15 ms·

Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• sylens 3mo ago
  From a business perspective, I understand this. The physical games sections of most retailers are pitiful these days - take a walk down the PS5 aisle in Target or Best Buy for example. They also have a need to shore up margins if they want to keep subsidizing the hardware during the component crisis. And their biggest competitor, XBox, is in the process of pivoting out of their current pivot and apparently is about to layoff a massive chunk of its workforce. But at the end of the day, part of what makes a console a console to me is the ability to swap games with friends. If I can't do that easily, why wouldn't I just use Steam?
• OuterVale 3mo ago
  Shutting down the stores on the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, too. https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playstation-store-for-ps3-and-ps-vita/ https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta... Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745476
  • fredoralive 3mo ago
    Closing the online store for older systems simultaneously with announcing the dropping of physical media leaves an interesting question for the future. Even if you’ve never bought an online PS3 or Vita game, you’ll still be able to use the systems for physical games. Presumably once the PS6 store is gone, any console is just an ornament if you don’t have access to an account with games already purchased (and how long will the download servers stay up anyway? What is the foreseeable future?).
    • AussieWog93 3mo ago
      The assumption is that it'll be jailbroken well before they shut down the store.
      • Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
        I'm not convinced, jailbreaks are becoming more difficult.
        • mghackerlady 3mo ago
          theoretically, the playstations are the most vulnerable since they run static versions of a FreeBSD derived system. the xbox doesn't really need to be jailbroken and the switch line is nearly impossible
          • Teever 3mo ago
            > the switch line is nearly impossible Werent early versions of the Switch 1 jail broken pretty fast and people were dumping switch 1 roms online to play in emulators? I don’t follow this stuff too closely but I thought that I saw people playing the sequel to Breath of the Wild on PCs to get acceptable frame rates when it came out.
            • mghackerlady 3mo ago
              Yeah, I should've specified softmods. There was a hardware bug in the launch switches SOC that wasn't patched until a year or so after the consoles launch
          • ZenoArrow 3mo ago
            > switch line is nearly impossible Nah. Switch 1 is already compromised and I'd predict we'll see modchips for the Switch 2 in the next 3 years.
            • mghackerlady 3mo ago
  • mghackerlady 3mo ago
    Shit, they tried a while ago with a lot of pushback. I hope they don't. I love my vita, and while realistically anybody playing one nowadays has it hacked and can get games from wherever they please, it sucks that the only official way is going the way of the dodo
  • Hamuko 3mo ago
    This is why I will not be buying a PlayStation 6. I've had my Steam account for 20 years (21 come October) and I can still download every single thing I've ever bought there. Why should I invest in buying PS6 games when they're gonna be made obsolete by Sony?
    • Uvix 3mo ago
      You can still download games for PS3 and Vita after they stop selling them. It’s no different from how Steam no longer sells some titles it used to.
      • ThePowerOfFuet 3mo ago
        > You can still download games for PS3 and Vita after they stop selling them. For now.
        • Uvix 3mo ago
          Just as you can download old games on Steam for now. Either will pull the plug whenever they want.
    • artisinal 3mo ago
      If I am being a bit pedantic. Yes you can still download your old games, but they will likely be different from the original release. Grand Theft Auto games are known for dropping songs from the soundtrack due to licensing. If you have Vice City on DVD and install it you can still enjoy Michael Jackson. Not with the Steam version.
    • ThrowawayR2 3mo ago
      As much as I like Steam and dislike Sony (quite a bit in both cases), I will point out that while you can still download every single thing you've bought on Steam, there's no guarantee that it will run on a modern PC. A handful of my past Steam purchases don't. Consoles still hold the advantage of being a tightly defined target platform and a game written targeting a console is compatible with it indefinitely.
• makyavelist 3mo ago
  Step by step...
• zache6 3mo ago
  Sucks to see this right after the Studio Canal movie situation [1]. I won't be getting another PlayStation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346
  • MBCook 3mo ago
    Why would anyone “buy” movies from PlayStation. That’s not their business, I would never have expected them to be in it for the long haul, just like MS did a rug pull on this a few years ago didn’t they?
    • podgietaru 3mo ago
      It was their business, because they sold them....
    • x13 3mo ago
      Convenience? Maybe a belief the media would be accessible for a long time, versus the ever-changing catalog available from streaming services? Consumers are lured into walled-gardens all the time - consoles, app stores, hardware. Where would you suggest someone purchase a digital license for a movie?
