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Physical video games had already fallen off before Sony went to kill them. (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 days ago by ashinadash@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

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What kills me is that discs have been useless essentially since the late PS360. I can put a copy of Castlevania Lament of Innocence in my PS2 and it works just like it did when it was new. Meanwhile, my copy of Oblivion on 360 has that funny bug where vampirism is uncurable because the vampirism questgiver is hostile. Without updates from servers, or at best downloaded off a mirror of a file hosting site, that disc has that bug forever.

Similarly I bought a copy of No Man's Sky on the cheap for PS4 ages ago, but it's a launch copy and the game on the disc doesn't even resemble current-day 2026 No Man's Sky. And that's before considering that a PS4 with a dead clock battery needs to reset its date & time on the Sony servers before they'll let you play again.

So the current disc-cancellation is undeniably really bad, but also physical games have been on a downhill slide for usefulness for about 15 years. Also I don't see anyone noting that the PS3 & Vita PSN stores are shutting down soon.

TL;DR piracy is the only preservation

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[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You can download updates from pretty much anywhere and apply them.

On the X360 and PS3, you download the title updates from the servers that Sony and Microsoft host. It's not really like patches on floppy/CD/from a BBS that you could just apply. Myrient used to have PS360 games with their updates, but you have to have a PS3 running HEN or a 360 running BadUpdate and Idk if people should need to be that technically-knowledged just to get updates for a 360 game.

Even if Sony melted your PS4 and shut down all their servers, you'd soon put it in a computer and play it on an emulator.

Hence, priacy is the only preservation. The trouble with updates to console games is that the data isn't ever in your hands, it's on the servers and then installed on your hard drive, past that you have to sail the high seas, which people should. I guess we'll see what playing PS4 games is like by the year 2040, but you don't have to hack a Super Nintendo to play F-Zero with critical updates, y'know?

[–] SootySootySoot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I mean it seems we basically agree, I'm sure not saying it's "easy", but having a disc means you can play it, even with difficulty. Not having a disc means you're entirely boned and have no legal recourse.

Plus, emulators are not (necessarily) piracy.

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Almost, the core difference is that PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and Wii stuff you just use the disc. For preservation purposes though, you have to keep a DVD-R/flash drive/hard drive with updates on it. It becomes a worse problem as the 8th gen systems will have gigabytes and gigabytes of updates. It feels like taking chunks out of the ease-of-use of a disc. You're right though and regarding discs I don't disagree.

That's true about emulators too, even if using your own games is often a huge nuissance, (Xdvd mulleter) and I dunno how confident I am that I can put a PS4 game into shadps4...

Mostly my post is pedantic and annoying oooaaaaaaauhhh

[–] SootySootySoot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

I mean I also know nothing because I've not owned a console since like PS2, I only speak from second-hand knowledge.

Don't be rude about your post, I like it >:( I think the sentiment is still relevant and important, I was just saying I think discs do represent a tiny value. Still agree with everything else.