This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I tend to buy physical cartridges for Nintendo games, because it's a tried and true system. I buy the object and now I own it forever. Society can collapse and I still have my games from when I was 10, good deal.

Then there's digital. I usually only buy Nintendo games digitally when I'm buying one as a totally off-the-cuff decision and I want to play it right away. It's always a little easier to boot them up because I don't need to fumble around with the microscopic cartridges. Ultimately it's more convenient and better for saving space.

But here's the thing, in like 10 years whatever digital games I bought from Nintendo are going to just be gone. Part of being a Nintendo player is acknowledging that they just absolutely do not give a shit if you purchased something, as long as the transaction date was a pretty long time ago. They will straight up pretend you never bought it, and then they'll sell it to you again. I know this will happen because it already happened, everyone spent probably hundreds of dollars on the Wii Shop Channel and that content is just gone now, and nobody cares lol

But even beyond the monetary aspect, I wonder how much of the nostalgia experience is lost for people who are growing up with digital games. When I pick up a cartridge from childhood, I'm picking up the same object that I picked up with my little kid hands, and that's just a profound experience (this is the motivation behind keeping pretty much any heirloom). If it's just a file on a hard drive it seems a lot harder to glean emotional meaning from. Maybe this doesn't matter at all

I’m confused as to how physical games work these days. Every time I buy a physical game, either for ps5 or switch, I have to download stuff anyway. I know I’m not downloading as much as I am with a digital purchase, but I’m downloading anyway, so I’m guessing in the future I won’t be able to play the game if I dont have the data downloaded… or is that not how it works?

Anyway, I usually go for physical because it takes less space and I prefer having the boxes. I have mario party superstars digitally becase I just decided one night that I wanted to play it with my friends and I didn’t want to go to the store to get it.

This post was last modified: Oct 20, 2023 at 7:22 PM by Hearts.

In theory I like physical copies of things and not having to clear space for new games, in practice I'm lazy and will just download stuff to play on release and not wait in any lines

The only physical game I bought in the last decade was the 3D Mario collection.

This post was last modified: Oct 20, 2023 at 9:08 PM by T-man.

I went all digital once I bought back into the 3DS during its later years and I carried that trend forward to Switch, having everything instantly accessible from an SD card is great. Concerns about the longevity of digital purchases are total valid, but realistically once their ticket is punched I'm just gonna keep playing them the same way I played Mario 64 on my computer when I was 12. I would like to see some sort of legal disincentive to keep companies from pulling the plug on digital purchases. I don't give a shit about software licenses or whatever, a chair you bought doesn't disappear from your house when the company that made it goes out of business or decides you can't have it anymore. Until that day comes, which it won't, at least we can take comfort in knowing there are currently alternative means of continued access.

I’m confused as to how physical games work these days. Every time I buy a physical game, either for ps5 or switch, I have to download stuff anyway. I know I’m not downloading as much as I am with a digital purchase, but I’m downloading anyway, so I’m guessing in the future I won’t be able to play the game if I dont have the data downloaded… or is that not how it works?

I think the stuff you download when you put in the cartridge is just post-release updates. The base game would most likely still work if the console was offline

I’m confused as to how physical games work these days. Every time I buy a physical game, either for ps5 or switch, I have to download stuff anyway. I know I’m not downloading as much as I am with a digital purchase, but I’m downloading anyway, so I’m guessing in the future I won’t be able to play the game if I dont have the data downloaded… or is that not how it works?

I think the stuff you download when you put in the cartridge is just post-release updates. The base game would most likely still work if the console was offline

some games need that day 0 update to even boot up, and this is becoming more and more common

im such a hoarder i would have so much trouble if i had to find space for physical copies of games

I’m confused as to how physical games work these days. Every time I buy a physical game, either for ps5 or switch, I have to download stuff anyway. I know I’m not downloading as much as I am with a digital purchase, but I’m downloading anyway, so I’m guessing in the future I won’t be able to play the game if I dont have the data downloaded… or is that not how it works?

I think the stuff you download when you put in the cartridge is just post-release updates. The base game would most likely still work if the console was offline

There have been cases recently where that isn't true. Some games have gotten so large they don't even fit on the physical media so you have to download the rest.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/cal...isc-empty/

There's a website for referencing which games are playable on disc,

https://www.doesitplay.org/

I personally don't find much solace in being able to play versions of games rendered obsolete by updates but I'm sure I'll have a different attitude during the apocalypse.

depends on how fast i need to play it

it's so annoyingly unreliable to get a damn game on release day, especially timely, so you get punished for buying physical if you're actually excited for a game. sonic superstars and mario wonder i both bought digital back to back so that i could play them coop day one and it was worth it

if i can afford to wait or think the digital status of a game will be up in the air, i'll get a physical copy

sonic superstars and mario wonder i both bought digital back to back so that i could play them coop day one and it was worth it

a fellow mario and sonic chad i see

arzest should be proud for making a classic sonic game with 3d graphics that controls so well and ashamed for fucking it up so badly in the back half

sonic superstars and mario wonder i both bought digital back to back so that i could play them coop day one and it was worth it

a fellow mario and sonic chad i see

arzest should be proud for making a classic sonic game with 3d graphics that controls so well and ashamed for fucking it up so badly in the back half

I still need to do the bonus story so it sucks if that's poor, but I really loved the main one. I honestly had more fun with that than I have with Mario Wonder so far and that's fucking impressive. Level design isn't quite Mania level but still great and the bosses are arguably 2D Sonic's best ever. It has a lot of jank to it but it's the funny kind rather than the game-ruining kind and they put in a bunch of failsafes anyways so it just made the coop experience even MORE enjoyable.

I barely get anything physical, something I've been starting to regret recently. It hit me that once the Switch hits obsolescence I'm going to be facing a lot of games being gone forever, but in some cases like Smash, online service ending'd just kill 99% of the fun anyway.

I got Fire Emblem: Three Houses as a physical game because I enjoyed it too much to ever even consider not playing it again sometime in the future, but it's the first physical purchase I've made in a long time.

There have been cases recently where that isn't true. Some games have gotten so large they don't even fit on the physical media so you have to download the rest.

This really sucks, and I wish there were laws forcing companies to allow some permanence of ownership. Steam games work the same way, I have a disc copy of L4D from 2008 and I'm pretty sure the disc literally just contains an installer for Steam. But at least I don't have any serious concerns that my Steam library will stop working anytime soon

Hi it's me the "always buy physical games" guy. I regret to inform you that switch cartridges are small and easily lost

shocking news

I'm trying to joke about it but it really sucks, we had all our switch cartridges in a couple of tiny storage cases, and my best guess is that they were thrown away accidentally while wrapping gifts. I hope some kid at least finds them and it makes their day.

I think this incident has sold me on digital games. My licenses to play them might not last 30 years into the future, but at least they can't slide off my fucking coffee table and get pushed away by the roomba or whatever

Thats why you have to collect larger games like GameCube disks so you only accidentally use it as a coaster or something

I do think the carts are too small. I don't think an N64 game ends up lost very often