      • MBCook 3mo ago
        Apple has been selling movies for far longer haven’t they? Amazon is clearly invested in the space. Even Google. From a video game store is the part I find odd. I get walled gardens. Not this one for this purpose.
        • vel0city 3mo ago
          Being a media player was an integral part of Playstation since the PS2 era. The PS3 was essentially the thing that really pushed Blu-Ray over the line to really cement Blu-Ray as a movie format over HD-DVD. Movie playback has been a thing for home consoles for decades. It became kind of a joke that the most played Xbox 360 game was Netflix. As more people have moved to streaming media/digital marketplaces, its only natural for those to grow. I've known lots of people who use their Xbox as their main media center that consume movies on Microsoft's storefront. It makes sense Sony would be in the game as well, as after all they even directly produce a lot of content themselves.
• fredoralive 3mo ago
  Well, I guess that answers the question of whether the PS6 will have an awkward snap on disc drive.
  • bigfishrunning 3mo ago
    to be fair, the "awkward snap-on disc drive" on ps5 isn't really awkward -- it's a one time install and is now indistinguishable from a built-in drive.
  • MYEUHD 3mo ago
    It will probably have one for backwards compatibility with ps4 and ps5 disc games
    • sevenseacat 3mo ago
      you think the PS6 will have physical backwards compatibility? oh you sweet summer child
• buran77 3mo ago
  Discs are less convenient so people have slowly moved to digital sales. This worked even better for console manufacturers, cheaper to drop that disc reader, and the second hand market is effectively dead which increases new game sales. The side-effect most people didn't consider is that you never really own a digital copy. And the most relevant part is that you cannot transfer/sell a digital copy. For everything else around ownership I know I can count on Sony to still screw it up even with discs, like disabling a disc game with some online checks.
  • fzeroracer 3mo ago
    It's a weird trajectory to see because with the music industry people have started catching on and either support sites that offer more durable forms of ownership or have straight up reverted to physical ownership.
  • mittensc 3mo ago
    > And the most relevant part is that you cannot transfer/sell a digital copy. EU or any other gov can pass a law to allow that and we'll have the option.
    • Uvix 3mo ago
      Or they’ll just stop “selling” copies in those territories and only allow short-term rentals or monthly subscription services.
      • tialaramex 3mo ago
        One of the EU's backstop "Fuck Trump" options is to stop enforcing America's IP rights. Maybe this USB stick full of MCU movies isn't the highest possible quality and two of the Thor movies are missing for some reason, however it cost less than €20, so who cares ? Oh it's illegal? Well my government said they don't give a shit about that until you get rid of the orange lunatic In a world where American media companies are also trying to fuck over consumers that sort of action could probably get a rotting corpse re-elected in a landslide, that's one of the reasons it's on the backstop threat list - dry policy responses don't connect with voters, but "make as many copies of their stuff as you like" is incredibly popular.
• rvz 3mo ago
  Unsurprising. [0] This is even before 2030 and you will own nothing and be happy. Get ready for your games to be delisted [1] as you never owned them in the first place (unless you have the disc) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33362792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33362792 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049626
  • croes 3mo ago
    There is a simply countermeasure. Don’t buy their consoles and games
  • mDyJzDPmBdG 3mo ago
    > unless you have the disc Is that really enough? AFAIK many PC games with SecuROM won't ever work without crack, as that entire DRM is incompatible with modern OSes.
    • Wowfunhappy 3mo ago
      It's enough on consoles. On PC, discs (when they even exist, which is rare) have basically just been digital keys for a long time.
    • Anamon 3mo ago
      SecuROM can be re-enabled on Windows 10/11 with some reasonably simple steps. But I think that's comparing apples to oranges. That SecuROM game will continue to work fine on a system it was designed for. Playing a game from the Windows 98 era on a Windows 11 system is entering the territory of backwards compatibility. Same as a PSX game will keep running on any PSX, but there are no guarantees on a PS2.
• kuerbel 3mo ago
  Aaaand I'm not going to buy a PS6. On pc there is some competition at least between Steam, epic, gog (the odd one out but I like it) and such. I have no interest in buying a vendor specific computer with only one storefront and no competition.
  • Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
    But those are still digital-only platforms, with a chance of them disappearing. Epic is the biggest risk there, I think. GoG is an interesting case though, it has loads of games that by and large were available on physical media, but because said physical media is either gone, broken, or in the hands of collectors, getting a physical copy of those games is difficult now. Them being a digital platform re-enables people to play these games.
    • mghackerlady 3mo ago
      GoG is also DRM free, so if GoG dies it's not like you'll lose access to your games. Even if you lose the files, archives will exist. Plus, if you're really that morally opposed to file sharing, you can always put it on a NAS or flash drive. Heck, put it on a bluray if you want to
      • Jigsy 3mo ago
        Plus GOG allow people to download games and store them on a hard drive. UT99 can't be bought anymore (though I think Epic now allow people to share it freely), but I can still download it (for now), and access my archived copy.
  • bigfishrunning 3mo ago
    It's important to note that that vendor specific computer is 1) cheaper then a PC that can play equivalent games, and 2) much more reliable (i never have to mess with drivers, updates just work, etc...)
    • fluoridation 3mo ago
• keyringlight 3mo ago
  I wonder if this signals anything about Sony's attitude to blu-ray movies. Aside from games one of the reasons their consoles have sold well is because they've been excellent physical media players. The PS2 for DVDs and the PS3 onwards for blu-ray. If I remember well PS3 was during the period where blu-ray lasers were production constrained and more expensive with Sony prioritizing their own devices, so the console was price and availability competitive against dedicated disc players by third parties. And the PS3 had pretty long term update/support. I'm fairly sure that had an impact on the financial side as it was in the era when console hardware was subsidized on the expectation they'd get a slice of game sales, except those consoles bought for primarily for movies didn't reimburse them so well.
  • fredoralive 3mo ago
    I’m not sure if Sony has been pushing their video disc formats with PlayStations for a while. PS4 Pro was the “4K” upgrade over PS4, but didn’t support UHD Blu-Ray. And there’s been a disc drive-less PS5 since launch. Stuff like Blu-Ray seems to be becoming a Laserdisc like enthusiasts niche system, I don’t think it’s been a big thing for Sony for a while.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
• nsbk 3mo ago
  Bummer! Based on the current trajectory, PS6 will be the first non-handheld PS I will not own.
• jceg 3mo ago
  I thought CDs were (mostly) no longer being produced. I'm surprised this decision was not made years ago.
  • Shank 3mo ago
    They're Blu-Ray discs.
• bilekas 3mo ago
  This is ridiculous, and not long after they've been updating their ToS to require you to sign in and phone home in order to continue to be allowed access to your digital library. > In response to shifting trends in consumer preference. I hate this corporate speak. If buying isn't ownership, then pirating isn't stealing.
  • bigfishrunning 3mo ago
    > If buying isn't ownership, then pirating isn't stealing. You're not buying a game, you're buying a license to play the game. If you don't agree with the terms, don't buy that license, but that doesn't mean you're entitled to commit copyright infringement. If I buy a movie ticket, that means I get to watch the movie once. That's the agreement.
    • bilekas 3mo ago
      There's an expectation that once the sale is finalised they should t be able to just take it back when they like. Agreements or not that's not how things are supposed to work.
    • Telaneo 3mo ago
      > If I buy a movie ticket, that means I get to watch the movie once. That's the agreement. Good thing I don't recognise copyright. Can't infringe on that which does not exist. I'm sick of pretending it does good in the world when I constantly see its consequences are things like this. > If I buy a movie ticket, that means I get to watch the movie once. That's the agreement. Given the amount of agreements out there that have unfair terms from the get go, or are otherwise Darth Vadered, why should anyone care what deal the corps give you?
      • bigfishrunning 3mo ago
        If you don't like the deal, don't take it. It doesn't matter if you recognize copyright, it's the law. Some people don't recognize speed limits; that doesn't always end well for them.
• phire 3mo ago
  With this news, I have to wonder how much longer bluray will live. Will we continue seeing new bluray releases of movies and TV shows for decades, or are their days numbered? The loss of console gaming presumably removes a guaranteed revenue source that was keeping Bluray pressing plants alive. Sales of DVDs and Bluray have been declining for years [1] [3]. Some people have been excited pushing the news that UHD bluray sales increased in 2025, [2] but that ignores the fact that the total optical sales still dropped. [1] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1739948166 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=... [2] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1772040307 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=... [3] This article has a more complete graph: https://www.statsignificant.com/p/the-rise-fall-and-slight-rise-of-b06 https://www.statsignificant.com/p/the-rise-fall-and-slight-r...
