But even post N64 we've seen sacrifices to fit games in a smaller cart. It was rampant on GBA but became less of an issue on the DS devices, but those are technically not cutting edge like console games.

FFX-2 on Vita was a download even if you bought a physical copy. Pretty sure Borderlands 2 kept DLC as downloads as well likely for storage reasons.

So again, discs are cheaper and hold a massive amount of storage. Emulation is the real solution to videogame preservation, not a cart.

i think there will be two SKU for both PS & XB next gen console, one without physical drive and one does, the one without physical drive will be slightly cheaper for people who prefer to go fully digital

i don't think next gen console will use expensive hard drive yet because of keeping an attractive price, another gen probably will

The Gameboy Advance and DS was before the era of cheap, large USB flash drives and SSD's.
NAND manufacturing has taken big strides in the last few years with stacked NAND chips, which reduced costs and increased capacity.

Again. I am not disputing the fact that discs are cheaper. Not sure how many times I need to iterate upon that. :P But it doesn't stop NAND being an alternative solution that is cheap and large enough.

Plus the advantage of high-speed carts is that, less data needs to be installed to the console itself... And assets can be streamed in real time thanks to higher transfer rates and lower access times which can significantly save on RAM.

With cart storage increasing and cost decreasing steadily, carts stand a chance possibly.

With digital sales steadily increasing, if next gen were to include a second digital based sku (with optional add on blu-ray drive for someones optical needs like movies, music, BC) then I could potentially see carts being used for next gen games, maybe.

The potential savings/profits on digital (game) sales would probably make up for the extra cost of the carts for physical games. This would allow for physical games to stay the same price or increase slightly worst case. This may also mean digital game sales end up staying the same price as well, instead of decreasing like they should.

BDXL discs would most likely still be cheaper at that point in time, but what kind of savings carts would lead to overall, console cost included, plus the performance benefits, may be enough to switch to carts.

This would be so ironic btw. PS forces NiN to switch to optical. NiN forces PS to "Switch" to carts. LOL

This is slightly going off topic, but kind of ties in, and could branch off into another thread really.

Something else that actually has to be taken into account is backwards compatibility when it comes to optical discs or carts next gen. This would complicate the second digital only based, optical discless sku.

What if you have 50 BD game discs for this gen, and you buy a next gen optical discless console, for whatever reason you have, then what? How does your online account know if you still own the game, if it can't be read on the optical drive you don't have, to allow you to download the game to your mass storage?

Do you have to pay $25 to $50 for an add on optical drive just for BC? Do you require the old optical disc always be in the drive to authenticate or do you allow users to download the game to their mass storage and forget the authentication afterwards? With one time authentication the add on optical drive would seem like such a waste, but if not, would also still leave the hassle of having to deal with physical media, which defeats the purpose of buying a digital only console. How long does this go on for with BC? At some point an option needs to be in place to actually fully transfer old physical games into digital, once and for all.

Maybe you could connect your last gen console with the next gen console and use the last gen consoles optical drive to authenticate the game disc, just so you can direct transfer/download the game to the next gen console? Do you charge $5 to $20 per game for the physical to digital transfer knowing those users can now sell/share that physical game afterwards?

If your PS/XB do you include some type and size of mass storage in the next gen console or do you leave it to these customers to purchase their own separate mass storage device if they wish? They wouldn't necessarily require a huge storage device if their net connection was sufficient enough to purchase the digital only sku in the first place. Data caps for some people though. However you may need a HUGE storage device if your aloud to download your 50 physical games during a single authentication process.

There's a little more to it than first meets the eye here.

I hear ya, but aside from disc being cheaper they hold a massive amount of space. Flash memory holding comprable storage space gets expensive. In a few years I expect games to be on 100GB discs.

Games could be streamed off Bluray discs as well, I believe installations became standard because its easier for development and HDDs are ultimately faster. Also, games are often so heavily patched these a HDD has become necessary. Some physical copies of games are basically just using the disc as a key now.

I think buying discs is annoying.

I want a model similar to how music/movies are owned digitally. No need to worry about future tech as it is always BC. But if we consider BC as a dead legend, then a mobile-esque solution is best. Something where the game lives so long as the hardware can support it but there will obviously be no major changes to the game code unless its re-released on a newer platform. With that model, I could see a game lasting through 3~4 hardware cycles (assuming hardware moves to be more mobile-like as well with a revision every couple years) this would equal it working on two "generations" before the OS simply won't support. I'm also betting that the console manufacturers will continue down the same basic hardware lines as now with fully supportive 3rd party middleware allowing easier gen over gen support for digital titles.

1TB to 4 TB SSD SATA. no disk drive.
But i think we need a new type of "media", with the advantages of physical and digital, i think it can be like a token that represent the game. heres the idea:
In store, you buy a physical token, it is the game.
It would act like a physical/digital activator. the console has a sensor that can read nearby tokens(all room range).
You can download every game, but you can only start those that the sensor recognize.
So, the game is yours, you can resell, trade, dont need to switch disks, just put all your game collection is a shelf in the console room, and it never scratches. Also, if there is many consoles in a single room, you will only need 1 game, and all can play.

Well, if technology doesnt allow it, or demand some active system on token, it can instead be like a NFC scan. just approach one of the tokens on console or controller, and the game starts.

Honestly I have my preferences, which leans to digital but tahts not because i Have anything against physical its just easier for me considering where I am to aquire games digitally.... and cheaper if you would believe it...  than even if i were to buy used physical games. So I have not outright said we should just go all digital, believe me I know and understand the importance of physical media.

What I said about physical media was basically me breaking it down to its functional purpose in the deign of a console. And pointing out that its a purpose that can be circumvented simply by having an external drive instead. Be it bundled with the hardware or sold seperately.

Replies in bold.

I refuse to support a console without physical media. If and when physical media dies, I will be a retro gamer.