyways, since their catalog relies so heavily on BC it's easier to try digital even though they got shot down once before. (Have they learned nothing?)

Companies know it's suicide to go all digital, everyone has media coming next gen. Unless prices drop dramatically the market isn't going to wean off discs for a long time. I can see a couple reasons why it may benefit then to trade optical media for carts. Like I said before as long as we have this option I'm ok with it. As soon as we lose control, forced to be always online, I'm done.

*Cards aren't that pricey. They aren't as cheap as burning discs but what does a 16-32gb card cost now? That's plenty for the majority of games. Ramp up production and the bulk costs won't be high at all.

Hahah, you are like that guy who always says "the Switch has no games".  I mean, he can say it, but that hasn't stopped Switch from breaking all kinds of sales records.

They just bought 8 studios with Bethesda being the most important one.  That is authentically a big deal.  That basically means their first party output is comparable to Sony now.  id software is actually an important studio too.  They created the FPS genre, and that still means something to a certain set of gamers.  And yet Bethesda is still even a bigger deal than that.  I personally hate Bethesda RPGs, but I still find people in RL who say Skyrim or Fallout is their favorite game.  These games have appeal and name recognition with people who are unaware of 99.9% of games out there.  And obviously you can find tons of people on the internet who love these games.  Skyrim has sold over 30 million copies.  That is a big deal.

I don't even like defending Microsoft, but what you said is pretty ridiculous.  You might as well have said the sun is purple.  They are going to have games, and the Bethesda games are definitely killer apps for Gamepass.  People are going to get Gamepass just because of the games it will have.  You can deny it if you want, but you're going to end up pretty shocked when subscriptions go up for Gamepass when the latest Bethesda game gets released.