SimonG: I'm not going to make a remark about the benefits of digital releases or the even the benefits of Steam. Nah, that would just be uncalled for ;-P.
jamyskis: As opposed to being able to just select the language off the disc like you can with 90% of the games out there, including the PS3 version of Skyrim, instead of having to wait four hours for it to download?
The problem is that yet again games have exceeded the storage limits of the predominant medium. E.g. Shogun II comes around 25 GB. You don't put that in boxes anymore. It is now cheaper to manufacture for the german market than simply make a euro version that gets shipped with all languages, as it was 5 - 10 years ago. But on the internet size doesn't matter anymore, so you can simply put everything together.
IIrc, the PS3 uses bluerays, so that isn't a problem (yet).