From a gaming history and nostalgic standpoint I really hope that xsx and ps5 don’t require internet access to start the damn thing because 20 years from now it’s just going to be a very expensive paperweight. And that’s not the case for any past system and unfortunately mostly due to licensing issues some games won’t be backwards compatible on the new system. So if you want to play transformers just as an example you are sol even if you have a disc. But I can still get my ps2 from the shed and play any ps2 or ps1 games I have. Same with my 360. I know most of us shouldn’t worry because we’ll either be dead or too old to care haha but it’s still sad.
It is a sad trend that truly removes ownership from purchases.
But–I see no way to realistically reverse it unless you can force 90% of the gaming population to buy only discs.
Also–the growth of digital services is doing a favor to smaller game studios that don’t require a publisher to take them on in order to succeed.