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Old 26th Jul 2021, 11:51 pm   #97
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,484
Default Re: The end of physical media.

Someone mentioned computer games - it has unfortunately been the case, going back as far as the Xbox 360 and PS3, that many games which come as a hard copy on optical on disc nevertheless 'phone home' to a server to verify your right to run them (they may for example be licensed to be 'installed' on only one XBOX 360 at a time). When it gets to the point where there is no longer a server for them to phone home to, they may well simply refuse to work any more in spite of our having both original media and the hardware to play on.

SWMBO and I have a load of old games primarily on the XBOX (original) and PS2 and there was none of that nonsense going on then so we can expect to keep playing our favourite offline games on those formats for as long as the discs and consoles keep working, but I am less certain about some of the titles we play on the newer consoles. Certainly a lot of the popular multiplayer games have already gone down when the game manufacturer has taken down the server which connected all the players together.
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