So Amiga users have already been though this, no new Floppy Disk are being made, the last of them being made in 2011, in theory they should last for 20 years, so 2031 it going to get harder to find 100% ok floppy disk :(

Sony have just announced there dropping making disk for PS5 from 2028, also Microsoft is basically the same.

Blu Ray / DVD sales are down

I think 4K Blu Rays are likely the last main stream media format to be made.

Its sad to think Physical media may come to an end, I'm sure it will always be a niche market for it, but it still a shame, as I miss visiting the Gaming and Video store in the High street, looking at the art work and boxs of games and movies, I dont quite find digital store the same.

Plus its the end of easy borrowing games from friends, selling /buying second hand games, true ownership (digital ownership law, really needs improving!!)

So I know its not strictly Amiga related, but what do you guys think of the end of Physical Media, What was the last physical Amiga game you bought in a shop (for me it was in bolton and I got Simon the Source 2 for Amiga).

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AmigaNG, YouTube, LeaveReality Studio

@amigang

I wonder if it will be.
Stories like this make me doubt it will be anytime soon -

https://www.techspot.com/news/112919-sony-deleting-551-movies-tv-shows-you-bought.html

Cheers

_________________
If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're upside down.

@amigang

it is a trend. To own physical media is retro today, you only buy the right to watch/hear something as long you pay the monthly fees

@amigang

Do USB sticks count as physical media?

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Quote:

simplex wrote: Do USB sticks count as physical media?

Friend Simplex,
USB sticks may certainly count as very, very physical, extremely tangible media

HOWEVER

it is distribution, DISTRIBUTION that has, at this point, been entirely dematerialized.
THAT is what our tender friend amigang wanted to convey, albeit lacking the sophistication to correctly present the point.

AND YES, IT IS A TREND THAT SHOULD BE FIERCELY OPPOSED!!!!

Not really for the sheer YET UNDENIABLE pleasure off sensing a floppy, a dvd with one's fingertips,
but rather for the control the corporations can now exert on what WE THE PEOPLE are allowed to watch, play, listen to.

Games, albums, movies DISAPPEAR OVERNIGHT NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN,
metaphorically tied and blindfolded and dumped into the ocean by the digital Pinochets of today.

NO MAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/SUBCOMANDANTE MRJM

Last edited by MEGA_RJ_MICAL on 03-Jul-2026 at 04:13 AM.

_________________
I HAVE ABS OF STEEL
--
CAN YOU SEE ME? CAN YOU HEAR ME? OK FOR WORK

@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

MEGA_RJ_MICAL wrote: it is distribution, DISTRIBUTION that has, at this point, been entirely dematerialized. Games, albums, movies DISAPPEAR OVERNIGHT NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN, ...

Welcome to 2030, You'll own nothing and we will call you happy

No CDs, DVDs or BlueRays, media will be delivered by streaming and deleted if your provider wants it, devices will stop working over night because services are shut down and car functions will be blocked if you don't pay your monthly service contract.

Private copies or hacking of devices bound to service contracts will be illegal.

This dystopian vision that has already materialized in streaming media.

@OneTimer1
2030 dystopian or 1984 dystopian?

Businesses denying accessibility is not so bad if other businesses step up to replace their lack of accessibility. This is an opportunity to take market share with retro products and customer service. The NeoGeo AES+ has good timing to take advantage of the backlash and blowback. It is far from the perfect product as the cartridges are too expensive. The cheaper CD based consoles replaced the cartridge based consoles because CDs both had larger capacity and the media was cheaper. If cheap CD drives can still be acquired in volume, it would be reasonable to consider a retro microconsole where an Amiga CD32+ is one of the earliest consoles that can be easily and exponentially upgraded. This is another missed opportunity for the 68k Amiga in Amiga Neverland.

The really scary 1984 dystopian is when governments reduce freedom, restrict free speech and police accessibility, which pressure from unethical businesses, extremist political groups and brain washed mob majority rule. The financial system is close to being able to deny the ability to products as cash money disappears too. Denying access to finances in a large geographic area is very persuasive and has already been done on a smaller scale. It is difficult enough without a smartphone and credit card already to do financial transactions.

@amigang

Most games I buy these days are via digital distrubution (the Amiga stuff being an exception - lastly Heretic 2). Last time I (or my brother) bought a video game box in a store was probably 10 years ago. With services like GoG, one can download and play even older games with great convenience. Out of my three main computers, only Pegasos 2 still has DVD drive (I have external drive for my gaming laptop and netbook) and I probably used it only once - to install OS4.

Last time I inserted a floppy disk in a drive? That must have been on my older laptop (486SX) some 15 years ago...

@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

Friend Simplex, USB sticks may certainly count as very, very physical, extremely tangible media

Senor subcomandante supremo,
Two very big thumbs up

Quote:

HOWEVER

*sigh* there's always a but around here

Quote:

it is distribution, DISTRIBUTION that has, at this point, been entirely dematerialized. THAT is what our tender friend amigang wanted to convey, albeit lacking the sophistication to correctly present the point.

in all fairness to our tender friend, the lack of sophistication is almost certainly on my part. again: molasses, winter, slow. you know the drill.

