FF7 Revelation's director "did his best" for a full disc - and still lost. That tells you where physical games are heading

Here's the thing nobody in a press release will ever put this bluntly: the director of one of the biggest RPGs of 2027 personally wanted the whole game on a disc, says he "did his best" to make it happen, and it still didn't happen. If Naoki Hamaguchi can't win that argument inside Square Enix, I don't think anyone can.

The background, briefly. Fans have been asking for a complete physical version of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation since the physical edition was detailed. What's actually shipping on PS5 and Xbox Series is a disc plus a mandatory download for part of the game. Hamaguchi's explanation, in an interview with Radio Times spotted by IGN, is that he grew up buying games on physical media, that he likes having colleagues sign copies of their work, and that he fought for a disc. His team had also considered sticking to the same disc setup as Rebirth and decided the game would have to be cut down to fit, which they refused to do. Fair enough as a creative call. It's the consequence I care about.

Because from where I'm sitting, a disc that needs a download to run isn't a physical game. It's a plastic licence key with better packaging.

And that matters more here than it does in London or Los Angeles. The second-hand market in our region isn't a nostalgia hobby, it's how a lot of people afford full-price games at all. You buy a disc, finish it in three weeks, sell it on or lend it to a friend, and the real cost of the game drops by half. That math only works as long as the disc is the game. The moment part of it lives on a server, the resale value is tied to how long Square Enix keeps that server alive - and no publisher has ever promised a date for that.

I'm not saying don't buy the box. If you want Revelation on your shelf, get it. Just buy it knowing what it is: a collectible with a download attached, not a complete copy you own outright. Rebirth on two discs was arguably the last time a flagship Final Fantasy gave you that. Hamaguchi clearly knows it too, which is why his answer reads less like PR and more like a quiet apology.

What gets me is the direction. When a director with his standing says he tried and couldn't, the discussion about physical media is no longer about whether publishers can do it. It's about whether anyone with the authority to decide still wants to.

Image: PiaCarrot / CC BY-SA 3.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CD-ROM_for_PlayStation.jpg