> But nowadays consoles have the same issues: Giant downloads

At least for PS5 the opposite is true: if a game uses kraken texture compression, and many do, PS5 variant will be the smallest.

How is that even an argument - the PS5 has had proper discs. The issue is, the disc content is 1GB file that requires a 50GB download.

In modern game development practice you will have to download patches anyway, so whatever there's on disk is irrelevant. Hardware has nothing to do with that.

Exactly that was my point. Consoles used to have a seamless "put in disc and lets go" experience, but they lost it and now are on par with PCs on that UX.