This means you can't pass the game around to your friends or sell it afterwards, which completely ruins the purpose of physical media imo. I mostly play PC these days so this doesn't affect me, but it's a disappointing direction for console games. At least they could've used an empty disc that has proof of ownership.
What's the point of even having a console at this point? I understood when they were easier to set up then computers and cheaper than computers, but now they are just as hard and just as pricy. They had the benefit of being able to share and resell games, but even that's gone away. What's left other than exclusives and momentum?
Gamepass on my Series X plus easier couch gaming are reasons that I’ll play some games on it over my PC. Plugging a computer into a TV isn’t great because something tends to come up that requires mouse and keyboard. There are ways around it but it’s not as seamless as just plugging in a console. A Series X is still cheaper than a comparable PC now that they’re starting to stay on shelves. It’s less free as in freedom but you’ll play 4K games unlike a $500 PC (especially if you have to budget for a monitor mouse and keyboard). Discord on Xbox also slaps right now and cross play is in a significant amount of games, so you aren’t trapped to only playing games with people who own your console.
Not a defense of the starfield physical stuff, just showing that owning a console isn’t just some dumb thing normies do. I love both my computer and my console and both serve different purposes for different games.