Thank you immensely for all the information and clarity. It makes a lot more sense to me now. So basically say PS3 and PS4 games which make up like 40 percent of my collection. I would need a special drive with write/rip capabilities for blu ray disc. Then id just put the disc in and rip it to the drive and those files can be used in the instance of a disc rot or console death? It's fascinating for me. My brother used to burn games. But this was years ago and he only did PS1 games and I believe Saturn.
I have found companies making aftermarket disc drive assemblies for PS2 slims which gives me a ray of hope but ive yet to try one. While yeah PCBs can fail. Some PS2s can go 50+ theoretically outside of the disc sled assembly with proper maintenance. I really hope we start seeing even more neat ideas as physical media fully gets murdered. I bet the communities will collectively rebel and we may start getting ways to take digital PS5 and PS6 games and put those on physical media as well. Maybe pipe dream but id also love to see someone like limited run games make physical games for digital only consoles that maybe can be played on PC? 3rd party games that will release next gen.
I am sorry if any of this is just nonsense. I am so tonedeaf with the inner workings of physical preservation on digital files but id love to back up my collection to the best of my ability.
Your idea for putting your games on M-Discs is great. The idea of a world where certain games become lost to degradation gives me the heebie jeebies. I had not heard of M-Disc until now. Does it recieve files the same way burning on a DVD-R operates? Or is there a special drive needed for these?
I also had no clue about 3DS games having this issue. Damn. I better fire up some of my titles.
Best wishes in your future preserving endeavors. I really wish companies remained making parts and games in small batches for curators but alas gaming has fleeted. Thanks for all this knowledge. I appreciate the response.
Sorry for the late reply, but yes, once you rip the ps3 or ps4 discs, you'll be able to use the game files with an emulator on your PC. Some emulators require a couple extra steps, but instructions and tutorials are easy to find on youtube. PS3 and later discs often require a disc key in addition to the rom itself (like how PC games need cd keys to work), but it's easy to find complete archived lists of every given disc key for a given console with a simple search. I've used a program made specifically for dumping PS3 games that generates a complete list of disc keys every time you dump a disc with it.
I have no worries about disc drives disappearing completely, because now in 2026 you can still buy new-manufacture USB floppy disc drives on Amazon, and I haven't seen a computer with a floppy drive in 20 years. Turns out it's still the number one data storage format worldwide, not every country can afford the newest and best. Vinyl records have also made a comeback, along with cassette tapes of all things. There will definitely be less-than-legal ways of owning PS6 and Post-2027 PS5 games in the future, as the first PS5 emulators are already starting to show up. The PS5 was also completely hacked last year, which opens the door for jailbreaking the console. Jailbroken consoles can do some amazing stuff. I saw a youtube video tutorial on jailbreaking a PS4, they were able to rip the roms from the discs and transfer them to a PC, as well as run modded PS4 roms. They played Bloodborne on a jailbroken PS4 Pro and used a homebrew patch to run it at 60fps. Really neat stuff, I want to try it sometime.
If you want to burn anything to an M-Disc, you'll need to make sure whatever drive you buy can read and write M-Discs. Not all of them can, as it's a relatively new format. Otherwise, yes, it works like burning any other kind of disc. Also, I made a small error when I talked about SSDs. Reading the data won't harm them, but they do have a finite number of write cycles. That's why I refuse to delete and re-install games frequently like a lot of people do, it will shorten the drive's lifespan. And definitely insert and boot any DS or later Nintendo cartridge you own, it will save them. Switch and Switch 2 carts even have small repair programs on the carts that will repair any corrupted data when the game is booted as long as the damage isn't too bad. A couple of DS/3DS games I hear about dying frequently are Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby, so if you have them, boot them first. Good luck in the future.
