I don't think anyone will care about physical media in 20 years.

[sworddude]

That comparison really isn't fair at all. Video games are made with wildly different code, different game systems in mind, etc..with music and movies, they can look and play different, but how they work is universal. You can watch The Dark Knight on an old tv but you can't play Super Mario Sunshine on an nes. You'll be able to pirate a movie until the end of time, but a game inevitably will eventually become unplayable if it's not physically preserved.

Games will change and improve but they'll never, ever be as simple and easy as downloading an Mp3 file or whatever. It just doesn't work that way.And the extremely negative impact on the gaming industry, the longeitivity of games, and how it screws over consumers in the long term, do not apply to movies and music, hence why people don't complain about those going digital as much. Like, call me a skeptist, but there's not going to be a day in our lifetime where we can buy the entire game of Skyrim for five bucks and jump right into it

The fact is, though-no such thing has happened. Just consider the fact that gaming PCs capable of running any current 60$ games are considered a niche and are (and will remain) much more expensive than any sort of console. And if you're going to go out of your way to head to the store to buy a console, what would you get? A 60$ eshop card, or the game you want, sitting right there on the shelf? Physical games are more likely to end up in someone's hands than digital games, and the more advanced games become, the more that fact remains true.

Cheap ass game companies want this so they can have pretty much no respect for their consumers. Don't let that happen.

ehmm pretty much all 2d games can pretty much be played at mobile phones at this point

More games are surely to follow including 3d, not to mention that sony and nintendo might eventually quit the console market and develop for mobile games if that were to happen. not saying that would be a good thing since Im not a fan of mobile gaming I avoid it like the plague.

There will however be a time that even the most advanced brand new 3d games will be just as simple to download and universally available as digital music is today.

Do not be fooled technology will have some major improvements over the upcoming 20+ years some wich might be kinda hard to believe. Digital stuff likes this is just chump chance in comparison.

[kashell]

The stuff will be worthless but also hard to find because it will be getting chucked out and no one will want to take the time to bother selling it.

There'll be generations of people growing up in an all digital world and it will be like holding onto cassettes and VHS tapes. Archaic, antiquated and eccentric.

Quoted for truth and for the hilarious picture from a hilarious movie.

[dharmajones93]

I agree that saying "everyone" will forget physical media is a stretch, based on everything already said. Also, I do think we're headed to an all digital era where physical media, as it exists today, will cease to exist.

The future of physical media will be the game consoles themselves. We will begin to see, with the closing of the Wii shop this year, that physical consoles containing games that can no longer be purchased will increase in value. Wii's with virtual console and WiiWare games that can't be purchased any other way downloaded and installed, will be sold as commodities. In 20 years, when the Switch eShop gets eliminated, Switches with Switch eShop exclusives saved and locked to the console will be worth more than the physical consoles and cartridges. The cartridges will be next-to worthless without being able to sync to the servers, but consoles with the digital games downloaded and updated will, and will still (for the most part) be playable. The consoles themselves will be the physical media. The Nintendo Classic series is another example of this, digital recreations of once physical media, put into a new physical form for novelty, but not for any practical reason. 

I also think there is a stark difference between collectors and the general public. Collectors and enthusiasts will still continue to enjoy physical media and consoles, but the general public will prefer whatever is easiest (digital/emulation/mobile) even long after the gaming industry has moved to universal mobile/synced/hybrid/cloud-based platforms (which it will, undoubtedly).

I have a collection of Godzilla VHS tapes, a VHS player to watch them, and a 30 year old 200lb CRT to watch them on. But I am a rare exception while hundreds of thousands (if not more) are content to watch them for free, streaming, on Crackle on their mobile devices. This is just the reality. I will preserve and use these, but for the overwhelming majority, VHS will be as good as forgotten, probably within the next 10 years. With DVD/compact disc close behind.

Everything has its comeback, like Vinyl right now in the states and cassette tape in Japan, but it won't last more than a decade at best. Physical media will be around for a while but it will change, IMO, from being the media itself to hardware based.

[bikingjahuty]

I feel like physical media has been dying a slow, painful death since around the millennium and at this points video games and to a lessor extent books are the only viable bastions left for the medium. CDs and Vinyl barely have any footprint within the world of music anymore, and movies are more and more getting replaced by streaming.

In regards to video games and books I feel like enough people who appreciate these things still prefer to have a physical copy that they won't be gone tomorrow, but their demise has been set in motion for a long time now, and it will only get worse and worse as time goes on. I do believe that in 20-years from now physical media will likely no longer be a mainstream form of media distribution and the world prescribes more and more into The Internet of Things and surrounding their lives with digital access. With that said I doubt DVD or blu-ray players will even be sold anymore in the same way you haven't been able to buy a new VHS player from Target in nearly a decade.

