Another perspective on a digital only future.
Just to preface my discussion point for purposes of honesty, I am a physical games player and collector, and I have had all PlayStation consoles except PS5 (I waited for the usual price drop after a few years and it never happened).
The arguments I am seeing that support digital only games misses a point for me and that is whether physical games are still viable. I am not going to overcomplicate this with a lot of statistics, so I will focus on a single game, Spider-Man 2.
Spider-Man 2 sold 11 million copies, of which 81% were digital. So on the surface that indicates the case for digital only as it is a significant majority, but, 19% physical games equates to 2.1 million copies sold at retail.
Most developers would be significantly happy with a game selling 2 million copies, digital or otherwise. More importantly, it risks disenfranchising 2.1 million gamers. There is no guarantee that everyone will accept a digital only console world and move on.
Nintendo has struck the right balance by pricing physical copies $10 more than digital. It is fine if retail games are more expensive, it is okay to consider them a niche product, like vinyl records, they have their place and should not be relegated to the bin of history. A large number of gamers are content with paying more for physical games and understand the additional cost.
Sony can still do both, it isn't an either/or situation.