Despite being unable to confirm a physical edition of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation at the moment, amid a relentless wave of industry anxiety surrounding a digital-only future, director Naoki Hamaguchi’s reassuring stance on physical media has arrived at the absolute perfect moment. In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, Hamaguchi stated that he believes “there will always be some kind of physical or packaged edition,” even if all games eventually become download-only. “Maybe you’ll have a box with the code inside it,” he said, “or maybe key cards like Nintendo’s doing, or a boot disc or something. I feel like there’ll always be something, and I hope there will be.” Honestly, just reading that gave me chills and the breath of fresh air I didn’t know I needed.
Understandably, people have been upset about all of this, and while I can see why PlayStation has made its decision to adopt an all-digital future, that doesn’t mean it’s the future that I want. It’s one thing to be in complete agreement with what Sony is doing and openly accept it without objection, but it’s something else entirely to stay grounded in the reality that all things have been moving toward this future for quite some time now, and it was only a matter of time before the gaming industry got caught in that wave. Nevertheless, the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director’s optimism has me thinking we might be able to at least delay that future a little bit longer—and I feel like that’s the kind of hopium we all need right now.
If FF7 Revelation’s Hamaguchi Is Right, Maybe We Can All Settle Down
I’m not saying any of this because I believe that physical packaging can replace actual discs—not by any means. There will never be anything like putting a disc into a console, hearing it whir, and seeing the title screen pop up for the game you’ve been waiting so long to play. However, the idea that physical media is invulnerable to changes in trends, profit margins, and material availability is as outdated as the product itself, as we’ve already seen VHS and cassette tapes, CDs, and DVDs all practically disappear while we feed the digital beast with our speedy internet connections, smart TVs, and handheld, wireless computers.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
But what I am saying is that, if Hamaguchi is right, even if the games we play at some point no longer give us the option of inserting a disc in order to play them, then we will at least have something tangible to put in our hands. Sure, it wouldn’t be as satisfying as hearing the click after we pop the disc out of its case, but video games would still be physically present in some form. It’s not ideal, I know, but it’s better than nothing at all. Plus, it’s that new game smell we all really love, right? At least we would still have that.
Just look at what Rockstar has already done with Grand Theft Auto 6. When it was revealed that GTA 6‘s physical copies wouldn’t include a disc but a download code, it was highly controversial—and justifiably so. Then, PlayStation had to go and one-up Rockstar by saying, “You know what? How about we just get rid of physical games for good?” And everyone lost their minds, naturally. Still, if at this point, we can’t stop the all-digital apocalypse from coming, Rockstar might have given us a glimpse of a future where the blow of that apocalypse is, at the very least, softened.
And maybe that’s what Final Fantasy 7 Revelation‘s Hamaguchi means when he says he believes that even if we lose physical games in disc form, there might still be physical packaging of some kind. Maybe the only future we can hope for right now is a future where games aren’t discs anymore but are instead a tangible, unplayable version of themselves that signifies ownership apart from a hard drive. Should we continue the fight against PlayStation? We absolutely should. Will it actually do any good? Time will tell.
But I say we can do both. We can continue letting PlayStation know that we’re unhappy with its decision to abandon physical media for any reason, while simultaneously remaining optimistic about the future. Whether that future involves PlayStation reversing its decision on physical media or the industry reaching a compromise where we still get something to put in our hands, even if it’s a hollow box, no one knows. I would at least love for video games to bring manual inserts back, but maybe I’m asking for too much there in this increasingly paperless world. Regardless of where we end up, though, I know where we are now, and Hamaguchi’s comments at least give me hope in the midst of the internet’s relentless pessimism.
- Released
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2027
- Prequel(s)
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Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
