I don't understand why people consider all digital an inevitability when it is, for all intents and purposes, an inferior distribution method as compared to physical. Lets look at pros and cons ...
Physical Pros:
-Has worked for the industry for decades
-Allows the buying and selling of used games which results in lower cost for consumers
-Thanks to used games, consumers can play titles that are decades old on their original systems which will last as long as the consumer cleans and cares for their systems/games
-No requirements for Internet connection in order to access game library
-Physical copies allow for collectability and building of game collections and not just a list of titles a player on an impersonal game library window.
-Prices and deals are common between the myriad of game retailers
-Long since abandoned and unsupported systems like Ataris and Dreamcasts ect. are still functional even though the companies that produced them have moved on ... what happens to digitial systems when companies are no longer their to support them? If your harddrive goes then so does your entire game collection ... unless you back it all up somehow which means more work for the consumer.
I can't think of any Cons to physical so lets move on to digital ...
Digital Pros:
-Umm ... it is faster kind of since you can buy games at home ... just have to wait for download though. It is not that going out and buying games is a pain or anything since most people are already outside working, buying other products, ect. Unless you are a shut-in, there is no real advantage. In the time it takes to download a 2-3 gig game, I could have already made it to my local 24/7 Walmart and be on the way back home with a game.
As for cons, you would see the loss of nearly all of the advantages on the pro physical list. There would probably still be deals on games like there is with Steam, but no used games means that games, overall, will be more expensive. Systems that are more than 5 years old will be worthless with all digitial (look how fast Microsoft dropped Xbox live for the original Xbox). The buying of new games will become a rarity for many as they will be costly and unreturnable or resellable. At any time, publishers can decide to pull their game from the market meaning that it can not be obtained again ... this already happens on XBLA and PSN even with classics like Doom ... which was thankfully put back on ... for now.
Even if some of the above issues are addressed, the lack of used games in itself is enough of a reason to throw out the idea of digital only. It works for music because physical was limiting for that medium since it forced people to buy entire albums for one or two songs. Movies and games, on the other hand, can not be cut up and sold in a similiar fashion. Services like Netflix and Onlive are popular, but I don't think anyone would like a world where these services are the only way to access games and movies ... just look at their crappy selection, monthly fees to access content, and requirements for Internet access.
I just don't see this digitial switch happening anytime in the near future, and, if it does, I think many, myself included, will see pirating as a far more convenient option for playing games as opposed to putting up with DRMs, high prices, and a wealth of other problems that come with digitial.
I hope/think that digital and physical media can coexist with eachother for the forseeable future. Even the mostly digitial music industry still produces physical albums. People just seem to support digitial just because it is new without thinking of the consequences. There is no advantage to digitial for game selling, but there are definately disadvantages to it.
