The only question I have is what’s gonna happen as game discs are just becoming an access token to download the game and its updates.
That’s a big concern. There’s communities trying to document which games are complete on the media and can be played from start to end without updates (so no major game-breaking bugs or huge performance issues) like this one:
It’s good that people are worrying about this. Although, I haven’t heard of any disc game not being able to be played. I guess it would only happen if Sony/Microsoft go bankrupt or decide to close PlayStation/Xbox game updates servers.
It ain’t likely to happen but it’s important to be able to preserve games for the future as they are part of history just like paintings.
I haven’t heard of any disc game not being able to be played.
There’s a number of games that don’t come with the whole thing on disk/cart, usually including only the early stages and the rest needs to be downloaded.
As long as you have a way to download the data that ain’t a problem for me, but if one day Sony or EA closes without giving the update data to be available for everyone that would be a problem.
Still I don’t see the advantage for them to only put the early stages on the disc. Are they saving money this way?
Either saving on media costs (25GB disc instead of 100GB disc, maybe 1 disc instead of 2 if the game is too big), or even having more time to work on the game.
Developer makes sure the early stages are properly tested, send the disc for manufacturing including only those, use the manufacturing time to tweak/bugfix/optimize more stuff the rest of the game.
That’s why I’ll keep buying physical for the games or movies I love.
The only question I have is what’s gonna happen as game discs are just becoming an access token to download the game and its updates.
I’d have nothing against digital games or movies if you didn’t see such behaviors.
Make sure you’ve got a spare DVD/Blu-Ray player somewhere that works without needing an internet connection.
Oh, you mean when the discs themselves no longer contain the data… Yeah…
Xbox “backwards compatibility” already works that way. It doesn’t run the code from the disc, it downloads a compatible digital version.
That’s a big concern. There’s communities trying to document which games are complete on the media and can be played from start to end without updates (so no major game-breaking bugs or huge performance issues) like this one:
https://www.doesitplay.org/
I’m also part of a FB group that collects cartridge information for Switch games, to document if there’s revisions with all updates included.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CEABCBrPv1tWf89hSZqUunK0JW-sQo8XpxuvZhdtHQs/edit#gid=0
It’s good that people are worrying about this. Although, I haven’t heard of any disc game not being able to be played. I guess it would only happen if Sony/Microsoft go bankrupt or decide to close PlayStation/Xbox game updates servers.
It ain’t likely to happen but it’s important to be able to preserve games for the future as they are part of history just like paintings.
There’s a number of games that don’t come with the whole thing on disk/cart, usually including only the early stages and the rest needs to be downloaded.
Hogwarts Legacy and Jedi Survivor are two fairly recent examples.
As long as you have a way to download the data that ain’t a problem for me, but if one day Sony or EA closes without giving the update data to be available for everyone that would be a problem.
Still I don’t see the advantage for them to only put the early stages on the disc. Are they saving money this way?
Either saving on media costs (25GB disc instead of 100GB disc, maybe 1 disc instead of 2 if the game is too big), or even having more time to work on the game.
Developer makes sure the early stages are properly tested, send the disc for manufacturing including only those, use the manufacturing time to tweak/bugfix/optimize more stuff the rest of the game.
Tech Tangents did a video on disc games where either the DRM server is down, or the content is just not on disk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZYy9KzFT2w