>>105693050 (OP)
It is a larger industry that doesn't want to die out, plus holding a game in your hand to give to a friend is pure humanity.

>>105693050 (OP)
OS are sold to entire companies unlike games.

>>105693050 (OP)
You can buy winjews 11 box with an usb-stick in it

There's no physical copies for PC games anymore. Almost everything third party on the Switch 2 is also just a license key on a cartridge and Xbox has basically abandoned physical media. It's really only a matter of time until those are gone from retail shelves too.

>>105693050 (OP)
But you can buy a physical copy of windows right now from any store if you want, just need the 150$ + tax + tip + personal data it costs.

>>105693050 (OP)
For Windows there's still some niche use cases where a physical copy is required or preferred
But for Mac or most other operating systems like paid version of Linux, you're not really expected to buy them as like a standalone thing and even more importantly you're not expected to ever need the not-latest version
Every corporate office probably has some Windows 7 or even XP discs somewhere for that one computer just in case it's ever needed. But who the fuck is like "I might some day need to boot into Mac OSX 10.17 so I better have an install disc stored safely"?

>>105693050 (OP)
Games haven't had physical copies since Steam came out.

>>105693050 (OP)
Only console games, PC games stopped being sold in boxes decades ago.

>>105693817
The pirates and the stupid butt hurt Steamies killed physical PC video games!

>>105693050 (OP)
It's a real problem. Most modern OS have shifted away from supporting offline environments and always expect an internet connection. Same with games that usually download extra updates or reach out to servers for DRM verification or online gameplay.

>>105693050 (OP)
A lot of games don't have physical copies, which is a bad thing in my opinion. I like having physical copies of games. Windows 11 still has DVDs.

Technically physical copies of games come with new Xbox and PlayStation OS on them.
>>105693155
I see recent EA games (Dead Space Remake, latest FIFA, BF2042, etc) on 10 DVDs at my local store often for PC.
>>105693885
I miss the golden age of PC gaming too.
>>105693912
Unironically Linux is the worst with this, I have zero idea how to do Linux offline, sure theres .deb and .rpm, I could even do research and get dependencies downloaded as .deb but I feel that would still fuck me in some way in the end. If internet ID does happen and I'm forced offline I'm going back to windows, offline none of the spy and bloat concerns apply anyways and I've got 20years of offline installers that have actually been designed for and extensively verified for completely airgapped operation.
GOG is best.

>>105696464
>I see recent EA games (Dead Space Remake, latest FIFA, BF2042, etc) on 10 DVDs at my local store often for PC.
Thirdie? I recall they're still sold in countries like Latvia and parts of Russia.

>>105693050 (OP)
OSs are utilitarian, it's something you need to get out of the way to get work done. Digital distribution just makes more sense for OSs as well, since they are never-ending pieces of work that must be updated over time.

Games are pieces of art, that you feel proud to display on your shelf. It really doesn't feel the same to put an OS on display, does it?

You can't even buy macOS anymore, so why would there be a boxed copy?

>>105693050 (OP)
I still have the box for tiger

>>105693885
>>105693817
you guys are wrong. I used to buy pc games. the problem with pc games is that the ability to update and patch everything often made all of their packins and thus reasons to BUY the physical product in the first place pointless.
not all of them where this bad, but a lot of the high profile ones REALLY were.
Imagine being a diablo battlechest buyer like me only to install the game and find out all of the abilities and stats and requirements on items are just completely different. the entire game guide was rendered worthless.

I'm much happier with the way japan does things. Sell me a permanent digital copy of the game, and then let me buy some fandom merch. The locket and goldenbook style manual pack in to undertale is worth more to me than the physical copy.

>>105698441
I had pretty good luck with disc versions of quite a few games. I had the STALKER games, Crysis, Mafia, FEAR etc and never felt the need to update them. I think the need for patches started to appear as games became more modern and game consoles did auto patches, whereas with old PC games you had to seek out a patch since it wouldn't just tell you there was a new version.