Let's upack physical media those who don't understand it, BSP3-style. Buckle up. You're going to be here a while. We will touch on both games and movies, in this text, and you should read it: Why physical media matters: 1: Quality. Streaming isn't good enough, and it never will be. Even if, by some miracle of technology and standard, the full video and audio quality of a consumer film release were provided, the films won't be. Your phone screen isn't good enough, your laptop screen isn't good enough, and odds are your monitor isn't good enough. Your TV was likely purchased on resolution, price, and size. Until a few seconds from now, you never thought that quality mattered, but those of us who do have saved consumer film distribution, film preservation, as well as restoration, and even blew the doors off of gaming possibilities: Without us, you never would have had 4K, 7.2 and bitstreamed audio, Atmos, expanded NTSC standards for color depth and contrast, discreet surround sound, or genuinely high end LCDs that later warranted extreme frame-rates. You would have hit a wall at stereo virtual 5.1, EAX, color and contrast standards that were around before your dad was born, and LCDs that wouldn't have advanced nearly as far. Those who needed better were happy with CRTs, which had already hit 1920X1080 and still had potential. Lord of the Rings was edited on tubes, and so was Jurassic Park, which your new 70" 4K OLED TV still can't display properly. That's because you never drove the quality market. We did. You also never warranted digging through archives and painstakingly resurrecting old films that were nearly lost to time, archiving films that weren't, or remastering Star Trek. We did, and we want physical media. That's one reason why: Quality you think was just going to happen all by itself, with no market for it. 2: Ownership. I'm going to go ahead and get it right out of the way that we all know what a license is. We did not buy the rights to Project Hail Mary. We bought the rights to reproduce it's content for viewing as many times as we like, from one source, at one time. That's what the license is. The physical media itself is what's owned. No matter what happens to a streaming service, not matter what new political motivation affects entertainment, and no matter how much space a show with five viewers doesn't warrant taking up, we still have it. It can't disappear, be altered, or be taken away. No political movement can sanitize it, no subtitles can be changed, and it can't be removed from a catalog. Physical media is fully decentralized preservation of entertainment. You never thought about that until now. Ponder that for a very long time, and thoroughly. Ponder it until you fully understand it. Go sit on a snowy mountaintop and stand under waterfalls until it makes sense. 3: Efficiency. So long as physical media exists, there is a tiny chance that games will be rendered unto them in full, again, and in stability, again. It is unlikely, but it is possible. The more people demanded a disc, the more incentive there was to make something actually fit on it. The giant space-hogs you see today don't need to exist. When most were finally fascinated by the convenience of digital storefronts, and enough gave up entirely on traditional media, things began to become very fat. That's happened throughout the years, in gaming. Many people making them are lazy, and yes, I'm calling them out. The more resources they have available, the more they use. No attempt is made to use as few as possible. There needs to be a solid U-turn, on that point. It was different, in the past. Now efficiency is a joke. If it can be expected to run properly on the next generation of hardware, and internal storage can hold at least three of them, it's good enough to ship. Bugs don't matter because it's all downloaded, anyway and, since they don't have to sell you an expansion pack, they've learned you're willing to three dollar yourself to death with DLC. You know what DLC used to be? The same amount of game you got with the original release, but a new experience, for a discounted price. Now you don't even get the original release without paying extra. 4: Your Genuine Freedom and Security. This is the most critical in your daily life, beyond the preservation of media. You are being corralled into a streaming world; a world of cloud computing and gaming that you don't see a problem with but, again, we do. We see the endgame. It's just the next iteration of what's happened, already. You will have what's called a "dumb terminal" connected to a mainframe, like you're back in the 1970s, again. You will lose control over everything. Your personal computing and gaming agency will be deleted from your life. Forever. You'll never get it back. Logins will no longer be a mere inconvenience or the data collection you brought upon us all; they will now be intrusive, invasive, and profile complete. You can't just go play something else, anymore. If you don't log in, you can't play, at all. You won't even be able to type a document without an internet connection and an account to access the function. If you're throttled, there's nothing you can do about it. If you're too quick with what you're doing, you'll be flagged. If you break some rule either on purpose, by accident, or are simply accused of doing something you haven't, you're out. Mods are also over. Forever, at that point. You won't have anything with which to mod a game, or any copy in which to install them. Transient interests, both popular and political will alter availability and content, and some things; many things, will simply disappear if not enough people are playing them. Make no mistake: You're screwed, if you don't hold the line. You're completely and utterly screwed. We can't do it by ourselves, anymore. We can't support your increased mass, at this point. You need to help. 5: So what are the solutions? A: M-Disc, if the cards are dealt right. Well, there are a few distribution methods that might save you, save film, save gaming, and help save your entire digital agency. We finally got M-Disc, which is hypothetically unaffected by time and reasonable environment to any extent that matters. It's perfect for film and games. It is extremely well-loved in many industries and, those of us who can't spin up our own optical drive production runs (some can and do) have a stack of the drives ready to go, and we use expensive ones. M-Disc may become of use in the new Xbox, for example, if enough people pile on the demand for physical media, which Microsoft has hinted at retaining. Optical is still critical in film work and a few industries you never think about, and some you've never heard of, today. M-Disc has completely invaded those markets, due to it's longevity. It's also incredible for backups. When I finish a film, I ship it in a Pelican case with WD Gold, SSD, and now M-Disc; all at once. No matter what happens in transit, one of them is going to work. On the immediate consumer front, there's also a chance a company such as Panasonic will realize that there are enough people who care to support a low volume, high cost source unit. It may be expensive as hell but, so long as it exists