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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

IIRC, the PS2 did not download game updates or patches from the internet. The game on the disk was what you played. As long as you had a PS2 and the disk, you could play the exact game you played so many years ago.

With the PS5, the disk is more or less a key that lets the console download the game. Having the console and the disk is a guarantee of nothing in the future other than you can probably play the buggy mess that they packaged up way before the game was done.

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I don't know why this myth keeps getting perpetuated. It's simply not true. The countless game discs I own that let me install and play the game without internet access are proof of that. There are some games where the game acts as a key and doesn't contain the full game, but this isn't the rule.

This "myth" isn't a myth. Most games aren't the "digital key only" style of discs, like how Nintendo has game cards that are just entitlements now, but game companies took huge advantage of the fact that updates are expected, and the game shipped on disk on release day is almost always unfinished and patched with day one updates. The disk image is submitted for manufacture well before the game actually hits the release date.

This goes all the way to things like a version of Tony Hawk skateboarding that only had like one map on the disc itself.

I was thinking mostly about updates. The version of Cyberpunk on the initial disk release for the Play Station was pretty bad but downloaded updates fixed it.

AFAIK, the PS2 didn't download patches or updates for games. If you have the disk, you can play the same game that you did 20 years ago.

It's usually the game being installed from disc to the SSD, as the Blu-Ray drive isn't fast enough for modern standards

The game can be downloaded from the internet by any software that can impersonate a PS5.

Right up until Sony's servers stop shut down.

Better archive them all before that!

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