GameStop refusing to selling Xbox One and Playstation 4 bundled with digital games →

The video game retailer insists on physical discs. It's clearly in GameStop's best interests to impede the digital transformation of the industry.

While we are clearly heading towards a digital future where games aren't sold on any physical media, I'd argue it should be in every gamers interest to delay this transformation as well. The way current consoles handle this is just horrible.

Your only choice is the store built in to the console. You want to buy a game? Just one price, there's no competition. Generally makes the already too expensive console games even more expensive, especially old ones that drop in price slower. (Even on a brand new game it's generally cheaper to buy a retail copy, despite the extra materials, production and transportation involved.)

Perhaps more concerning, what do you do in 10 or 20 years when you want to play an old game? The online service is probably long since shut down so unless you got the game on the drive you're out of luck.

Fortunately we have PCs in the market where the multiple digital distributors are far more likely to be around in a decade than the current console generations built in stores are.