Are physical games eventually going to die?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Pemalite said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

3) Retro PC gaming.  It's a pain in the butt if it isn't on gog.com, and even then it isn't perfect.  I've heard people sing the praises of how PC gaming is perfectly backwards compatible, but in my experience that isn't so.  For example, I tried playing my physical version of Freedom Force a couple of years ago, and it didn't work on the current version of Windows.  I did some google searching to find out how to update, but every solution that was claimed to work actually didn't work.  Maybe I could have got it to work if I put several more hours of work into it, but I found it easier to just buy the game again from gog.com.  Even then they don't have the original intro to the game anymore.  That is probably something I will never experience again.  And a lot of old games are not on gog.com.  

Virtual machine is your friend. Perfect backwards compatibility.

Just setup a VM on your desktop, load Windows 98SE (Or whatever OS that is best for that era of games) and bobs your uncle.

Or do what I do... And build an era-correct PC.

What you are describing is the exact opposite of "perfect backwards compatibility".  Either I have a different VM for every past version of Windows or build an era-correct PC for every era.  That isn't perfect backwards compatibility at all.

I should just go around saying "consoles have perfect backwards compatibility.  All I have to do is buy the right console for each library of games and bobs your uncle.  Perfect backwards compatibility."

The closest any device actually came to "perfect backwards compatibility" was the Wii.  It could play games from NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, and Wii eras and even some Genesis and TG16 games.  Most importantly, this was all easy to use.  (I didn't have to hack my Wii or set up a VM to make it happen.)  It had the appearance of perfect backwards compatibility.  However when they closed the Virtual Console, that destroyed the idea we could actually ever have perfect backwards compatibility.  That is what is needed though, an easy to use system that can play any game.

Now that the VC is closed, Steam or gog.com is probably the closest we have to "perfect backwards compatibility".  I consider their account systems to be more reliable than Nintendo or Playstation.