This is completely irrelevant to my point. Hardware stop being produced and console physical games are tied to platforms. Console stop being produced in a very short time, less than 10 years indeed. Which means that yes EVERY physical copy will be soon or later be rendered useless simply because there will be no way to play them 

This is similar to how VHS movie collections are absolutely dead as there are no VHS players in the market for many years now. Consoles being closed platforms mean that every generation is a reset, except when the company decides to backward compatibility route which extends the shelf life of the physical copy for two generations 

In a physical only world this means that during PS6, PS7 and PS8 times the only way to play PS1 and PS2 games is counting with the goodwill of the company to keep re-releasing and printing the same games again and again. With years and decades this means company would need to print regularly dozens of thousands of games because every generation there will be a huge amount of new games being released that will need to be added to the printing stack 

This is not realistic of course and would lend to an industry where only the most popular games would get regular prints every generation where the less successful games will just be forgotten 

Such issue does not exist with digital. Bar the VERY uncommon cases of a company purposefully shutting down their own games. This happens in other industries as well, Disney refuses to sell the Sound of South because of its racist undertones, otherwise every movie of them is on Disney Plus. There is nothing to be concerned with digital stores. If anything they will made games much less likely dissappear

Yeah I was going to say something similar.  I think people are confusing collecting (personal ownership behind locked doors) and preserving (public and mass availability).  

For actual preservation digital has been game changing.  No idea what digital means to collectors.  I stopped collecting over a decade ago.  Too many cables, connections, controllers, console failures, games not working, etc.

My local store is still selling Atari 2600 and Bally Astrocade games. I will say it again. Go to one of the million Hard Offs in Japan and aisles and aisles of retro and new games as far as the eye can see. So DS has plenty more time to be sold in stores.

I know this isn't gaming, but I agree, love Stargate SG-1 and it has been butchered.

Amazon has also ruined Buffy, probably worst then Stargate. They used AI to randomly crop a 16:9 image of the 4:3 footage and then upscale that. What is worst you can see camera crews in some scenes. They also did not do the post filming editing and scenes that should appear at night appear to be at day like they were filmed raw.

Sometimes these companies need to understand when something was filmed to b displayed in 4:3, leave it alone. So many people were parsing amazon how amazing these shows look in 16:9 HD, but if they compared it side by side to the original DVD 4:3 picture, they would realise how much detail is lost just because people hate side black bars on their wide screen tv.

Highlander tv series upscaled wasn't much better.

I didn't put further context for my decision; for major games where I know it's cheaper physical, I'll go physical all the time. Indies is a different story; I know most are digital for a good reason, and I'm fine with going for them digitally because there's no other way I can play them.

Again, they WILL dissappear eventually unless their original manufacturers start re-releasing them 

Also, how many of those very old consoles are available to mass market? I mean, take a remake of a N64 game Zelda Ocarina of time on 3DS. Sold over 6 million copies. Is there 6 million functional N64 consoles available in second hand market? The answer is obviously not and that's precisely why those remasters sells so well. For many people is not just a matter of purchasing again games they already own and have the means to play, but rather the only way to play them entirely again

Zelda is popular enough to get remake/remasters that justify physical editions every 10 years. Can we say the same of every game NES-SNES available on Switch Online? Hardly. I love Yoshi's Island, but it's a game with no physical release since GBA (which is where I've played the first time by the way). Nintendo is not releasing a physical edition of it anytime soon, so what is left for me is digital. Granted I would very much prefer Nintendo to sell it digitally instead of locking in a subscription plan but alas, it's either this or start hunting for a GBA and a copy of the game

You don't have to hunt down old discontinued used consoles.  There is always stuff like this that pops up from different manufacturers. 

Do you have kids? Kids are interested in the tactile experience. My kids loved playing with all the old consoles, their interest in old games started based on the hardware. I want to play with that controller daddy (gamecube) so I hooked the gamecube back up and they enjoyed the games on it. Then they got into ps2 and the funky looking Intellivision. The voice module was a big hit. I wish I still had a Vectrex, that's a true magical marvel, hopefully it will be remade at some point (that is if the hardware schematics have been preserved) but you can still find them if looking hard enough.

Old digital games in a menu on my PC, zero interest. So I'm sorry to pop your balloon of presenting your grand kids with a vast digital library, that's not how kids get excited about things. Mine were all over our 90's Gameboys we still had lying around. Couple fresh batteries, and off they went playing Mario games on the gameboy. Tons of fun. Zero interest in playing them in the virtual console.

We grow up tasting everything first, mouth is your primary tool, then hands, brain comes last. Digital is great for nostalgia, irrelevant for growing up. VR has a much better chance to appeal to kids (it does) but the Wii motes were the biggest success for when they were toddlers, as well as eye toy / kinect, DDR dance mats, light guns, Move sharpshooter. Just copying digital games is not preservation, it's merely feeding your nostalgia. It's only part of the experience.

My kids are the complete opposite.  The idea of physical media and wired controllers are a huge turn off.  They love digital.  They are twins and 12 years old.  Both have beaten the likes of horizon, tears, hogwarts, breath and many others.  The one is playing tales arise as we speak.  

Oh they are into those now as well (12 and 14 now). I meant when they were 4 and 6, discovering video games through the tactile experience. Already at 2-3 years old getting a kick out of crashing the plane in Wii sports resort, feeling the rumble as the pilot jumps out. That look of joy and wonder on their face is priceless.

Now they're old and just play whatever you tube tells them to play :/ 14 year old is into Rust and Rocket League, 12 year old wants to play GTA 5 and is configuring the color sequences on his new keyboard. BotW uses motion controls btw, still need that tactile part ;)
They grew up too fast, perverted by you tube streamers! Yet the youngest still wants to play 1-2-Switch now and then. How will that be preserved digital only...