Summary by Brave Leo AI :

Sony announced that starting in January 2028, it will cease selling new physical game discs for PlayStation, a move that has sparked significant controversy among fans concerned about game preservation and ownership. While the article acknowledges the emotional value of physical collections, it argues that discs are an obsolete and fragile medium that cannot keep up with the massive storage demands of modern games, many of which exceed the 100GB capacity of the highest-tier Blu-ray disc and require extensive day-one downloads. The piece highlights that the industry has already shifted overwhelmingly toward digital, with 78% of sales now digital compared to just 13% in 2013, driven by the impracticality of storing large files on discs and the higher production costs associated with physical media. Ultimately, the author suggests that rather than trying to preserve this “dying medium,” the gaming community should focus on forcing companies like Sony to improve digital consumer rights, ensuring licenses remain stable and ownership is respected, similar to the model used by PC storefronts like GOG.

  • WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Meanwhile, this Gen-Xer remembers playing games on his first home computer - a Commodore VIC-20 with a whopping 5 KILObytes of RAM - and wonders what happened to the skills required to program efficiently enough to make that work.

    I mean, hell - the original Atari 2600 only had 128 BYTES (note: no multiplier prefix), and people still made that work well enough to be a success.

    • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      wonders what happened to the skills required to program efficiently enough to make that work.

      They all got bought by Three Letter Agencies and big tech. Games don’t really pay.