this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
56 points (98.3% liked)
Games
21345 readers
177 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here
- No gamers allowed
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
- Anti-Edelgard von Hresvelg trolling will result in an immediate ban from c/games and submitted to the site administrators for review.
- Can't read Colon Syntax Emoji? :skill-issue:
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think you're overstating the 'uselessness' of discs. You can download updates from pretty much anywhere and apply them. That's certainly how we used to do it before everything was digital store. 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.
When that data was in your hand, and you didn't have an alternative people could (and did) find a way to play the data that's on it, even with DRM or whatever. It wasn't much, but it was surely an aspect of control that could never be taken away from you, a viable backup route if all else fails.
I agree piracy rules more anyway. But this was the last arguably legal method of preservation, now there is basically no such thing for such games.
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.
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?
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.
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
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 some amount of importance. Still agree with everything else, downhill, piracy rules, dying before Sony did this, etc.