Hi everyone,
I wanted to write some thoughts on the whole physical media things.
After Sony announced that it will end releasing physical games for the Playstation after January 2027 I didn't realise how much I want physical media.
Last year I've purchased a lot of DVDs and some BlueRays with some of my favorite movies, and audio CDs as well. The DVDs don't have a great quality on today's screens but BlueRays play just fine. I think it is necesary for us to try to preserve the physical format, at least for movies and audio. Companies can always remove movies from their library and yours too, not only that but they can also censor them, delete certain chapters or scenes and that is because you don't own the data, you rent it, oh, excuse me you have a "license" to use it.
The audio CDs I've bought could be easily ripped and the music transferred to my self hosted cloud library of music, so that I can listen to it at any time and have 100% control of the data.
I personally would like to own my data and my devices, that's one of the main reasons I use Linux.
For games however the story is a bit different. The Playstation platform is proprietary and that means that your disks run on its software, an online patch can always make the device refuse to play them or to force patch the game files, for censorship or content removal due to licensing.
Physical games are great though, you can share them with friends or resell them if you don't like them, and consoles like Sony and Nintendo have very strict refund rules, if you buy a game and download it you cannot request a refund. Steam on PC on the other had is a paradise of customer service. You can play the game for 2 hours maximum I think and if 14 days haven't passed you can request a refund and they refund you the full amount.
I think the advantage of owning a PS vs a PC is quite small nowadays. With PlayStation you can play on your TV and have a turn-key gaming setup and that's okay, but with PC you can do so many other things, and if you invest in a good PC it will last for years, and you can upgrade the parts if you wish. My PC is 5 years old now and I thought about upgrading to add a better CPU, a better graphics card but there's not reason at all, it works and runs games fine, upgrading it would be wasting money for no reason. I have 64GB RAM which I barely use anyways.
I personally love my Nintendo Switch 2, I can play on TV, on the Go and I can play my favorite game at the moment: Resident Evil Requiem and I'm glad they decided to stick to physical media. Hopefully this won't change.
I wanted to write some thoughts on the whole physical media things.
After Sony announced that it will end releasing physical games for the Playstation after January 2027 I didn't realise how much I want physical media.
Last year I've purchased a lot of DVDs and some BlueRays with some of my favorite movies, and audio CDs as well. The DVDs don't have a great quality on today's screens but BlueRays play just fine. I think it is necesary for us to try to preserve the physical format, at least for movies and audio. Companies can always remove movies from their library and yours too, not only that but they can also censor them, delete certain chapters or scenes and that is because you don't own the data, you rent it, oh, excuse me you have a "license" to use it.
The audio CDs I've bought could be easily ripped and the music transferred to my self hosted cloud library of music, so that I can listen to it at any time and have 100% control of the data.
I personally would like to own my data and my devices, that's one of the main reasons I use Linux.
For games however the story is a bit different. The Playstation platform is proprietary and that means that your disks run on its software, an online patch can always make the device refuse to play them or to force patch the game files, for censorship or content removal due to licensing.
Physical games are great though, you can share them with friends or resell them if you don't like them, and consoles like Sony and Nintendo have very strict refund rules, if you buy a game and download it you cannot request a refund. Steam on PC on the other had is a paradise of customer service. You can play the game for 2 hours maximum I think and if 14 days haven't passed you can request a refund and they refund you the full amount.
I think the advantage of owning a PS vs a PC is quite small nowadays. With PlayStation you can play on your TV and have a turn-key gaming setup and that's okay, but with PC you can do so many other things, and if you invest in a good PC it will last for years, and you can upgrade the parts if you wish. My PC is 5 years old now and I thought about upgrading to add a better CPU, a better graphics card but there's not reason at all, it works and runs games fine, upgrading it would be wasting money for no reason. I have 64GB RAM which I barely use anyways.
I personally love my Nintendo Switch 2, I can play on TV, on the Go and I can play my favorite game at the moment: Resident Evil Requiem and I'm glad they decided to stick to physical media. Hopefully this won't change.