Sony’s announcement of discontinuing physical media in 2028 has caused a ripple effect throughout the gaming community. I know you’ve already been caught up in the hundreds of headlines that have been generated since. Nor do I need to get into detail regarding how this changes the second-hand market.

This, combined with the Big N’s decision to allow game key cards with their second generation of Nintendo Switch hardware, and Xbox quickly following up on Sony’s announcement that Project Helix may not ship with a disc drive either, has created the concern: is this the end of physical media as we know it?

Far from it.

Tucked away in a little, not-well-known corner of the Internet, that unfortunately gets buried because of the outrage caused by the minority, is a project that aims to preserve your digital library of games by means of physical media. Of course, I’m talking about Kazeta.

Kazeta SD card collection

Once you have a game downloaded in your library, whether it’s on Steam, Epic, or GOG, you can then copy the game files to an external media, such as:

  • Micro/Full-size SD cards
  • optical discs
  • SATA SSDs
  • and even floppy disks

Then, after supplying the necessary boot parameters with a metadata file, you can turn your makeshift “console” – that is, any PC that has Kazeta installed – into something akin to the way 90s consoles worked. Insert the “cartridge” into your system, turn it on, and start playing. That’s it! Then, if you wanted your physical library to look more fancy, you could look into printing your favorite game art via glossy photo paper. You can see in the cover photo of this post, an example of a user in the Kazeta Discord creating custom artwork for their games.

But there’s more than just Kazeta. You could 3D print a SSD enclosure, store your games on it, and have them run a script to automatically launch them when they’re connected.

The point is, with the bigger corporations out there focusing more on profits by reducing their carbon footprint, it’s only made the community grow stronger by creating innovative ideas to preserve your digital library. And believe me, you’re not the only one if you’re getting fatigued by digital subscription services.

Long live physical media!

Some relevant articles that you may be interested in reading more, if you’d like to explore creating your own physical media: