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Sony's recent confirmation that it is abandoning physical media on PS5 and future consoles has sent shockwaves through the industry – but for some, the shift to a digital-only landscape is long overdue.
Back in 2013, Microsoft was forced to perform an embarrassing U-turn with its Xbox One console, following the announcement of DRM policies that would have prevented second-hand sales and marked a big step towards an all-digital distribution model.
I spoke to Codemasters co-founder David Darling for GamesIndustry.biz shortly after the kerfuffle 13 years ago, and he was of the opinion that Microsoft had made a mistake in bowing to consumer and media pressure:
"It was interesting how the market did pull back with Microsoft. I don't think Microsoft sold it in the right way - they weren't strong enough. I don't think they should have had a physical drive on Xbox One - it's like having a dead body handcuffed to you. It's dragging along this dead body and it's going to slow them down. They've let the market pull them back but I think that was a mistake.
The industry will definitely move in that direction, and I think it will move very quickly. It's a bit like flipping a coin - at some stage it will just flip. It will change in six months and everybody will wonder why it never changed before. There's no point in distributing physical media when the internet exists."
Not all of Darling's predictions have been quite as on the money, however; in the same interview, he also predicted that Google and Apple would take over the home gaming space – something that, so far, hasn't come to pass:
"They'll come along with new machines and take over the market. Apple's been adding channels to Apple TV and has changed the whole screen layout, and all they have to do now is release a next-generation Apple TV with a faster processor and more RAM.
Apple has already announced a gaming controller so they've got developers starting to think how they can make games for that controller. If they release this new machine with a new App Store then suddenly they'll have a device in the living room which can steal the market away from Xbox One and PS4.
It was only a few years ago that people were saying that the iPhone wasn't a threat to traditional handhelds, but Apple has taken over what you could call the 'pocket' market from things like PS Vita and 3DS. The same thing could happen in the home."
Darling co-founded Codemasters back in 1986, and famously took on Nintendo (and won) with the popular Game Genie cheat cartridge. He would be awarded a CBE in 2008 for his services to the computer games industry, and left Codemasters in 2007 and would establish developer and publisher Kwalee in 2011.