Lmao, I got the disk for Portal, and was so excited it had a physical copy. Nope, it was just a link to install steam. wtf.

Also had a disk for bejeweled twist, could never get it to run on my computer.(windows 7/8) A decade and a half later, works flawlessly in wine on Linux.

Don't forget insert disk 2, flip to backside of disk 1, now disk 3

The worst thing is that this goes for EVERYTHING now, not just games. While Tesla got lots of praise for OTA updates, it was one of the worst things that happened to the automotive industry, because manufacturers no longer have to worry about expensive recalls for sometimes serious issues. They will ship things that are known defects, sometimes serious ones, and you can hand wave the consequences away with "Oh, it'll be OTA'd by delivery."

That being said, sometimes it's a benefit, because there might be a major and a minor annoying defect, and we can now better prioritize getting the major one fixed before shipping and the minor one OTA'd, but it has still set a frustrating and dangerous precedent in the industry.

Fun fact: the Model 3 was shipped without any low-mu (ice/snow) calibration for its stability control system, and it was later OTA updated. Why was this allowed? They needed to get cars off the line ASAP, and they said "Well, all the initial customers are in California and it's summer, so they won't be driving in slick conditions." Literally delivering to customers with known safety defects, but because it could be updated OTA, they didn't care.

Imagine a 20s baby experiencing this. They'll realize what was taken from them , hopefully.

PS5 load times sure are nicer than PS3 load times, though.

It’s the story of how McDonalds became big. Think it’s called The Founders or something

But then you are treated to the ultimate satisfaction of "YOUR SOUND CARD WORKS PERFECTLY"

I realize by your last sentence, you mean 'Imagine if Cyberpunk or No mans sky were left unpatched after release.", but it could also read as "Imagine if Cyberpunk or No mans sky weren't released incomplete.", which is way better I think. Just don't release games that aren't finished.

The thing is, old incomplete games like that usually sold terribly. They are now either forgotten or worse: remembered for being terrible. Stuff like Superman64.

There used to be more pressure on developers to make good games first. Testing and QA departments have shrunk, or st the very least failed to scale with the increased scope of modern games. They instead rely on consumers to report the bugs.

So at the same time they keep raising prices, they are also pushing more of the work onto the consumers.

Imagine if Bethesda couldn't fix all the bugs in their games.

Oh wait, they don't anyway, modders do.

Sure, but it will be used for evil more often than good, so I'd rather not have it at all. Never once did I notice my ps2 game needed any sort of patch or update. And guess what, they all still work perfectly. And if the disc goes bad I can convert to SD or Ethernet .

That's seems more an argument to not release the game yet than to release and patch later. Patches should be more for fixing bugs than finishing the game after release.

There were 4 versions of smash melee.

Patches existed before, it's not an argument one way or the other.

I went to look it up, evidently it was the Commodore 64.

But judging from the context, they wouldn't have even bothered. They knew and made a change to just force an unsatisfying game over. They had ample opportunity to fix it even after release (logistics easier than NES roms), but didn't bother.

They also launch in an incomplete state with devs expecting to be able to deliver patches over the Internet

Inserts CD 6

"PLEASE INSERT CD 6"

Groan

When I was a child, I discovered JRPGs through Final Fantasy 9 on PS1. I was blown away and I would spend hours upon hours playing this game, until I progressed until it asked me to insert disk 4. To my horror, Disk 4 was scratched and didn't work. That was the last time I played a final fantasy game

Lol, I think you're literally who the joke is about.

Games used to come on physical media, and they used to include everything on the disk (or cartridge) day 1. There was no "download a patch' because the consoles couldn't connect to the internet.

Nobody's talking about laserdisc, only the little ones.