you usually don’t own your games, you just own a license; they can’t take away a console disk, but they can revoke a digital license
I agree with the rest, and here’s a few more:
games are typically cheaper because of #4
lots of form factors - can use controller, kb+m, handheld PC, etc
repairs are easy - if my PS5 breaks, I need PS5-specific parts; if my PC breaks, I can get anything off the shelf
streaming is easy peasy (related to your #3) - I don’t stream, but on PC, you just install something and click “go,” on console, you need hardware capture cards and whatnot
storage is a non-issue - can have multiple TB of space and store every game I own if I want to, whereas I’m stuck with whatever capacity the console comes with
All in all, it’s a way better experience for me, though it is a bit more complicated. It’s hard to beat “plug and play” like with a console.
Technically not but you still only own a license and those walled garden platforms of consoles can easily be used to block you from using that disk for anything meaningful.
I agree with the rest, and here’s a few more:
All in all, it’s a way better experience for me, though it is a bit more complicated. It’s hard to beat “plug and play” like with a console.
If you buy DRM free games. you effectively “own” them not in a legal sense, but in a practical sense.
Sure, and that’s only mostly true if you back them up.
That said, I can’t sell a DRM free game, so I don’t really own it like I do with physical media.
Nothing’s stopping you from copying the game onto a flashdrive and selling it to a friend
Technically not but you still only own a license and those walled garden platforms of consoles can easily be used to block you from using that disk for anything meaningful.
You can always play the version shipped with the disk with the game unplugged from the internet.
On PC, you’d have to pirate if a game is taken down.
On PC, you could pirate, but you could also buy DRM free games from GOG.com and keep a copy locally backed up.
It’s also worth noting that optical media will delaminate over time, rendering them unusable.