For starters you are assuming only young people listen to Swift.  And yeah, she has a lot of young fans, but dude old people listen to Swift as well.  My wife is a huge fan. 

And according to YouTube they have over 2,000,000,000 people a month who consume music via digital.  Lol.  

And yep, I can easily see an all digital future.  Have you seen the Li-Fi research?  In theory 220,000 mbps...   want to talk about lossless media via digital, there you go.  

Edit

And has Nintendo released a Zelda physical collection (Zelda, Zelda II, LttP, Ocarina and Majora) on the Switch?  Or is it digital only behind a paywall?  Hmm, digital only behind a paywall.  One step away from streaming.  

According to Nintendo Life, Switch digital sales grew 21% and is currently 46%.  Sounds like digital will be the majority of sales sooner than later.  

2022 data has ps5 at 80% digital. 

Steam and Epic are 100% digital and have over 200,000,000 active users.  

In the UK 89% of all game sales were digital.  

Conclusion -> physical is the future!!!  LMFAO.

I don't think Nintendo getting rid of a physical option would cause anywhere near as big of a backlash as pursuing microtransactions. Backlash to that move would already be way smaller than it would be if done a decade ago so it's just about doing it when the backlash would be small enough to not really matter. You're right that Nintendo is relatively unique but at the end of the day they're a company so will chase after money and like the things you listed pursuing digital will make them more money.

It's positive for the consumer but for the console manufacturers digital is better so unfortunately I think it's only a matter of time till the negative impact to customer satisfaction will become low enough for Nintendo to remove the option. They can still make money from things like toys and selling special editions of their games that come with a code so I'm not saying they'll abandon selling physical items entirely. For the negative coverage part Nintendo is no stranger to doing things that piss off their fans and attract negative PR so as long as the benefit of the move outweighs that which I think it will later on they'll do it.

And I'm extrapolating based on both of those things. I think it'll make sense business wise for Nintendo to go in that direction within the next few decades and Xbox and Sony being closer to it with them having a higher digital presence is good evidence that Nintendo is only behind them in regards to it since I don't see a reason for them to not do the same unless the overall trend stops or reverses.

No, I am not assuming that only young people listen to Swift. I provided evidence that young people buy physical music whereas you have yet to provide a single piece of evidence to support your original point. Here are your original points:

The way you are handling arguments is reminiscent of Soundwave. You make points that are easily refuted by evidence, then you change your argument, pretend that you are arguing against the counterpoints you are confronted with and top it off by ridiculing the other guy. But all you accomplish is making yourself look like a fool who is unable to handle a proper discussion.

I'll make this really simple now. A profit-oriented business - which Nintendo absolutely is - is looking at these two options for the future:

1. Sell all their games digital-only and make a lot of money.
2. Sell their games in both physical and digital formats to make even more money.

The only way option 2 could make less sense is if there's a 100% guarantee that every former physical purchase will be forced into a digital purchase.

Proper discussion with you is impossible because you are a emotional mess.

Yeah, I said it was a few decades away and physical will go away.  Today's data demonstrates everything is moving digital.  Niche small market data doesn't refute what the marker will in a couple od decades.

OMG Swift sold 500,000 vinyls!!!  Meanwhile youtube has 2,000,000,000 music views a month.  Spotify has 600,000,000 active users.  Tenscent has 500,000,000.  Apple has 60,000,000.  Maybe if your world that means physical is future proof.  For reasonable people, we all know what it means.  

Some people still have landlines.  In your fantasy world that means landlines is a legit service over the next few decades.  Bad news, your understanding of business is elementary at best.  

Nintendo is already showing up ticks in digital growth.  Their classics are already digital only on the switch.  The data is there, if only you could think analytically and not emotionally.  

You still haven't posted any data. Here it is for music:

https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/physical-music-sales-on-course-for-first-increase-in-20-years/090124

Nintendo Switch Online is a service, so its games aren't relevant to this discussion. Landlines are even more ridiculous to bring up.

A large contributor to Nintendo's uptick in digital sales is the higher priced tier of Nintendo Switch Online. The digital sales Nintendo reports aren't just for downloadable versions of their physical games, but also include subscription revenue, DLC and digital-only games.

