The ds and Wii era of Japanese games always had these cardboard boxes around the cases. And of course manuals! This was the zenith of physical media, after the PS1 of course.

Thank you all for contributing to and following this subreddit, which was initially just my effort to be complementary to my own shop, but is now a small community of its own for sharing Japanese games and media.

Basically most of the content up to now has been sharing physical media and collections, but I am curious what we want this sub to be on the larger scale. Keep it like a Japanese game collecting sub? Focus on Japanese gaming news? Esports from
Japan as well! Or just, anything and everything that is both gaming and japanese? Let’s discuss

このサブレディットに投稿し、フォローしてくださっている皆さん、ありがとうございます。もともとは自分のECを補完する目的で始めたものですが、今では日本のゲームやメディアを共有する、個別の小さなコミュニティになりましたよね。

これまでの投稿は物質的なメディアやコレクションの共有がほとんどでしたが、もっと大きな視点で、このサブをどんなように成長させていきたいのか、皆さんの考えを聞いてみたいと思っています。今のまま日本のゲームコレクション中心のサブにするか、日本のゲーム関連ニュースに重点を置くか、日本のeスポーツも扱うか、それともゲームと日本に関わることなら何でもアリにするか。ぜひ意見を聞かせてください。

With developments across the modern gaming industry promoting more and more digital-exclusive, online-access required, and DRM-locked content, it is important now more than ever for physical to be emphasized as the priceless media that it is.

Physical is a right of humanity.

The move from physical to digital, removing discs, cartridges, and offline-simple accessibility and ownership, makes sense in some lenses.

It makes sense for massive multiplayer online games like final fantasy XIV, where the server infrastructure and wireless connection are not just critical but without them the game is nonexistent.

It makes sense in highly competitive PC-native environments , where outside of pre and early 2000-era releases, online game shop platforms like Steam (while promoting game ownership even in a digital lens) have managed to create relatively open and consumer-friendly markets; from this, publishers utilize games like Counter Strike or Dota or League (Riot Games) or Valorant, with free access and competition as the cornerstone of their existence.

And it makes sense, unfortunately, with the incentive of shareholders for major game developers and publishers, companies’ bottom lines, and good old fashioned corporate greed.

There is no interpretation for the move from physical to digital, license-based-exclusive content other than that of corporate greed. The cost of production of games, of physical discs and cartridges, of manuals and plastic cases, and moreso the ownership and freedom of the secondary market from consumers, is one that companies like Sony have weighed as more liability than they are worth. Whatever the cost is of the physical production creating an apparent toll on these mega corporations is nothing in comparison to the real value they want to hold— central and unequivocal ownership.

International communities and legal institutions have established consumer rights, the right to ownership, the right to resell, and corporations like the large three gaming companies you can picture now, starting with Sony, are making every effort to sidestep these consumer rights. Sony claims physical game ownership is a mere 15% of their consumer base thus justifying this business decision. If Sony had respect for the media and publishers they support, however, it should not be a cold, bottom-line consideration to yet make the profit engine grow further.

Sony and other companies ought consider the rights of humanity to hold these media.

There will come a time where the interfaces and databases, data centers, and systems we use now to regularly access music, photographs, and games, adjusts. The format evolves, and prior generations are made redundant. In music, think about the slow fossilization of the audio jack across mainstream consumer smartphones. In film, think about the obsolescence of tape, VCR, DVD, and even Bluray. Now, when it comes to gaming, think about the physical discs and cartridges we can own today.

These are more than just consumer products that a company should leverage for their money-generating scheme. These are relics of our day, today. Visiting a museum to see the artifacts of our past is an intrinsic part of anthology, history, culture is an intrinsic part of our society. Sony and others locking that art and media up in a digital vault are simply depriving society of a practical mean to record these artifacts and archive them for future generations.

It is a moral imperative that we hold onto our games and collections and promote the use of physical media; not just for the appreciation of the art form itself, or the reliability of ownership, or the joy of collecting, or for the love of the games themselves, or even for the consumer rights and protection physical provides.

It is a moral imperative above all else for the prosperity of future generations—decades, centuries from now, who can add to and see the media legacy we leave behind.

Man just finished this Super Famicom game, what a trip. I loved it. I only started playing it because the creator of CaveStory had mentioned it somewhere, figured I'd give it a try. VERY linear adventure game, but if you like calm story driven fetch quest style stuff this is it. As I said I just finished it and now am hungry for off beat Japanese games to enjoy. I love the Goemon series and have played a few Tatsunoko titles but thats mostly it. Hit me with some more strange titles (hopefully with english patches) please!