I can’t imagine there is a large market for players. Be concerned if and when Sony leaves!
[Reply]

Now I'm wondering if my Xbox still takes physical disks. I haven't bought or used a Bluray, DVD, game, etc. in a long time.
[Reply]

I have a blu ray player in a drawer, which rarely gets used, but I do have a fair amount of blue ray and even some DVD's that I have around. I dunno...if the internet goes out for days or some shit, or whatever else...I'm an old guy who likes to have the media on hand.

I need to buy a new PC and it's gonna be weird cuz it won't have a DVD player in it. It's just anxiety inducing in me I guess. Fuck unreliable cloud shit.
[Reply]

They're already talking about the next gen of PlayStation consoles not having a disc tray at all.
[Reply]

That's just the thing. I'm finding "the cloud" to be more reliable than ever and so are a lot of people. I don't really follow it because Blu-ray but because of gaming and music. So many people are adopting streaming and digital downloads that there's just no profit in physical media anymore.
[Reply]

The PS5 plays 4k dvds but yea this has always been where it was going. It's not even easy to really buy DVDs.
[Reply]

I was one of the ones that wanted to see Xbox go to no physical media back before they released Xbox One. People didn't like it so they backed off of it, but with the newest version they are pushing it hard - which I like.

The one thing I don't really like about it is that you aren't really buying the movie/game/etc. You are just purchasing a license to watch/play it. You cancel and in theory, all that goes away.
[Reply]

Physical movies and games are still available in limited quantities at places like Walmart but the boutique stores are all but gone. As far as music, CD and vinyl retailers are all boutique. No mainstream businesses sell them anymore.

In fact, the biggest traffic in physical games and music is in online trading marketplaces. The only people buying them are collectors. They're not going to listen to them or play them. They're going to rip them and put them on the shelf with the rest of their display.
[Reply]

Yep 99% of people buying physical media are collectors, a lot of them won't even open it because a factory sealed copy has more value.
[Reply]

With the release of the PS5 Slim and Pro, Sony has made the drive optional. You can order it separately and bolt it on, but they no longer have a system with a built in drive.

And yes, there's always the ownership issue. With games, it's becoming moot with always on and day 1 patches. You may own the game disc but if you don't sign-in and sign-ups, you will never get patches and stuff. Of course, as soon as you patch that software, your disc is obsolete and you don't own the patched copy because you opted into a digital version.
[Reply]

I mean we knew it was going there, I don't even own a PC with a disc drive even the gaming desktop doesn't have one.
[Reply]

You can get USB DVD player for like 30 bucks if you need one for older programs or media.
[Reply]

Yea for PC you can buy a portable DVD drive pretty cheap, shouldn't be an issue.
[Reply]

I have a portable drive to rip CDs (I'm a collector) and it's bigger than than the PC I plug it into. 🤣
[Reply]