  • dylan604 3mo ago
    I can't imagine content owners wanting the physical media to continue any longer than they can get away with. The control they have from digital only must make them feel so powerful. At least as long as everyone continues to buy into their DRM systems. I've recently looked into purchasing a dedicated 4K Blu-ray player to start building a disc collection again. I'm assuming there's some pretty decent deals in the used bins now. One by one, I keep canceling my streaming subscriptions. At some point, that physical media will be the only thing left. Makes me feel like a prepper of a different sort
    • phire 3mo ago
      That's part of what I was thinking. The idea of digital-only must be very attractive for content owners, so I don't think they will put much effort into preventing that outcome.
    • 3D30497420 3mo ago
      I do this. I'll buy used disks and rip them to a personal media server. It works great. A friend actually created an eBay bot which monitors listings of disks he wants and will automatically buys them. The ripping part is a bit annoying and time-consuming though. Ironically, it would probably be easier to buy a disk then download a file rather than ripping.
• pryelluw 3mo ago
  Guess I’m throwing my PS5 out the window and going to PC. This war on physical media is ridiculous. Pretty soon they’re going to require us to buy the console but rent the controllers for the very low price of $79.99 a month.
  • ludamn 3mo ago
    [dead]
  • raadore 3mo ago
    [dead]
  • functionmouse 3mo ago
    steam games don't have discs either the real problem here isn't lack of plastic circles
    • callamdelaney 3mo ago
      Valve have shown themselves to be reasonably trustworthy unlike say, Sony and Microsoft. If there are no disks then there is no point in consoles in my view, they're just worse computers.
      • mghackerlady 3mo ago
        plus, nothings stopping you from distributing a physical PC game. Heck, iirc steam still supports it. Even if it didn't, you could still buy a physical PC anyway since they can just have an exe, flatpak/snap/appimage, or dmg
      • tapoxi 3mo ago
        Steam only exists because Valve forced players to install it, force an online activation, and permanently bind their retail copies of Half-Life 2 to a Steam account. They also forced patching which meant in an era of dialup you couldn't play your single player game for hours, and needed to be connected every 30 days or your game would stop working. None of the console manufacturers pulled that shit, that Valve gets a pass is wild to me.
• deadbabe 3mo ago
  I used to think this was bad, but honestly? It’s just games. Some people buy tons of digital games they literally never even play. If they were physical games, imagine all the e-waste. And what’s the point of physical games? So you can play the game in 30 years from now on some retro console you’ve diligently maintained? Get over it, you’re not going to do any of that. There’s no mythical third act where you go through some library of physical CDs and reminisce about an old ass game. There’s constantly new games coming out all the time, you will just keep buying and buying games, you play them for a bit, and then you move on. It’s not “buy it for life”, it’s buy it for right now have fun and move on. Live in the present, don’t worry about the future. Even people who have retro consoles and collect physical copies seem to mostly do it for collector purposes. When they die, their kids will send all that to a dump or pawn it off. Pointless.
  • RiverCrochet 3mo ago
    I agree with most of this, which is why emulation is generally better unless you specifically want to operate/show off a museum. Maybe things will be like the Nintendo BS-X where people will reverse engineer consoles with games downloaded to extract the game from it. That being said I do have a physical Atari 2600 with a few games. Astroblast with paddles is still a fun game today, and Video Olympics (the Atari VCS version of Pong) is extremely fun to bring out at parties.
    • mghackerlady 3mo ago
      the Atari 2600 is probably my favorite console to collect for. The games cost next to nothing and old games like that are fun to just grab a stack of and play each game for 5-10 minutes each
  • fluoridation 3mo ago
    >There’s no mythical third act where you go through some library of physical CDs and reminisce about an old ass game. Huh? You won't replay every game, sure, but once in a while you'll find a game that you keep coming back to even many years after first playing it. The last time I played Pokémon Red all the way through was only a few years ago. I have permanent Deus Ex, Crysis, FEAR, and Duke Nukem 3D installations on my hard drive, so I can run them for a bit whenever I feel like. Maybe once you put down a game you never pick it again, but don't assume what is true of you is true of everybody.
