Physical Video Games (and Why They Don't Really Matter)
Physical video game media has been a hot topic lately, and while I agree with the intent of the discussion, I don't think it matters as much as people want to suggest. While I mourn the bygone days of a SNES cartridge working 30 years into the future, the gaming industry has evolved in a way that does not operate in the same way as it did in years past. For the past few years, physical games have mostly given way to increasingly digital sales and gaming hardware has shifted to match. There has been fairly vocal outcry with each step in that direction, but with very little long term consequence. Sony released a "Digital Edition" of the PlayStation 5 without an optical drive in 2020 as an option to save money and play exclusively downloaded games. When Nintendo released the Switch 2, they also started creating some physical cartridges as "Game-Key Cards" that don't have any game data, they're just a physical license to download and play the digital game. ...