[PaleManInBlack]

I don't know about other people, but I will.

Exactly this.

[oldgamerz]

As far fetched as this sound I think every kind of media including (music, photos video games, and movies and art) will all be accessed through a main world computer. Humans will make more super computers and even take this media into real life Universal exploration.

 And they will use this media on some sort of high tech spaceship or space cruiser to keep them busy. While they head for other galaxies and explore other planets. That is of course if there is no war that wipes out the human race in the near future.

I am not high I just have a feeling that this may happen if people and countries get along and don't have war. I also believe that money will also be digital and then eventually everything will be free of charge, especially to communities on other planets. where and when all companies owning media. will be pretty much a thing in the past. But were talking about more then 20 years in the future I think at this point

[cirno]

That comparison really isn't fair at all. Video games are made with wildly different code, different game systems in mind, etc..with music and movies, they can look and play different, but how they work is universal. You can watch The Dark Knight on an old tv but you can't play Super Mario Sunshine on an nes. You'll be able to pirate a movie until the end of time, but a game inevitably will eventually become unplayable if it's not physically preserved.

Games will change and improve but they'll never, ever be as simple and easy as downloading an Mp3 file or whatever. It just doesn't work that way.And the extremely negative impact on the gaming industry, the longeitivity of games, and how it screws over consumers in the long term, do not apply to movies and music, hence why people don't complain about those going digital as much. Like, call me a skeptist, but there's not going to be a day in our lifetime where we can buy the entire game of Skyrim for five bucks and jump right into it

The fact is, though-no such thing has happened. Just consider the fact that gaming PCs capable of running any current 60$ games are considered a niche and are (and will remain) much more expensive than any sort of console. And if you're going to go out of your way to head to the store to buy a console, what would you get? A 60$ eshop card, or the game you want, sitting right there on the shelf? Physical games are more likely to end up in someone's hands than digital games, and the more advanced games become, the more that fact remains true.

Cheap ass game companies want this so they can have pretty much no respect for their consumers. Don't let that happen.

ehmm pretty much all 2d games can pretty much be played at mobile phones at this point

More games are surely to follow including 3d, not to mention that sony and nintendo might eventually quit the console market and develop for mobile games if that were to happen. not saying that would be a good thing since Im not a fan of mobile gaming I avoid it like the plague.

There will however be a time that even the most advanced brand new 3d games will be just as simple to download and universally available as digital music is today.

Do not be fooled technology will have some major improvements over the upcoming 20+ years some wich might be kinda hard to believe. Digital stuff likes this is just chump chance in comparison.

I think you highly overestimate how fast technology moves. Back when 3D games were already commonplace, the best 2D games could do was a portable snes; even now, we've just reached a point where it's physically possible for portable games to be console quality, and that thing costs four hundred bucks. 2D games are infinitely easier to develop for, so the idea that because mobile phones can run most 2D games, 3D games will soon follow I find incredibly silly.  Mobile phones right now are capable of running a smaller gamecube game if i'm being generous, and while phones with that sort of power I'm sure will exist, it'll be a long, long time before they're cheap enough to become used by average folks. Don't think of it as "they'll have all 3D games soon!" Think of it as "They can only reliably play 2D games, so they're worlds away from replacing consoles"

Technology doesn't work that way, you can't just magically shrink Super Mario Odssey onto a 20$ phone because the tools you use are improving.

[sworddude]

That comparison really isn't fair at all. Video games are made with wildly different code, different game systems in mind, etc..with music and movies, they can look and play different, but how they work is universal. You can watch The Dark Knight on an old tv but you can't play Super Mario Sunshine on an nes. You'll be able to pirate a movie until the end of time, but a game inevitably will eventually become unplayable if it's not physically preserved.

Games will change and improve but they'll never, ever be as simple and easy as downloading an Mp3 file or whatever. It just doesn't work that way.And the extremely negative impact on the gaming industry, the longeitivity of games, and how it screws over consumers in the long term, do not apply to movies and music, hence why people don't complain about those going digital as much. Like, call me a skeptist, but there's not going to be a day in our lifetime where we can buy the entire game of Skyrim for five bucks and jump right into it

The fact is, though-no such thing has happened. Just consider the fact that gaming PCs capable of running any current 60$ games are considered a niche and are (and will remain) much more expensive than any sort of console. And if you're going to go out of your way to head to the store to buy a console, what would you get? A 60$ eshop card, or the game you want, sitting right there on the shelf? Physical games are more likely to end up in someone's hands than digital games, and the more advanced games become, the more that fact remains true.

