Another popular argument against digital video games is that gamers are preserving their software by buying physically. When one purchases a physical copy, they then have direct ownership over that media as opposed to digital games that afford only a licence of sorts. Essentially, people seem to be worried that digital gaming is restrictive and temporary. What if my PSN name is erased or I lose my digital license? Will our hardware even work in 15 years?
Firstly, you’d have to ask yourself why Sony or Microsoft would ever erase or nuke their user base or online software collection. That would be quite illogical and virtually ruin their brand. It isn’t going to happen. Secondly, based on what we know so far about the iterative future of consoles, and the momentum built by Microsoft with the backwards compatibility of the Xbox One, does it really seem likely that PS5, Xbox Scorpio, etc. won’t offer backwards compatibility with current generation software? Probably not, and the library of older games being made available for PS4/Xbox One continues to grow. In turn, that library will then be migrated to future iterations of the current hardware and beyond.
Moreover, are modern consoles really likely to work in ten or twenty years anyway? Retro gamers might still be enjoying their NES, SNES and Master System consoles, but those cartridge based systems are far more durable than optic reading CD drives used today. Many gamers will be all too familiar with the anxious wait one had to endure during the PSOne and PS2 boot-up sequences, as the optical reader attempted to read the CD. Even during the console’s supported lifespan, those waits were getting longer and with less success. How is that going to fair in 15 years’ time? It’s the same story for PS4 and Xbox One; the optical disc readers experience a degradation that just doesn’t affect cartridge-based hardware.
Quite apart from music offering a useful case study, PC gaming is already demonstrating the fruits of a digital-only ecosystem. Steam revolutionized the way PC gamers play games, virtually erasing the physical market by centralizing game purchasing through a hub network.
Forget graphics or processing speeds, this is one area of the industry that PC gamers are much further ahead in. They’ve been digital gaming for years without issue and they enjoy a larger and cheaper ecosystem because of it. It seems strange to moot excuses as to why console software shouldn’t be entirely digital when your neighbor might well be doing so on their PC. If they can, why can’t we?