Frontier CEO Suggests Physical Games Could "More Or Less" Go Away In 2-3 Years

Music CDs are almost considered collector's items now. At least CDs have better audio quality than standard streaming. Video games are the same quality whether you buy them in physical or digital form. This generation I started buying physical games but now almost everything I get is digital. I don't think that physical games will disappear but will be more collector's items than anything else. It's ridiculous to list covid as one of the reasons though, the tendency was clear before it.

I don't mind being digital on the PC, but I won't be going digital on the console/handheld front.

I still like to get all of my games physically.

Im 99% digital this gen (except for select switch games/sports games) and I will be going into next generation as well. I doubt I will ever go back to buying disc games outside of annual sports games. Though I dont think physical will ever truly go away, its definitely going to skew heavily towards digital with the PS5/SeX generation I assume.

Considering I buy physical wherever possible, the first company to switch to all digital releases will see significantly less purchases from myself.
I just don't see the value in paying £40 for a digital version of the game I can't lend to friends, play and reinstall offline and potentially sell onwards at some point. From a pro consumer standpoint the convenience of digital doesn't yet outbalance the physical advantages. That's just me

The only way it's happening is if all models of console have no disc drives.

No way, Not a chance..

I think that while digital is here to stay, obviously, but so is physical, for quite some time to come. If even console manufacturers themselves still make consoles with physical drives in them, that should already tell you enough. And Xbox especially, with their three generation-spanning backwards compatibility, will definitely keep that physical drive in their consoles for many, many years to come.

I for one sure wouldn't be surprised if what comes after Series X will also still have a physical drive. They've embarked upon this path now, and there's no going back, so they'll have to keep catering to it, and there's no other way to be able to play the old games that you already own, other than to allow you to install them to the new console, and for that, you'd definitely need a disc drive.

So yeah, if they didn't think it was worth the trouble, like if the part of the gaming community that still prefers physical, would be so small that it would be negligible, then they surely would have taken out the disc drive already, seeing as on the numbers of consoles that'll come rolling off of the conveyor belt, that's a LOT of money that they could have saved on manufacturing costs.

RIP people with no WIFI.

I will continue to purchase physical for as long as I can.

I think Xbox will be the first to abandon physical versions because Microsoft's sole focus for Xbox is Game Pass. I don't see Nintendo abandoning physical anytime soon though.

@pip_muzz Yes! This is pretty much my feeling too. I also am a much more cautious buyer of digital content knowing there's no way to sell my purchase, if I don't like it (or get bored or finish it). I tend to only buy stuff digitally if it is heavily discounted. On other platforms, I've been disappointed with digital purchases so I am keen for physical to stay as long as possible.

I generally only choose digital when it's the only practical option or it's significantly cheaper.

But the main reasons for why I like physical have largely already been phased out. I always use this example: I can grab my original copy of Mario 64, stick it back in my N64 and play it just like I could when it was new.

But games today are constantly getting updated and patched - fixing a plethora of bugs and problems that just wouldn't have been tolerable in the pre-digital era. Furthermore you have games that you buy a disk for, and still download half the game.

What good is there in having a physical copy of half a game, un-patched, missing game modes?