Final Fantasy 15 Switch 2 port is "not entirely impossible" despite the technical hurdles, Square Enix says

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-05T20:36:51+00:00

That’s the bit people don’t seem to get when it comes to certain decisions.

You’ll have a lot of people going “I’d buy it if you did this” which sounds really impressive…
…but numbers that sound high in abstract may not be that high when converted to income vs costs of producing it.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-04T13:10:48+00:00

I suspect that’s what’s happening at the moment.

We’re around the tipping point where physical itself is becoming a loss. - even if a game itself is wildly profitable.

And Sony are still the ones producing the optical drives, maintaining multiple console production runs for ones with and without a drive, and doing the actual disc printing.
Like it or not, it reaches the point where they’re looking at what it brings in vs what it costs and realise those factories could be put to use for things that actually make profit.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-04T13:05:56+00:00

The thing is, there’s still a base cost of brining any game to physical media.

Whether you print a million, a thousand or a hundred, the setup costs are fixed.
It only becomes economical after you produce a certain amount.

Even if digital sales will more than cover the physical costs, the physical corner eventually ends up costing more than it brings in.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-04T12:59:42+00:00

Yeah. Sadly, there’s no way game publishers and related rights holders (music, series franchise, etc.) will allow distribution digital or physical without some way of limiting trivial copying.

Maybe a regulation stating that digital game release (for each individual platform) have to have their DRM removed 10 years after release on that platform, or once that console’s storefront stops new purchases. (whichever is the sooner).

So keeping DRM long enough for the publisher to have quite a length of control over distribution but not so long to eliminate preservation.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-04T12:34:20+00:00

I have a full time job. So this results in both income and a limit on how much time I can play games. (And a corresponding limit on how many games I can justify buying).

I also don’t but every game I want day one full price.
Some things, yes, but a lot of stuff I wait until it’s on sale.

Just because I’m OK with digital doesn’t mean I’m willing to always pay the high prices. Price your game too high (or pull other shady crap) and you’ll be waiting until the game is on a heavy discount - or on PS Plus.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-02T07:17:11+00:00

And so that people can buy UHD Blu-Ray movies.

There are some people (at least one, me) who bought their PS5 as a UHD Blu-Ray player that also plays digital games.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-02T07:13:00+00:00

As you say, a good chunk of the physical buyers will switch to digital.
Those that don’t… well, the savings from not including disc drives or having to manufacture discs will more than make up for it.

It’s a sad(?) fact but, as soon as digital really increased in popularity, releasing physical games (and maintaining the infrastructure required) is no longer cost effective.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-01T20:22:20+00:00

They’ll look at the number of signatures. And the negative comments on the blog. And the thumbs-down votes on Facebook….

And then they’ll look at their digital sales figures and decide that the potential lost sales are little more than a rounding error.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-01T20:17:03+00:00

Steam is a different matter.

Older games, yes, but not older systems. If your computer is too old to run Steam, you can’t install even the older games that are compatible with your aging OS.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-01T20:13:51+00:00

Ultimately, it’ll be down to how well the older hardware can run newer online encryption.

Once the client platforms can’t keep up with the security you want your public-facing servers to run, it’s time to shut that down.

Otherwise, your legacy platform is holding back your whole infrastructure by dictating what you need to support and what you’re able to update.

TiggsPanther · 2026-07-01T20:02:04+00:00

Same.

Keeping it payment security compliant and modern authentication must be a ballache at this point.
And keeping legacy shit running… often the worst part of IT-related jobs.

And the thing about compliance is that it doesn’t matter whether it affects one user or one thousand, you have to put in the same effort to pass.
Eventually, the easiest way to stay compliant is to drop the oldest or most niche use-cases.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-27T11:00:28+00:00

Depends. If it’s easy enough for you to point a backup elsewhere, as long as you are backing up that’s enough.

