Technology was going to make this happen eventually. There's really no way around it, folks! I figured that we'd see a shift from disc based media into something else first. Why couldn't we get carts to come back in the form of custom SD cards?

Oh no, I remember. The main issue with carts is that they were too expensive to make compared to discs. I have no clue if that's legit or a straight up lie. You can pretty much go out here and make up stuff and people will buy in as long as it seems somewhat plausible. I'm convinced that's the story behind the majority of stuff when learned in history class.

With online-only consoles, you couldn't expect phyisical media to stick around. There's always some kind of change being made to your favorite game. It makes more sense to download everything, and provide the latast major update for new users, Getting away from physical game media is just the way things are going.

The N64 was the last major console that used cartridges for storing games. SEGA's Saturn console had a catridge slot used to expand RAM for games that needed it. There are a group of gamers who prefer carts over discs, no matter what. You really can't tell them anything that'll change their minds on the matter.

I see this stage in Gaming progression as another format change and nothing else. It's really not that big of a deal. Every advange that comes along with dropping discs is going to overshadow the point that preservationists wanna make. It's clear that the industry feels that discs have overstayed their welcome.

And I say good riddens. Disc based games had two major selling points in the 90s. Actually, I'll have to negate one of those from being major. The only real selling point was sound quality. You could listen to songs that used instruments instead of just mini tunes. That's really cool, and there were a ton on great soundtracks from the 32 bit era across multiple consoles.

People who wrote for gaming mags really liked FMV for some reason. I'm convinced someone showed congress an issue of GamePro, and that's the only reason they included Night Trap in their anti video game violence hearings in the early 90s.

So anyway, it's clear that moving away from discs won't burn the one thing that was hyped about it back in the day. There's really no reason to hold on to this format. Aside from music and storage compared to carts, discs were pretty crappy because of how easy it was to ruin them. 

You'll never see a restoration video where some dude in a villiage finds a copy of Marvel Super Heroes on PS1 in a ditch, and he manages to successfully get the rust off with a can of soda and an old toothbrush.

You'll never see that because all those videos are super fake, and doing that with a CD would be hyper fake.

Consoles having hard drives means these companies can sell you a start screen with nothing else on the disc. Thing is, people have accepted these practices. It's stupid to have a multi gigabyte update upon the release of a game. I'm probably not the demographic who should waste their time having an opinion on that, but presenting an unfinished product as they do is a garbage way to go about things.

Because the vast majority don't seem to have an issue with it, it's a tactic that's become the go-to approach to things in the games industry. It's just like why you had goofy DLC content that was overpriced. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion presented horse armor for $2.50 back in 2006. Many Youtubers and Twitterers rightfully lambasted the sheer greed of Besthesda for thinking anyone would pay for....

...Diablo 4 apparently has $8 horse armor, and EA has a loyal sports-loving fanbase that has no issue with paying for digital cards that grant them special stats via lootboxes. There's an odd reverse hustle going on with the gaming community. It seems the overall playerbase has no real standards when it comes to the cost of anything. If they want it, the money is going to be spent. 

If you got money to burn, I know of better ways to go about that *cough* Yo! *cough*

This may be one of those pesky generational dealies. Being a grown ass man means I'm aware of unlockable content being accessible via beating the game or using cheat codes. I came up during the rental era of gaming. I ain't got time or patience for downloading patches. I think Kazaa drained me of all that download tolerance the kids seem to be so full off nowadays. 

Bless your little oblivious hearts....You'll not know of the joy that comes from popping a cartridge in, pulling it out to blow in it, putting it in again, and eventually finding out within 3 minutes that you'd rather be playing Mega Man 2 so then you go to the back of the floor model TV and mess with the wires...

Yeah, nah! You've got no clue of what I'm going on about. You're out here playing new-fangled fighting games that require you to purchase the alternate color palette for your characters, that used to be free before game companies realized they could monetize hue and saturation. I've got a moderately sized problem with this crap like that, but it doesn't keep me up at night so whatever.

If you're an older gamer, yeah this is a significant change. It's also a pretty messed up one when you pull back the curtain and lock at what IS on shelves nowadays. You can legit go out to a big chain department store, and start a record collection if you'd like. I think that's the wildest thing. You won't be seeing video games in the electronic section(aside from the systems, and controllers), but you will see a decent selection of big black plastic discs.

At the end of the day, it's all about allowance. Gamers are why physical games are going away. If there was a united front against the incomplete nature of console gaming, we wouldn't be at the point where there's a bunch of digital only games from big publishers. 

Because they tested the waters, and saw that nobody wanted to stop giving them money, this gave them the data needed to move forward. It's really no big deal because the progression fits the outcome.