Yea, so this doesn’t exist, but should it?

Think about:

  • TheMovieDB style identifiers with box art
  • Auto-generated and/or community created and upvoted DVD labels, case inserts, or USB/SSD stickers you can print yourself (no reason physical media has to be “round”)
  • Automated scripts for generating local media savers/installers from GOG and Steam

This doesn’t seem like a very difficult thing to create for the niche community of people that want physical copies.

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 days ago

      Someone should make cases for mini NVMe SSDs to turn them into cartridges. NVMe SSD are technically plug and play and with an NVMe extension cable you could move the slot to the side or top of the case. Expensive as fuck to use NVMe for a single game, but much faster than SD Cards and they don’t wear down as fast and will retain the data longer when unpowered.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        6 days ago

        If you want the game to last forever, it assumes you’ve already got it sourced from somewhere DRM-free, where you can continually copy it to other healthy media. Nothing lasts forever, but this is meant to replicate a lot of the strengths of old consoles, fortunately without some of their own pitfalls like save batteries.

          • Hetare King@piefed.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            5 days ago

            Doesn’t recordable optical media also have a pretty limited lifespan? Unlike commercially produced discs, where the pits are pressed into the plastic, CD/DVD/BD-Rs just have a dye that is made to change colour with a laser, and that dye degrades over time.

            • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              5 days ago

              Even pressed discs can rot. Like many WB Blu-Rays were made with a faulty process and many will rot in the next few decades.

              • Hetare King@piefed.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 days ago

                All things decay, not even the doping of ROM chips will last forever, but I think the average lifespan of recorded optical media is like, 10 years? That feels rather short.

              • Hetare King@piefed.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                5 days ago

                Huh, that’s interesting. I already expressed my thoughts on consumers making their own physical media in another post (tl;dr: I don’t think it makes much sense), but if there are recordable discs with lifespans comparable with pressed discs, maybe a print-on-demand service could be a solution for developers that can’t afford to order a batch of a thousand discs and cases and rely on digital distribution because of that.

                • ㄖㄨㄖㄙ祂@retrolemmy.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  5 days ago

                  I consider’m backups. I make & test’m often. I’m even making multiple copies of the same “game” in one BD, to ensure when a BD needs to be reburned.