A hot potato: Since PC gaming went pretty much fully digital many years ago, some console gamers have bragged about their machines' ability to play physical discs and the advantages that brings. But a new report illustrates how just because a game is on a disc, it doesn't guarantee you won't need an internet connection to play it.
From Sony's decision to end production of discs for new PlayStation games in 2028 to the Xbox network outage that stopped some disc-based titles from working, there's been a lot of conversation about physical media recently.
One topic revolves around the many discs that don't work (to different degrees) without an online connection, usually to fix a game-breaking bug. The testers at Does It Play (via Ars Technica) found that most disc games are "plug and play," but a sizable minority can't be played as intended straight from the disc.
The results show that 27% of all the physical releases the site has tested require some sort of download to fix game-breaking bugs or obtain core game content not stored on the disc.
On the PS5 specifically, 34% of tested disc releases are not fully playable as intended without a patch. Half are beatable but have serious bugs or are missing content, while the other half require a download to play properly or at all.
It's a much worse picture on the Xbox Series X. Only 50% of tested physical releases were complete and playable as intended from the disc. Another 12% could be beaten but were too buggy or missing content, leaving 38% that required some form of download.
Those Xbox results come from just 78 entries, compared with 792 for the PS5, so the difference should be treated cautiously. The Nintendo Switch 2 performed better, with 75% of its tested releases complete and beatable without a download, although its sample was even smaller at 48 entries.
Reliance on downloads weakens what was once physical media's biggest selling point: long-term access. Once servers close, missing files and essential patches may become impossible to obtain, creating a major problem for preservation. Then there are players who buy a game requiring a download but have no internet connection to obtain it.
Physical copies still offer advantages, of course. They can be resold, lent to friends, and are often much cheaper than digital versions. It was recently reported that some physical PlayStation games cost up to 90% less than their digital counterparts.
But as the recent Xbox outage demonstrated, owning a disc doesn't always protect players from server failures. Microsoft said disc-based entitlement checks should not have blocked games and is preparing a fix, though it still hasn't fully explained why some valid discs failed.