Quote:

Not really for the sheer YET UNDENIABLE pleasure off sensing a floppy, a dvd with one's fingertips

or un libro, subcomandante! no olvides los libros!!! there is something ohhhhh so satisfying about the look, feel, smell, and sound of a book. maybe the taste, too, but i can't speak to that. can you, senor? do you think some of our muchachos on this website can speak to that?

Quote:

but rather for the control the corporations can now exert on what WE THE PEOPLE are allowed to watch, play, listen to.

yes, the corporations must never prevent us from watching the films, playing the games, and so forth that THEY THEMSELVES PRODUCE!!! how dare they stop themselves from taking the money we would so love to throw at them in order to watch yet another episode of Married... With Children! or play another version of Joan of Arc that my Amiga 500 would not read a mere 5-10 years after it was manufactured!

(insert HOW DARE YOU meme gif)

i did have a point, however, which was: it is not too late to transfer the physical media you have -- dvds, floppy disks, etc. -- to that beautiful silicon world which is easy to copy and therefore prevents it from evanescing.

unlike, sadly, my dvd's of the lord of the rings: extended cut.

que tragedia, subcomandante, que tragedia

_________________

@simplex

Quote:

yes, the corporations must never prevent us from watching the films, playing the games, and so forth that THEY THEMSELVES PRODUCE!!! how dare they stop themselves from taking the money we would so love to throw at them in order to watch yet another episode of Married... With Children!

Corporations are stupid sometime however, there been a number of tv shows and films that don’t get world wide release which I always think is stupid and they prevent anyone from watching them.

Another thing is sometime films get updated and if you don’t like the updated version, Star Wars for example, you just lose access to the original. Having a physical copy is nice to have.

Quote:

Joan of Arc that my Amiga 500 would not read a mere 5-10 years after it was manufactured!

It’s true physical media won’t last forever either, but I bet it out last a lot of digital only titles. I mean I bought a original oculus rift vr headset years ago for my pc, I since got a quest 3 (pretty good) and recently thought about going back to the original title I bought, I was kinda surprised that a lot of title won’t download and are no longer supported, even single player little experience.

I think the saddest thing is a remember being a kid and one year under the Xmas tree having three big box Amiga games to open (alien breed, worms, and I think the third was UFO enemy unknown ) and it was great trying think and guess what games they could be and something physical to look forward to opening and then looking at. I just don’t think you get that by via a gift card or digital game unlock. It’s sad.

_________________
AmigaNG, YouTube, LeaveReality Studio

@MEGA_RJ_MICAL

Quote:

MEGA_RJ_MICAL wrote: [quote] Not really for the sheer YET UNDENIABLE pleasure off sensing a floppy, a dvd with one's fingertips, but rather for the control the corporations can now exert on what WE THE PEOPLE are allowed to watch, play, listen to.

I recently bought several boxes of high quality 'old stock' DD 3.5" disks precisely for the pleasure of handling physical media. I use them in my A1200 every day. For me that really is the main purpose of having them.

Quote:

Games, albums, movies DISAPPEAR OVERNIGHT NEVER TO BE FOUND AGAIN, metaphorically tied and blindfolded and dumped into the ocean by the digital Pinochets of today.

Books were always going out of print, actors and musicians stopped performing and died, paintings were hidden away in private collections. Wars and natural disasters destroyed entire libraries, losing valuable content that could never be recovered.

The internet made content more vulnerable, but also a lot more accessible. Stuff that was practically impossible to get is now at our fingertips for free downloading. The downside is that you can't rely on it staying online, so you should make local copies of anything you want to keep. With enough people doing this, old content is preserved.

Content viewed by via streaming services is harder to archive, and online games obviously cease to work if turned off, but you knew this and supported that business model by participating. Why? because you're getting it much cheaper that way. You didn't pay for the content, only the right to use it on terms you implicitly agreed to. That content wouldn't exist if people didn't pay. An online game needs continuous income to keep it going, a software app needs income to keep it updated and add features, an artist needs income to continue producing new works. Complaining about not being able to use that content forever shows a lack of appreciation for what you're getting.

In retro computing we want to preserve old content for nostalgia. The internet has been a huge boon for that, and we benefit enormously by getting most of it for free. But if everybody just kept using old stuff the development of new stuff would grind to a halt. A lot fewer new movies, songs, games and apps that would cost a lot more and be a lot less accessible.

There's still a ton of stuff on physical media for those who want it. Vinyl records, CDs and DVDs have a long lifespan which supports an active second-hand market. Floppy disks are not so resilient, but there are still enough available for the few of us who want to use them. Movies are constantly being rerun on TV and streaming services. Updated versions of old games are being made for modern systems, while many new 'retro' games are free to download. There is plenty of new stuff to choose from to make up for the stuff that is disappearing - far more than there used to be. Instead of whining about stuff that isn't around anymore, appreciate the stuff that is.