• Noe2097 3mo ago
  Wow that doesn't sound great. We won't own games anymore, we won't be able to sell/acquire used games, we won't be able to play disconnected. I'm curious whether Nintendo will be following the same path.
  • Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
    > I'm curious whether Nintendo will be following the same path. Probably, they're already heavily invested in digital-only games, e.g. virtual console, or selling game boxes with just a download code. But this goes back years already, physical copies of their games have remained expensive for ages. Relatively modern and/or very common "everyone has these" games like various pokemon games going for full price to 2-3x that.
  • phire 3mo ago
    TBH, 100% offline gaming has been problematic since day-one patches became the norm in the PS3 era. Sure, you might be play version 1.0 of the game from the disc, but often the experience was pretty compromised without the patch, often very buggy, or sometimes even features missing. And the PS5 is meant to be able to play digitally downloaded while disconnected (at least the ones you own, not the PS+ games). It's just the implementation is little buggy, it sometimes breaks for some people and you get a bunch of vocal people complaining about how it doesn't work. So IMO, you aren't losing much there. The digital-only experience isn't that different from needing to have internet to download a day-one patch. It's the used game sales that are the biggest loss from this move.
    • Anamon 3mo ago
      I remember getting some Gran Turismo game for my PS3 back in the day, having to wait for it to slowly copy XX gigabytes of data to the hard drive, then being stupid enough to want to start the game while being online which meant having to download once more the exact same number of gigabytes (hello, incremental patches?) over an even slower Wi-Fi connection. I bought the game on a Saturday afternoon and was looking forward to it, but by the time I got to play it, it was Sunday. So I figured that the last console with which I really felt like I had a collection of games that were mine, that I got to keep and could play whenever I wanted, was the PS2.
• K3UL 3mo ago
  One of the major reasons I upgraded to ps5 was because it would also allow me to play blu-ray movies. If the PS6 comes out with no disc player at all, not a chance I buy it. Also, that's a definite middle finger to second hand and physical stores then ? Hoping MS will make a bet in the opposite direction (but I don't see it) and the players will follow..
  • Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
    Ironic that you mention MS because also ironically, around the PS4 launch there was a lot of brouhaha about MS not allowing transfering games, while for the PS4 launch video they showed how easy it is to transfer games (just hand over a disk). I hate it. I hate digital only games. I get that the numbers and reality are against my wishes but that doesn't make it any better. I want to unpack my console from storage in 20 years and play the games I bought for it even if the company or servers no longer exist.
  • Cpoll 3mo ago
    > middle finger to second hand and physical stores They've seen the writing on the wall for at least a decade; that's why GameStop has more shelf space for Funko Pops than for games.
    • Imustaskforhelp 3mo ago
      Genuine question but is this why Gamestop was thinking about buying E-bay which ironically had some of the most greatest meme about "half cash, half stock" if someone remembers that in terms of the immense stupidity displayed in botching up the deal or the finances of it. but what is the plan for shops like GameStop then if nobody buys or sells games anymore via offline shops. as you mentioned with Funko pops (and I had to search up with that), but they could perhaps transition to merchandise focused goods but I think that even within that online could have a valid competition?
      • Telaneo 3mo ago
        > but what is the plan for shops like GameStop then if nobody buys or sells games anymore via offline shops Bankruptcy. They've already had to massively cut down after the first round of people switching to digital-only. I doubt they'll survive a digital-only world (maybe a rebrand will work? Or maybe they'll limp along on merch).
• accrual 3mo ago
  > Sony's announcement follows Rockstar's announcement that Grand Theft Auto 6 will come with a download code in a box rather than a physical disc. It's a move that most notably stamps out second-hand reselling of a game. This is the big point for me. If one buys a digital PlayStation game there's virtually no easy way to transfer it to another owner or sell it like one could do in past console generations. There will always be modding and ways to play game dumps, but it limits that level of "ownership" to those technically inclined to make it work.
  • alightsoul 3mo ago
    they weren't happy about people reselling their games for 5 dollars each, when they could charge 75 dollars to each of those people instead
    • vinyl7 3mo ago
      Jokes on them if they think a significant portion of those sales will convert
      • elAhmo 3mo ago
        Of course they will convert. Not all, but even a single person buying the game at full price is better than dozens of reselling transactions where Sony makes no money and is actually losing money as those people are not buying new games. Not a fan of this of course, just saying it’s a calculated move they just copied from other industries. People complain and minority ends up following their principles, but similarly as with streaming, nearly everyone just has Spotify and that’s it.
