I need to make one thing clear. Whenever these topics come up in forums as a general rule. I express my support for physical and a bunch of people who only support digital quote me and try to argue. I cannot be budged from my view on physical being better. Ownership is better. Preservation is better. A lot of stuff has been delisted I have physical versions of. That now only exist in physical form. I have so many games never ported to modern services or systems.

"but emulation" it's a shallow experience. It's getting a new game in the mail or finding some treasure out in the wild in a store or yard sale or flea market. That is a thrill. Not knowing anything about an old retro game you bought. It could be amazing or bad but the exciting thing is not knowing. Hearing the click of a cartridge popping in or opening the lid to pop the CD in and pressing power. Reading the manual. It's a build-up to playing the game. The anticipation leading up. Steam or whatever is soulless to me. A page that tells you everything about the game. People reviewed it. You click to download...yay. Boring. While I'm not the biggest on Nintendo franchises. Switch is the best system I have used in a long time. It brings almost every great quality about 90s console gaming on a modern system. It's the system you dreamed of in the 90s. Full portable console gaming. Nomad had the idea but wasn't quite there. I'm playing new games like Astral Chain that remind me why I game. The same excitement of all those new ideas and IPs we got but the tens of dozens each year. Switch bought that back. Also a cart system. While PS4 still has the physical aspect of popping a disc in and opening a new game. Physical games is not just about the format. The format is part of it. There is a build up of anticipation that can be days or weeks or hours. Then you get to appreiciate the artistry of the game.

All I get in digital games is. Cool game. Play for 5 minutes. Download another. Backlog of steam games most people don't play or finish.

The external HDD/SSDs or proprietary expansion card that holds your digital downloads will be your new physical media.

Switcher 3 fit entirely on a 32B cart when it first released. When I checked my Switch's SD card after playing it the first couple of times, there was no install file whatsoever for Witcher 3 on it. Later they did release a patch to allow PC saves to be used on Switch which takes up about a gig, they probably did some small QOL improvements to smooth out the framerate and such as well.

Some of us like digital more because it's convenient and in some markets, price gouging is an issue. However, I agree delisting is an issue, which is why I believe people should back their games up to an external physical storage and keep that handy regardless of position. I literally have a 2TB NVMe stowed away with tons of XBO games... 

Never said I was happy about it, just stating that this is indeed where we are headed.

Thanks for giving that info, so 28% more than what I was expecting. Should be enough for most games of 9th gen, but sure thing we will get some 2 discs due to 4k assets.

A simple google search would tell you that in 2018, only 17% of game sales were physical.  You got it backwards, the digital demand is higher.  And now that both Sony and MS are releasing all digital versions of their consoles at a cheaper price, it is obvious they are starting to push in that direction.  Throw in the value of gamepass and the like, newer generations of gamers already accepting digital, and a DECREASE in demand for physical game...the writing is on the wall.

You are right, they can do nothing without the consumer being on board.  What you fail to realize is that the majority of consumers (sadly) are already supporting the notion.

BotW mostly skips the tedious travel. Try that.

It wouldn't surprise me if games continue to come of blu-ray. Either download the rest or multiple discs. I doubt they are going to change production lines to 4K blu-rays while pushing digital. Heck, FS 2020 came out on 10 DVDs (only available in Europe)

That was because PCs when they have a physical media reader it is dvd instead of bd. So MS gone and launched for the most common (and still niche) PC market. Xbox can read DVD but you can bet the game will come on BD.

I don't think printing the games on 4K BD will be that much more expensive long term than making more discs or if consumers will be happy with all games needing download to even play (Sony said all their physical PS4 and PS5 games could be played after installing without any need to connect to the internet).