digital Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Physical, Digital or Something Else?

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Viljami

Physical game cartridges and later discs (CDs, DVDs and so on) was how games were sold way before video games were available as downloads from internet. Internet came to be during 1990s and it was only in 2000s when game consoles started to be connected to it. First there were consoles like PS2 and Xbox that could be connected to internet. Later it came a norm that discs only held parts of the game and you actually had to download some parts of the game. This is also how many games were patched or updated even after they had been released.

The progress towards faster networks and downloading games has been a slow one. However just some days ago Sony announced that it will discontinue physical game discs in the year 2028. This makes a gamer think about the release of PlayStation 6 and the matter that it probably won’t have a disc drive at all. We have seen this kind of progression already in PCs. Steam and other software web shops have provided us the games that we play today and this has been the norm for already several years. You can buy yourself an internal or external DVD or Bluray drive for your PC and this can make you some trouble and you have to pay for it.

If we go from the beginning to end and inspect how have games been delivered to customers through times beginning from 1980s when Nintendo, or NES, was first released. Now, Nintendo wasn’t the first home console but it was the most successful console in the 1980s with some competition from Sega’s consoles. Back then games were delivered as electronic cartridges that you actually inserted into your video game console. The space that a game like this takes is only some tens or hundreds of kilobytes.

After cartridges we moved forward as the technology progressed to compact discs. First we saw CD-ROMs that could hold maybe 700 megabytes of information. So, the amount of information was 700 000 kilobytes when NES could onyl deal with games of maybe 100 kilobytes. So, the amount of data became 7000 times bigger when games began to be delivered as CD-ROMs. Later the technology progressed and we moved to first DVDs and then to Blurays and later to 4K discs. So, now Sony announced that the progression of discs is going to end in 2028.

It is very easy to rip PlayStation 1 and 2 games. You only need a regular CD-/DVD-drive. I am myself using an external one. I do buy physical game discs for both of these systems. I just want to always rip the game disc from the media I have purchased so I am not limited to use only the physical disc. This way I can play the game on a PC and on an emulator. So I mainly use emulation for PlayStation 1 and 2 retro gaming. I do have in my setup a PS1. I mainly use it for some games that have multiple discs so the swapping of discs is smoother. It might be possible to use emulation also with multi-disc games but to today I haven’t found a way to solve this matter.

So, actually the game disc can and maybe even should be ripped to a digital format. When you rip the disc it becomes an image of the disc that you can burn to a disc or utilize it to play the game that it holds. It takes only about 15 minutes for my computer to rip the disc and then I am moving the image to the PC that has Batocera as its operating system that is connected to my home’s network. That way the disc isn’t required but it is a sign that you actually do own the game and it is not just downloaded from internet as a pirated copy.

Is it pirating if you just copy a game that you don’t own? I think it can be considered as something like that. Now when games might become fully digital the matter of who actually owns a game is becoming more unclear. Actually instead of huge shelves in our homes that hold some game discs and cartridges should now become digital libraries of games that you can install and uninstall. But what happens if the system that holds this digital library becomes somehow unavailable? The matter that you own a physical copy of a game makes sure that you do own it even if some web service game library platform becomes obsolete. And this seems to be the biggest part of the debate that has already been risen. Here were my thoughts about this matter. I think it is now time to stop and think about this a bit. Maybe I form some opinion about this later. You, my dear reader, can also think about this and maybe have a conversation with some gamer like you.

Split Second – A Good Driving Game from 2010

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Viljami

I recently bought Split Second for my Xbox Series X as a digital copy. It was a cheap game (I bought it for about ten euros). I actually have played this game earlier but the platform was PC. I remembered having a great time with this game so I decided to grab it.

Split Second reminds me of Burnout 3 – Takedown. The gameplay has been adjusted. You don’t actually try to crash other vehicles. Instead you trigger some trap type of obstacles in your opponents way so that they will crash. You get power to trigger these traps by following close at your opponents tail or by drifting while you are driving in a corner.

I have to say that Split Second isn’t a perfect game. It has its flaws. Then again what game today wouldn’t have some disappointing features? The driving can’t be considered a simulation. It is actually very much like playing an arcade game. It is also already a bit outdated with its graphical presentation. This game was originally released for Xbox 360 and PC and surely also for PS3. So, I have played this video game for PC and Xbox 360.