        • ozgrakkurt 3mo ago
          > Not all, but even a single person buying the game at full price is better I'm not so sure this is the case. It would massively reduce their market share which is one of the biggest reasons ps5 is relevant imo.
  • 3mo ago
• r0ckarong 3mo ago
  Most games with retail copies drop in price soon after the hype window is over. They stay full launch retail price in the PSN store unless there is a "sale". Anti-consumerism at its finest.
  • gdulli 3mo ago
    I wonder if that's because there's a downward price pressure on physical inventory because it needs to get liquidated to free up physical space for new inventory.
    • toast0 3mo ago
      That's certainly a factor, especially if demand was less than predicted, stores don't want to hold on to stock that's not selling, distributors and manufacturers don't want it returned. Better for everyone to reduce the price and sell the product.
    • kjkjadksj 3mo ago
      I never saw actual downward price pressure on unsold new physical games. At most they’d go for $45 instead of $60. Only at gamestop with the most ratty booger infested chewed by dog used copy would you see real deals. That or boomer parents selling off their kids childhood when they went off to college for pennies on the dollar, but I think going forward gen x parents are smart enough to check prevailing values on electronics, so that source of deals are gone too.
  • postexitus 3mo ago
    Ok great don't buy them in digital form so Sony learns a lesson?
• koeliga 3mo ago
  So this pretty much confirms that GTA 6 won't be sold as disc later on
  • Imustaskforhelp 3mo ago
    Oh man, I had forgotten about GTA 6 releasing on Playstation earlier than PC's. So all the hype around GTA 6 and the fact that people have been waiting for so long would drive up the demand of newer playstations and with all the 4 changes that I talked about in one of my other comments[0] > No physical disc + shutting down online stores + deleting movies from customers accounts + dynamic pricing. This basically becomes a sunk cost fallacy, both in buying the games or subscription models. Because there are people who want a game so badly and want to play on release date and that game has partnered up with a console company that they will only release (first) on some consoles with the 4 factors discussed above. It leads to an incredible sunk-cost fallacy which somewhat capitalizes on the fact of the hype of the game and they are looking for any and every ways to capitalize on it for as long as possible. I imagine some Playstation subscription yearly discount might also happen near the launch of GTA 6 so that they could tie users up to an yearly subscription perhaps. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746439
• lelandfe 3mo ago
  To illustrate why this is stupid, I will furnish two links to purchase Dark Souls 3 (PS4, 2016) Ebay, to buy: $11 + shipping[0] PS Store, to rent: $60[1] [0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/298370753624 https://www.ebay.com/itm/298370753624 [1] https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/dark-souls-iii/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/dark-souls-iii/
  • exitnode 3mo ago
    It's sadly not stupid from their perspective
    • somenameforme 3mo ago
      Except it really is. I don't see how businesses don't understand how this sort of anti-customer predatory behavior, MBA stuff, is directly driving reduced sales. The PS5, for instance, has only managed 96 million sales. For contrast the PS2 managed 160 million sales to a smaller market with much fiercer competition. And I'm one of those tens of millions opting out. The PS2 felt like a great consumer-focused value. Modern consoles feel like opting in to get kicked in the balls and squeezed for every single penny they can get out of you. The reason modern consoles aren't selling 300million+ units is because of myopia. And the worst part is that it's a vicious cycle. They see their sales shrinking so the penny pinchers and MBAs get even nastier squeezing the ever-shrinking userbase even more resulting in less sales meaning they need to squeeze those that remain even harder and so on. At seemingly no point is anybody asking 'Hey why do our sales keep falling even though the potential market's way larger and the competition is pretty meh?' I guess that doesn't look as good on a powerpoint slide as trying to kill the used game market and pretending it will have no knock-on effects.
      • angoragoats 3mo ago
        I feel this in my bones and it's a great way to frame it. My last Playstation console was a PS2 and I've also opted out of recent generations. Historically, for me, one of the benefits of a console was that you could just pop the game in, and it would always work, simply and easily. DRM, online checks, DLC that should have been part of the base game, digital-only games, etc have ruined all that, and if that's going to be the trend everywhere I'll just stick to a PC and Steam where I have a library of games built up over the decades. I have a Switch and feel that Nintendo provided a decent experience on their recent systems, but with the advent of "game keys" or whatever they call it on the Switch 2, they've flipped to being even worse than the digital-only systems. At least Sony isn't (yet?) trying to sell you a license on a disc to try to fool you into thinking you own a physical copy.
