@Null your take on the PS5 missing disc drive made me a bit MATI. To be exact - I don't give a flying fuck about the nogamestation itself. However bringing up steam as an example of things being right? Can you resell your steam games? Can you play them offline? Can you guarantee they'll work in 20 years time?
I mean how many examples of this shit do you have to forget to be for digital distribution. My GameCube copy of Resi 4 will work until time immemorial. As will all of my SNES or even Switch cartridges. Can't say the same for people who bought digital for PS3 because if their console battery runs out and Sony takes down their NTP servers.. well sucks to suck. Or how about people who had Warcraft 3? Remember how Blizzard fucked over those people?
Physical is the only way to own a game. Digital is lending and in reality has no sense until it's purely DRM free like on GoG, and even then it's only one step removed from simply pirating shit. Which I'll admit is a totally different discussion.
And no, Gameboy carts work fine, it's the *save game* battery that needs changing. Which is a 5 minute job
No, they're plastic, that shit doesn't just rot. The reflective layer oxidizes because it's on the outside layer (on the artwork) instead being in the plastic itself. That was remedied in DVDs and Blurays. And even in CDs you can counteract it