This game reminds me of a somewhat better era for video gamers. Back in 2010 these games were easy to get into and also easier to complete finally. Every game released weren’t as ambitious commercially and in terms of how addicted gamers would become to the game that was in question. I kind of miss those days. We had way more games released. I think that every game can’t be a masterpiece. Every game cannot be a legendary one.

As there are fewer games being released and more money involved in the development process we are getting this clear picture of the state of this industry. Game developers might be aiming too high. At least thats how I feel. Well, maybe we will get some support in this matter from some indie developers.

One thing we can also have a debate about is how Nintendo has managed to get its console, Nintendo Switch, to be such a success. Switch is currently the most sold gaming console ever. It is soon passing PS2. I think its pricing and these good quality games that this platform seems to have have given this gaming device the success that it does currenlty have. Are you waiting for Switch 2? It is rumored that it will have a backwards compatibility with current Switch and also that it might not be such a powerful system when comes to pure technical performance.

As you can imagine I did play Split Second a bit over ten years ago with my PC. I have the game also as a physical copy. I have the frigging DVD disc! It is almost frightening to see these DVD boxes in my video game shelf. They are something that collectors do not wish to have. Do you have a DVD drive still in your PC? I do have, but actually I have disconnected the power supply from it. I did this partly accidentally as I had to change some parts to my desktop PC a while ago. I just haven’t had the time to try to connect the power again to the DVD drive. Actually I have also an external DVD drive that I can connect to my PC through USB. The main point of this paragraph must be that PC has been a digital platform for several years alreaady. What I mean is that if you buy a PC game you propably buy a digital copy of it.

There are plenty of good Xbox 360 and even some original Xbox games available in the digital store of Xbox. I actually bought three games just the other day for 21 euros. If you are into Xbox 360 gaming I highly recommend getting your hands on these games. It is a very good option for buying the physical game from a game store. And of course you might just have an only digital gaming console. Digital gaming seems to be more and more popular as the provess does progress.

The Future of Physical Content

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Viljami

Best Buy has announced that it is not going to sell physical copies of DVDs, Blu-Rays and 4K discs anymore in the near future. This is the way things are going right now. Consumers are moving on to digital media when it comes to games and movies. It doesn’t help that there are consoles that enable you to play older retro games and also new games on discs.

Is the physical media going to disappear? We don’t know the exact answer. I think there is always going to exist some gamers that need to have their game as a physical copy. These copies might be some kind of collectors editions that have a little more higher price than the regular standard version of the game. We have already witnessed an increase in in prices of games be that they are digital or physical. So, the amount of games sold as physical copies has been decreasing but I think we are not ready to move on to a world without these discs that we have our games on even today.

This is very interesting and I have recently been reading a lot about this matter. If you think about upcoming game releases and purchasing a copy of your favorite upcoming game beforehand I think digital is way easier and more trustworthy to be handled when it comes to delivering the game. Just last summer when Diablo IV was released I wanted to order it beforehand. You can probably guess how it went, right? Game developers don’t want their games to be released before their actual release day so they won’t let game shops deliver these games too early. This problem doesn’t exist in a digital world.

I have to admit that I like to own a physical copy of my game. Well, maybe not every game, right? Big box games still look good on a gamer’s bookshelf. There are many ways to view this matter. Having loads of games can be a challenge if you are considering to collect these games. I have loads of games on my bookshelf and I had to move some of them away from this bookshelf because they take so much space.

We have already seen how things are today with PC games. Steam and many other online game stores have taken over the markets. You hardly ever see a DVD drive on a PC. If you like you can of course get a drive that you can use by connecting it to your PC with a USB cable. It is although easier to just buy the game from Steam or some other web shop. I myself have a special retro laptop for playing older PC games. It runs Windows XP. It works very nicely.

If we are talking about PC games you have this constant feel that you have to buy newer operating system and/or newer computer that has a good GPU, CPU and SSD hard drive. This is a reason to keep consumers to pay for their ability to use a computer be it for playing games or for some other use. Everybody needs a PC today, right?

What about older games? I think there is something a bit wrong in this way of thinking. We should make sure that old games are available for us in the future also. These retro consoles aren’t going to last for 20 years. We have to come up with solutions to these questions so we won’t loose our precious history in video gaming. This is at least how I am thinking right now here and today.