and produces the pinnacle of output, such as their current flagship, it will sell enough to warrant it's existence. That's a hopeful backup if Xbox doesn't support physical. The new Xbox might find itself a home for M-Disc, however, if nothing else does. As noted, Microsoft has floated not abandoning physical. Many of us use game systems as source units, already. They're actually pretty good home theater source units, all around. They're not the best, but they're pretty good. If the new Xbox takes it a step further, on that front, it will be a potential form of salvation, if nobody else muscles forward to take up the slack. It will become the source unit. If it exists, it will be used, and so long as something is used enough, there is reason to keep at least limited disc production alive. B: Full, normal distribution on SD card. A Bluray in full audio and video quality will fit on an SD card. Nothing has to be given up, objectively. It has a limited lifespan even in relation to earlier discs that didn't suffer production issues, and it can't out-last an M-Disc, but you can still back it up. Nintendo did that for a while, with games, and it was actually quite nice. A full size SD card isn't a bad form factor, and it can snap securely into a nice case, just like a disc can. The same can happen with all games and films. Simply distribute them on SD card, and leave it to the consumer to back them up. That may become more difficult, however, as the storage market is increasingly sucked dry. That's another reason to absolutely stand shoulder to shoulder with us on the line for digital agency. If you don't, storage won't just be expensive, it will begin to become harder to find. C: Day one home release full downloads. To some degree, this is already in effect, in certain ways, but not everywhere; and a standard is needed that can be met, for DRM. Such a standard exists, but it may need tinkering. If, say, Amazon found a way to provide full, Bluray-quality downloads, for everything, to be loaded directly to a compatible SD card, we might have something. HDCP compliance would need to be enforced, just as it is on disc, today. What that would entail might be slightly more advanced than it is, today, but it's certainly possible to accomplish. As for the physical packaging, it can simply be a separate purchase. Alter the molds for Bluray cases to support both a disc and an SD card, inject them in some other color, such as purple, and call it a day. People will buy it. The company is now double dipping, and nobody will care. $20-$30 for the film, and $10 for the physical case and artwork. That's an extra ten bucks on every physical license sale. Extend the prices to apply to games, as they are more expensive, and you'll potentially end up with every edition being what's considered a basic collector's edition, today, for another $10-$20. At least you'll have a box, and you may even get a manual. Indeed, an industry standard for manuals can be developed to meet qualification for a certain label to be applied to the website, storefront, and physical box. Neither A nor B will save every film and game ever made, but it will save a lot of what exists now, with legacy downloads, over time, and what comes to exist in the future. In summary: Physical matters. It's not just some old-school, nostalgia-laden fever dream. If you lose it, much more than you think is lost will be lost. You will regret the day you let it slip entirely, and found yourself on an unstoppable train headed for cloud everything. Local downloads will be the next to go after physical dies completely. Valve and GOG will hold the line but, as people foolishly stop maintaining their own hardware, the line they're holding will disappear. ... and there is no Valve or GOG for movies. It would have been possible, in the past, but it's not now, unless you put your feet down and demand it.

The MSRP of the NES is over $620, accounting for inflation. Gaming cost hasn't changed price much, over the years, and that's been a problem. Development costs increased, studios bloated, and the price of everything remained the same. What allowed that was an increasing number of gamers; but that wasn't going to scale forever. Consoles have to rise, and so do games. It's time. While this $1,800 figure seems to have come from thin air, the console will be expensive. That's memory prices creeping in, and not even Microsoft can fight it. I've explained in the past how the memory market works, and what businesses, even of their size, are having to do in order to get it. It's insanity. If you want the contract, you have to offer a longer term and a higher price than the next guy, and it's a bidding war between businesses, right now, for consumer products. So, while this won't be $1,800, it could very well be $1,200. Cut out the memory hikes, and guess what? It would probably be $699. Without exclusives and significant output, however, the sensible price would be $799. That's right about where a next-gen console needs to land, unless it has software draw that lasts. Games need a faster development turnover, and they need to be more efficient in hardware use, as well. Both of those are very important, and both lower the price of hardware. These billion dollar budgets, 15 involved companies, 6,000 man pipelines, and ten year cycles have to end. It's damaging the industry. This stuff still doesn't look much better than Crysis. Meanwhile, much of the player base for GTA6 was barely out of diapers when development started. Think about that. Think about how stupid that is. Well over $2,000,000,000 in total, for kids who hadn't even graduated to macaroni art when it started. Just don't buy GTA6. Let it flop. The message has to be sent that this nonsense has to end. What are you getting, out of it, for waiting that long and so much money being spent? If you're 20 now, you'll be 35 by the time the next version is released, more than likely. If someone is 10, they might be 25 when it's released. If someone is just being born today, they'll be 15 and working on a driver's license before GTA7 is released, at this rate. They just popped out and got weighed in at 7 pounds 2 ounces, today, and they'll have had four girlfriends by the time they play that game. Kids will be going from Hot Wheels cars to finishing college by the time GTA7 is released. It's insanity. Don't encourage this, anymore.

This is a great price to get all three books in such quality! There are options for everyone, from one book to three, and including various items and signatures, depending upon tier. The whole set is priced right where it needs to be. You can also go all the way and get even a separate set with D'ni covers, as well, and many other things. That tier may seem expensive, but a much smaller runs cost a lot to make, and you're getting two whole sets. All prices are absolutely reasonable. If you're interested, this is a super awesome collector's edition, and you'll be glad you have it. I don't advise collecting many things, in life, but sometimes an offer happens that just means a lot, to you. If Myst does, don't miss it! I'm currently trying to decide what I can swing, right now, but they're selling fast! Like, super fast!