I feel like defending consoles is a lost cause at this point. We can’t trust any of the big 3 anymore.
This was me a decade ago when Xbox suggested something like this. Nintendo was shutting down their old eshops and making purchased games unplayable and Playstation was selling shovelware on their online store.
In a dystopia like that… Suddenly, Steam’s digital-only storefront didn’t look so bad.
Xbox’s digital future was actually incredibly user friendly - it was all digital, but it allowed people to re-sell and loan their digital games. People were just too dumb to understand what was so good about it.
The alternative is what Sony are now doing - all digital with zero of the perks of physical.
People were just too dumb to understand what was so good about it.
I wouldn’t have trusted Microsoft to follow through on this in the long term. I have little doubt they would have removed that concession as soon as they thought they could get away with it.