Gaming’s all-digital future doesn’t include “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Pikmin 2”

Sony announced that all games from 2028 and onwards would be digital-only. It seems likely that Xbox will follow and that Nintendo will continue making “physical” releases for first-party games during the Switch 2 generation.

In the all-digital gaming future, every game platform will be subject to the same problems and constraints as media streaming services like Netflix and Spotify. We can see hints of how this will affect future games and creative freedom in the medium by looking at re-releases of older games, in particular: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Pikmin 2.

The core problem is that digital games are licenses, which forces an ongoing relationship between you and the owner of the media. And because there’s an ongoing relationship with you, any ongoing licensing relationships that the media owner has also affect you and your games. If a license for any media that is part of the game expires or is affected, then the developer must take action to remediate the “issue” in the game.

This is already commonplace for games that feature music, such as Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but maybe players find this more “expected” because these games are essentially a music streaming service in themselves. But what about games that aren’t like this on the surface?

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for Genesis (1994), GameCube (2002), and Switch (2022)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was originally published in 1994, and beyond the game being great to play, the soundtrack is really something special. I have fond memories of dancing to the end credits music on my parents’ bed with my brother as a kid after beating the game.

Unfortunately, this track and many others in the game would not survive our all-digital future. Michael Jackson’s alleged uncredited involvement with Sonic 3 has meant that all re-releases of Sonic 3 since 2009 have not included the entire original soundtrack. If this game were released only digitally today, it can be assumed that these tracks would be pulled from the game, just as is done for Rock Band and Guitar Hero when licensing terms expire or there are legal issues.

Pikmin 2 for GameCube (JP, NA, PAL, 2004) and Switch (2023)

Pikmin 2 was published in 2004, and the main objective is collecting “treasure” from an alien planet in the form of food, toys, and, most surprisingly, items featuring real-life brands like Duracell, Dr. Pepper, Yoo-Hoo, and Snapple. This artistic decision and the work to license and include these brands were a substantial part of the surprise and delight while playing the game.

However, you can see that these licensing terms eventually run out, too: in all re-releases of Pikmin 2 from 2023 onwards, the real-life brands are replaced with generic fictional brands. It’s not clear to me whether licensing agreements with so many brands would be undertaken in the future if work would have to be done to create fictional models and textures anyway once the license terms expire.

If it wasn’t clear from this post, I’m not excited for an all-digital future of games. An all-digital future for games means the medium will be further constrained creatively, in addition to the negative impacts on ownership and preservation. Read-only physical media does more for gaming than being something to collect and own: developers can make choices that they won’t have to walk back in 20 years, and players can continue to enjoy games as the developers intended long after licensing terms expire.

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