Cheap ass game companies want this so they can have pretty much no respect for their consumers. Don't let that happen.

ehmm pretty much all 2d games can pretty much be played at mobile phones at this point

More games are surely to follow including 3d, not to mention that sony and nintendo might eventually quit the console market and develop for mobile games if that were to happen. not saying that would be a good thing since Im not a fan of mobile gaming I avoid it like the plague.

There will however be a time that even the most advanced brand new 3d games will be just as simple to download and universally available as digital music is today.

Do not be fooled technology will have some major improvements over the upcoming 20+ years some wich might be kinda hard to believe. Digital stuff likes this is just chump chance in comparison.

I think you highly overestimate how fast technology moves. Back when 3D games were already commonplace, the best 2D games could do was a portable snes; even now, we've just reached a point where it's physically possible for portable games to be console quality, and that thing costs four hundred bucks. 2D games are infinitely easier to develop for, so the idea that because mobile phones can run most 2D games, 3D games will soon follow I find incredibly silly.  Mobile phones right now are capable of running a smaller gamecube game if i'm being generous, and while phones with that sort of power I'm sure will exist, it'll be a long, long time before they're cheap enough to become used by average folks. Don't think of it as "they'll have all 3D games soon!" Think of it as "They can only reliably play 2D games, so they're worlds away from replacing consoles"

Technology doesn't work that way, you can't just magically shrink Super Mario Odssey onto a 20$ phone because the tools you use are improving.

Most people aren't using 20$ phones most use like 300, 500 600 700 + $ smart phones to most people it is an essential addicting thing just saying most always try to get the newest and the best one as fast as possible

i would not be suprised to see mario odyssey and other advanced 3d games on mobile phones, in 20 years technology will improve allot faster than some years ago.

You do realise that a switch is only 300 $ brand new while phones surpass those amounts by a hell lot. Plenty of room.

Still though not only talking about phones on desktops these games will be very easy to acces with minimal efforts as downloads. Digital will replace physical media on videogames by than I'm pretty sure of that. Physical copies will be a rarity. It might just be as easy to use as digital music is today thus making phsyical media quite a hassle to use.

Even now digital is pretty nice , If you want comfort I'd might say it is the best way to play a game, turn on a consoles and immidiately have acces to that game without getting the box of that game opening it and and putting the disc in the console. The common man does not give two shits about having a game physical or not they just want to play it and if digital is more easy to use than digital it will be.

The only reason why physical sales are higher is because people still shop around in physical stores and even the prices online are pretty much the same or lower than the download price. If they would lower the costs on digital downloads during release physical sales will be history for sure.

[cirno]

I mean, sheesh, doesn't it say a lot that you spend that much more for a much weaker system, just for the sake of making it compact? Who the hell is gonna buy the 3,000$ phone that can play Skyrim, outside of particularly rich folks

And again, PC Gaming remains much more expensive and inaccessible than that physical gaming, and no, you can't magically make a laptop that costs around the price of a gaming console but still has the increasingly high RAM they need. I don't get why you don't seem to understand that video games aren't the same as music and movies? You seem to think technology is sorcery, with enough time passed you can do absolutely anything with it

[sworddude]

I mean, sheesh, doesn't it say a lot that you spend that much more for a much weaker system, just for the sake of making it compact? Who the hell is gonna buy the 3,000$ phone that can play Skyrim, outside of particularly rich folks

And again, PC Gaming remains much more expensive and inaccessible than that physical gaming, and no, you can't magically make a laptop that costs around the price of a gaming console but still has the increasingly high RAM they need. I don't get why you don't seem to understand that video games aren't the same as music and movies? You seem to think technology is sorcery, with enough time passed you can do absolutely anything with it

Nobody spends 1000's on a phone that's not the normal market but allot of people can't live without the new iphone or samsung wich are around the 500 - 800 range when brand new. than again maybe in the future  since allot of people are kinda addicted to their phones not to mention that people did not spend those huge amounts on older mobile phones years ago before the smart phone and even early smart phone years.

yes pc's are more expensive however allot of people need one anyway so don't bother and get a console since it is inferior if you like certain genre's of games. besides there will come a time that games will be just as accesible as music etc it will happen I'm pretty sure of that but only time will tell who will be correct.

Edit:

I'm btw kinda shocked looking at the iphone X prices starting at 1000 with minimal options  smart phones are getting more advanced and expensive by the year it seems