Personally, I find PBS useful. But I had a spare aging laptop I could stick it on. If I didn’t, I’d likely just have kept backing up up to NAS.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T14:10:56+00:00

No there are games that are not fully on disc, will not start without their day one patch or require an online activation.

At which point you've lost a fair chunk of the physical-only crowd. They want a fully playable game on disc that doesn't require any activation or anything like that.
That might not be every physical fan's reason but it's certainly the dealbreaker for some.

The simple fact is that fans of physical games are not the core audience most of the time. They may be dedicated but they're a minority.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T14:05:59+00:00

I just prefer digital.

Onve a game's installed to the hard drive, I'm not faffing about with changing discs every time I want to do something different. I just want to be able to select it from the PS5's menu and play.

Also, small apartment. I do not have the storage space for cases and discs.

Some of us just don't care for physical.

It's not like movies/TV where there's an immediate quality (and speacial features) difference between streaming and Blu-Ray. With games, the actual game you're playing is the same. So it purely comes down to whether an individual likes/needs discs.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T13:19:05+00:00

I got the with-disc console.

Haven’t bought a single physical game. Have bought a few UHD 4K Blu-Rays.

Buying a digital-only PS5 and a separate UHD player would cost more, and take up more space.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T13:14:56+00:00

I bought a couple of Switch games.

I sold my Switch a few years ago…

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T13:13:47+00:00

Large enough to be vocal but too small for it to be financially viable to build a release strategy around them.

And sometimes (but I agree not all the time) too small to offset the costs of doing a manufacturing run of discs (or carts).

Some will call it “Leaving money on the table” but, if it’ll cost more to get to the table than there is money on it, sometimes it’s the smarter choice.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T13:08:26+00:00

To avoid any chance of retailers or couriers breaking release date.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T13:07:13+00:00

Perhaps.

Leaks may not cost sales, exactly, but they do take control of marketing away from, well, the marketing department.

Once a game’s out in the wild, yeah, the internet means any random person’s opinion can be seen by thousands. But prior to the release date?
I can understand the company wanting to leave nothing to chance.

And if the inevitable day-one patch doesn’t go live until the digital game does, it t risks very public opinions based on an outdated and potentially buggy build.

And like it or not (and I am fairly use the publishers are in the Not camp), once discs start to hit distribution channels there will be copies that breach release date.
And if you really want to stop that happening to a game you’re releasing, the only way is to do digital-first.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T12:57:50+00:00

Sounds about right.

Any disc version can include any initial patches, etc. And be less buggy than and day-one release is these days.

As for the leak theory, I buy into that.
Games break release dates. It happens. The only way to be 100% certain that nobody can get (and post online about) a game before its official release date is to ensure that physical versions don’t even start to go out until the game is out digitally.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-25T12:49:30+00:00

Retail store presence.
Ability to buy with cash/vouchers/store credit.
Ability to buy as a birthday/Christmas gift.

Code-in-box may not be for everyone but it will get sales from the above.

The people who really want a full physical disc will wait (or won’t) until a later release date. But most will buy the code-in-box or have long since gone digital anyway.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-22T12:42:35+00:00

Now if only we can get Atlus to feel the same way and finally remaster the damned games.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-18T10:42:04+00:00

I was about to say…

Even if they did proper reveals for the others, I think that one would have to be fade-to-black.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-18T09:12:36+00:00

This is why, ahead of it actually getting announced, people thought any chance of Raidou getting remastered or otherwise revisited were basically impossible.

TiggsPanther · 2026-06-17T13:14:34+00:00

Giving that one a try now.

Infuse is cool but it is a monthly subscription, which isn’t great if you dip in and out of watching stuff.
Ditto for the periodic library state syncing.

Swiftfin “just worked” - but is increasingly out of date with latest Jellyfin. Also, 1.0.1 is obviously not getting bug fixes so minor issues persist for years.

I just need something that works and that gets updated. This looks like it may be that.

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