@amigang

Quote:

Corporations are stupid sometime

More than sometimes... let's start with all the Western corporations that exported their manufacturing know-how to China, then were shocked -- shocked! -- that the Chinese government suddenly propped up major manufacturing corporations on a massive scale that were using what they had considered intellectual property or even carefully guarded business secrets. And the Western corporations keep doing it. They never learn.

Quote:

Another thing is sometime films get updated and if you don’t like the updated version, Star Wars for example, you just lose access to the original. Having a physical copy is nice to have.

I must have expressed myself poorly, because I am in complete sympathy with this. Hence my reference to the multisensory experience of books and my poor Lord of the Rings discs that have somehow been rendered unviewable.

At least I still have the books... until the silverfish get to them, I guess.

Quote:

I just don’t think you get that by via a gift card or digital game unlock. It’s sad.

I agree, but I reconciled myself to this decades ago. An American pundit a couple of decades (!!!) ago had already observed that the art of sending letters through the mail had disappeared. He described how youth would no longer know the sensation of receiving a paper letter, feeling it in the hand, admiring the paper or the stamp or the handwriting, perhaps catching a scent of perfume if it was from a romantic interest, experiencing the anticipation of opening it, and so on. I knew this experience well from my days dating long-distance: you would wait days for this, and it truly was one of the most wonderful experiences in the world.

Now everyone wants to sling messages around WhatsApp or Telegram and they expect an immediate reply via text or phone call, giving you no time to think in reply, and nothing physical, nothing tied to that person that can stand in, however imperfectly yes, but far better and less ephemeral than a glowing screen with a bunch of emojis.

So I've already grieved over that some 10 or 20 years ago, and have no tears left for popular films and games. Again, I don't mean to trivialize what you're saying; I've just experienced that already and have moved on.

But hey, at least copyright does expire, and as long as someone can make a buck off something, those games and films and such should be available. Whereas letter writing, sadly, is probably gone for ever.

_________________

@amigang

I've just backed the CD physical version of Metro Siege. I will continue to buy new physical editions of new games for retro systems. Sony are dead to me.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@amigang

Quote:

amigang wrote: Corporations are stupid sometime however, there been a number of tv shows and films that don’t get world wide release which I always think is stupid and they prevent anyone from watching them.

May you should try and understand the business case behind TV shows and films.

They are not made for the audience, they are made to generate income via Advertising and via release by local broadcasting corporations or movie distribution businesses.

@amigang

This should make retro more popular over time potentially.

Q!

Quote:

simplex wrote: @MEGA_RJ_MICAL or un libro, subcomandante! no olvides los libros!!! there is something ohhhhh so satisfying about the look, feel, smell, and sound of a book. ... yes, the corporations must never prevent us from watching the films, playing the games, and so forth that THEY THEMSELVES PRODUCE!!! how dare they stop themselves from taking the money we would so love to throw at them in order to watch yet another episode of Married... With Children!

AH MY FRIEND! I couldn't agree more.

Never I have been able to lay my eyes on one of those fiendish "digital ink" devices,
in spite of the undeniable convenience. LIBRI are indeed not just about their content but the multisensorial experience that goes with them.

NOT TO MENTION THEIR APPEAL AS HOME DECOR as opposed to jewel cases, boxed games and so forth unless of course you are a teenager with a wisp of mustache eating his own boogers between playing swiv and watching an episode of beavis and butt-head.

And the day will come MIND MY WORDS IT WILL that Kindle will be just Le, having lost the kindness that still allows readers to own their digital purchase. The day of Netflixization. The orwellian day when the content of the novel you are reading will be "UPDATED" without your knowledge.

AND NOW, QUICK! TO THE TORRENTMOBILE TO DOWNLOAD FAMILY TIES (S01 - S06) COMPLETE 480P DVDRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



/MEGA!!!!

_________________
I HAVE ABS OF STEEL
--
CAN YOU SEE ME? CAN YOU HEAR ME? OK FOR WORK

The following video mentions all the PR mistakes Sony has made recently and the major blowback they have received from customers which includes the elimination of physical media.

SONY has become the Most Hated Company in the World...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A97Y_UvxHtA

There are millions if not tens of millions of customers who do not like Sony's recent moves and some are very vocal.

There is a similar thread started by amigang on EAB for cross reference.

The end of Physical Media...?
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1803450#post1803450

Digital detox should instead be online detox that drops the requirement to be online all the time to be usable, giving more freedom of owned property instead of less. How about a Commodore/Amiga seal of approval on physical media that requires software to be usable (games to be playable) without being online (unless clearly marked as online only) and major software updates to be released to the public instead of online only (maintaining availability past business support)? Is locked down security and control that hands the keys of computer/console hardware and software to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo masters in the best interest of customers? Does this create an opportunity for an official RPi microconsole with more open hardware and software like the CD32 that was expandable including into a computer even though a CD32+ would never happen in Amiga Neverland?

Last edited by matthey on 13-Jul-2026 at 02:06 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 13-Jul-2026 at 01:11 PM.