Games preservation is a growing problem in the industry as it pushes further into subscription models and digital consoles in which ownership is fickle. Without physical copies, games exist solely on digital marketplaces that will eventually shut down, building towards a future in which swaths of the medium's history may be lost.
In some cases, physical media is now only available via limited editions. Widely released retro games are already sold at extortionate prices given their rarity, never mind physical releases designed to be rare. Meanwhile, other publishers are dabbling in exclusively digital games like Hellblade 2.
The future doesn't look pretty when it comes to keeping the games we love.
It's not all doom and gloom though, as publishers like Capcom are thankfully sticking with physical even as many others in the industry toss it aside. "Given that a significant number of end users demand physical games we currently do not expect to eliminate physical products," Capcom said in an official Q&A when asked about the decreasing number of players who buy physical copies.
Earlier in the Q&A, Capcom discussed how it used to approach selling video games in the past. New releases would hold shelf space in a...