EA Sports man Peter Moore has warned others that staying on the current platform you will "face certain death," but now more are choosing "probable death" with disc and digital.
This "hybrid model" of physical and digital is becoming the norm, with "more and more" content in the 'cloud'. We're likely a decade from a "goodbye to physical discs," predicts Moore.
"The core business model of videogames is a burning platform," said Moore, delivering a talk at the PLAY Digital Media Conference. "Look at the platform we're on, it's a burning platform."
"As a concept, do you stay on the platform and face certain death, or do you jump into the water and face probable death? Most of you would choose probable death, so you start moving towards a hybrid model of digital distribution," continued the EA Sports boss.
"As digital distribution becomes more and more, we'll continue as an industry to work with retail and to ship discs, but more and more of the content will be in the 'cloud," he added, reports IGN.
"More content will be delivered daily, weekly, or monthly, and less will be of the old model of cartridges and discs." Already we see more release titles coming with DLC at launch.
"As an industry, I still think we may be as many as a decade away from saying goodbye to physical discs," Moore added. "The important question is, what does the next console look like? Does it actually have a disc drive?" He believes Xbox will be the first to go all digital.
Will the videogames industry ever shun physical discs completely? If so, will the digital prices come down to match their 'old' counterparts? Most digital titles exceed boxed prices.