Physical Media: Not long for this world?

Will physical media be viable in the future?

  • Yes, Physical Media will always be an option.

    Votes: 6 37.5%
  • Somewhat, but people will use both Streaming and Physical media

    Votes: 7 43.8%
  • No, pretty much everything will be done through streaming and downloads.

    Votes: 3 18.8%

  • Total voters
    16

Patches O'houlihan

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It seems like yesterday I was clamoring for a winner in the Blu ray / HD DVD war and now, 11 years later, nearly 75% of movies are rented or purchased through streaming services. Even the next X Box is rumored to have a discless console...So, which begs the question, do you think Movie and Game discs will always be around, or do you think within the next decade, all media will be streaming/downloads only?
 
need better internet for an all streaming/downloading future. nothing worse trying to watch a movie and it gets stuck buffering.
 
game consoles won't go away per se, it's just they'll move to downloading the games(which they are kind of doing right now as it is). Although again, until we get fast, stable internet nationwide it's going to be a problem, downloading a game that's tens of gigabytes in size can and often does take eons to download. And then after that you have updates and patches and DLC for them that you also must spend a bunch of time to download. It's just a gigantic pain.
 
I dunno I prefer to buy physical when I can, it's just an extra layer of guarantee, a security blanket if you will. Plus when I decide hey I no longer want this game or movie or whatnot I can sell it, may only get a few bucks out of it but that's more than you get for digital games that you can't sell. Shoot I'll take whatever money I get from selling them and buy some beers, good enough for me. meanwhile all the goofs in "the future" have a hard drive full of games they no longer play.
 
I can see physical media becoming DVDs only and to a point where they're special releases, but not quite yet.
 
honestly not sure if i'm just being An Old here, so someone can correct me if i'm wrong but this sucks ass. companies maintaining control over something you "bought" can only possibly lead to shenanigans. from the company just going under and you losing everything (or just making you re-buy stuff periodically to be assholes), to dumb creators going in and tweaking their works constantly and you being forced to lose the originals, to the fact that (as has been stated already) buying used stuff or selling off your old stuff will completely be a thing of the past. and that's not even mentioning the fact that streaming services have almost no incentive to offer niche or older stuff which means all that could be pretty much lost within a generation. it's garbage and i hope something happens to change the course
 
DVD quality is so awful, though, I'm kind of amazed how popular the format still is. If blu-ray had entirely replaced DVDs I might be more positive about physical media, but when the choice is between watching a TV show on Hulu at 1080p or watching a crummy 480p DVD of it, I know what I'll choose. I actually have a large physical media collection (mostly CDs), so I hope it doesn't cease to be a "thing", but I'm not confident about it. Downloads are a decent replacement for physical media, streaming is not.
 
I haven't bought a DVD when the same product is on Blu Ray in a really long time, couldn't tell you the last time really. Unless you can't get it on Blu Ray(which a lot of TV shows are like this I get it, but I rarely buy TV boxed sets), I don't buy anything on DVD.

I really don't buy a lot of Blu Ray movies either, I rent them from the Redbox near release for the dollar or two it costs.
 
music is a different beast really though, I do still buy CDs and increasingly vinyl more recently, but for most music I'm content with paying 10 bucks a month for Apple Music. It's not perfect and every once in a while I do come across something I want to listen to that isn't on Apple, but it's good enough.

I still do own hundreds, if not thousands, of CDs though, mostly from when I was buying like 3 on average weekly as a teenager. Was at Shopko recently since all the stores are closing and amongst all the junk they are trying to clear out I found Carly Rae Jepson's "Emotion" on CD for like 5 bucks, so I bought it.
 
I think that dvd's/blu-rays will hit a certain sales plateau or threshold and sustain itself for a while as a more niche option for collectors and people who want their favorites at arms length.
as long as there are billions of dollars to be made, they will remain an option for some time
 
It's nerve-wracking having to hope and wait for shows and films to come out on a proper blu-ray release while streaming continues to become more and more the norm. In time nothing lasts forever, but I still enjoy being able to revisit old shows right off my shelf at my own leisure rather than constantly flip-flop between various streaming services. There's a true novelty to that for the consumer that I don't think is anything to sneeze at.

I do wish I transitioned to blu-ray sooner over dvd though because my heart sinks every time an episode skips or won't play when popping the latter in. In that case, streaming ends up serving as a nice back-up.
 
Somewhat related question, why doesn’t Netflix put a ton of public domain stuff on there? It would cost them nothing but server space and would be a nice addition (especially since they’re otherwise almost completely lacking in older faire). You can find a lot of it on YouTube but it’s user uploaded and therefore the quality is a crapshoot
 
I think it will always be around.
What do I need the new Xbox for if it will not even be capable of playing discs?
The current gen Xbox allows downloading games from online already, so what would be the purpose of making a new one that also does that? It adds nothing.
 
but it would theoretically remove an optical drive that costs money to implement in the Xboxes
 
I think it will always be around.
What do I need the new Xbox for if it will not even be capable of playing discs?
The current gen Xbox allows downloading games from online already, so what would be the purpose of making a new one that also does that? It adds nothing.

The rumor is the premium model will still have a disk drive, but the lower-cost version will be download only.
 
I've got a good enough connection and usage plan these days for streaming and digital only releases to be viable, but I'd hate to see physical media discontinued. I still like the idea of a physical item I can collect and display, but beyond that, it's what's already been pointed out. Anything that relies on an Internet connection is useless if there are problems at your end or the service's end, and content can be removed or the service shut down, to say nothing of ongoing costs versus a one-time purchase. I'd like to think it'll be around for a while yet.
 
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