Look, if you claim to be so good at analyzing data, now is the time to post data and show that you can analyze it.

Why would it need to be every former physical purchase? Losing a small amount of physical purchases would be worth it to not have to deal with things like cartridges, get all the people who are indifferent to physical vs digital to only buy the latter and in general have more control over their customers. And I expect that doing this would actually create some new digital game purchases for them since if someone wanted to play a Nintendo game the option of buying a 2nd hand copy for cheaper or borrowing a physical copy from a friend wouldn't be available any more so unless they can borrow someone else's entire console or manage to pirate it they'll need to buy it directly from Nintendo to play it which would help make up for lost physical purchases.

This scenario would suck but like what happened to PC gaming I really think it's only a matter of time till console gaming follows it in this way even if it's quite a few decades away and digital only on console would be much worse compared to on PC so I would prefer to end up being wrong about this.

I've posted tons of facts and data.  You have ignored it at every turn. 

Fact: over a billion people stream music.  

Fact: Switch digital sales grew 21%.

Fact: 89% of UK game sales are digital 

At the end of the day my position is a prediction 20 years from now.  I can't be proven right or wrong. 

So we agree to disagree and just remember this discussion when the switch 3 is announced.

The reason why I don't humor these facts is because they don't support the argument you made. It won't matter how big digital becomes if it can't achieve 100% of the pie, because that's the argument you made.

When sales of physical music are stable right now after about two decades of decline, then it means that physical music is here to stay. It's irrelevant how many people stream music when the sales data shows that people still buy physical media and will continue to do so.

When Switch digital sales grow, but the majority of games that are available in both physical and digital format still have physical as the dominant format, then we are a long way off from an all-digital future. And when not even music with its ridiculously low prices of admission can achieve all-digital, what are the chances for video games to pull it off.

When 89% of UK game sales are digital, why would this matter when Nintendo won't go all-digital. As long as Nintendo sells physical copies, your claim is bound to be false.

When you fall back on "this is way in the future, so I can't be proven right or wrong", then logically this would apply the other way as well. Which means that you definitely owe me an apology for all of your condescending behavior, because it is now your stance that you are unable to prove me wrong. Mind you, I don't agree with your stance, but I ask for consistency on your part.

But wrapping this up on a more serious note, with you there's at least a chance that you will still be around in a decade or so. The same could never be said about your buddy zeldaring.

What I find frustrating about this particular exchange is that it reminds me so much of talking to curl-6. As in, it's a scenario he himself doesn't want to become reality, but the paranoia gets to him so much that he can't see it playing out any other way anymore.

I just don't see how Nintendo would be able to convince its customers that all-digital is good. Nintendo offers more incentives for digital purchases than Sony and Microsoft, but somehow lags behind them tremendously when it comes to the digital share of software purchases. At some point you have to strongly consider that an all-digital future is something that a big enough amount of gamers does not want to support. Buying digital games is easy on Switch, storing them is easy as well, you consistently get more cash back when you buy digital over physical, and yet, the sales data are what they are.

I mean I wouldn't say it's paranoia. It's not like it'd negatively impact me directly I just think it'd be a shame for those who are into buying physical games which is why I'd rather it not happen and I think I have reasonable reasons for expecting it to happen.

They lag behind them yeah but are ahead of where the two of them where at with it a decade or so ago so my main point is it's just a matter of time since I think the amount of gamers that don't wanna support it will dwindle in number to the extent that them protesting the shift won't do anything notable enough for Nintendo to not want to get the benefits of pursuing digital. You just need to compare how much of a digital presence the 3DS had compared to the Switch and imagine how that progress could continue for the Switch 2 or the console after that or even the one after that.

You brought up physical music sales but the key difference is that a tiny handful of companies that would benefit from going digital don't have total power over the entire market for that. It's why I expect things like physical music and film sales for new releases to outlast physical video games since if the big three all remove the option then the market is dead aside from retro games.

That's how I feel things will go but since this is talking about something that if it happens could be several decades away we can just agree to disagree for now unless you have more you wanna add since there is risk of talking in circles if this keeps going for long enough since I think I've already repeated myself a bit.