• ReptileMan 3mo ago
  AAA game industry is in such a state, that not justifying piracy becomes harder and harder with each day.
• Imustaskforhelp 3mo ago
  So physical disc production is ending for new games on Playstation. At the same time, as @outervale has said: they are shutting down PS3 and PS Vita online stores as well. AND at the same time as @zache has said & previous discussions about PlayStation Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts. WHILE at the same time, Dynamic pricing[0] is occuring where people who buy games are charged more because PS expects them to be able to cough up more money from my understanding Combining all of this: No physical disc + shutting down online stores + deleting movies from customers accounts + dynamic pricing. These might basically just be planned obsolence devices while trying to extract as much profits as humanly possible from your wallets. I remember the dynamic pricing debate and that some people were somewhat tolerable of that, but I think that being tolerable of that is what is causing more and more precedents and an overall situation has occur where things are just increasingly more actively consumer-hostile. [0]: https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-reportedly-testing-dynamic-pricing-on-the-playstation-store https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-reportedly-testing-dynamic...
• legitster 3mo ago
  In contrast, Nintendo's idea to sell physical games that are essentially transferrable keys seems like a much smarter compromise. Part of the appeal for the Switch and Switch 2 is the stability of their resale market. It's easier to pay for a new game when you know you can get 50% of your money back on the used market.
  • Uvix 3mo ago
    Sony wouldn’t see any benefit from switching to game key discs. Nintendo introduced them to save on manufacturing costs, but game key discs wouldn’t give Sony any additional market or reduce costs any; they’d only shrink the physical market further.
  • cheesecakegood 3mo ago
    Except the same companies have shown (see: closure of the DS online storefront) it's still an issue, just 20 years delayed instead of 10. Sure, it's better, but it's not good. I'll still take it of course, but we need to pressure lawmakers to set up something more fair and stable.
• MBCook 3mo ago
  This was bound to happen. I’ve long suspected the #1 reason physical games exist was to placate a few big retailers like Best Buy and Walmart and Target so they’d continue to carry the console. Clearly that’s no longer necessary. Download-only retail boxes or gift cards or whatever are enough. I know some people really care about physical releases, but I think the writing has been on the wall for years that this was coming.
• nottorp 3mo ago
  The Sony that has just proved you can't trust them to maintain access to the digital content they "sold" you right? <Unplugs PS5>
• kakadu 3mo ago
  This is another opportunity for the EU to reign in and create a proper definition of ownership so that this does not pass. Of course, it would be interesting to hear the freemarketeering on this site and how people should "vote with their wallet" and sites/movements such as $freeplaystation.whatever sprouting pseudopolemic nonsense.
  • p0w3n3d 3mo ago
    Voting with wallet works, unless there is a cartel there. Which probably is. Similar as with Samsung's RAM
• officeplant 3mo ago
  Rip main stream physical game market. Long live independent physical game market. We already see people with 3d printed carts, designing labels and making their own homebrew games for retro consoles. Some people are also producing their own big box PC games for the hell of it. As I continue to largely ignore AAA & mainstream gaming companies I look forward to how the indie gaming market takes advantage of everyone's growing nostalgia for physical ownership of games.
  • deadbabe 3mo ago
    Nearly all of the people who sell third party physical carts and media are also selling digital versions as well, which sell in much greater numbers. The physicality is a novelty, much like vinyl records. It’s a market sure, but not a significant one that calls for a paradigm shift.
    • officeplant 3mo ago
      >also selling digital versions as well, which sell in much greater numbers. Happy for them, I'll even buy it if it's DRM-free with off-line installers I can back up.
• dude250711 3mo ago
  Last step is for them to say that due to rising components' cost, they are transitioning to rent-only model for consoles. This way you will finally own nothing except for maybe console rent arrears.
• techdmn 3mo ago
  Never been happier that I've turned into a retro-gamer. This is more the result of being old than a principled stance, but never the less. Increasingly I don't view myself as actually owning anything that connects to the internet. Minecraft is delightful on my disconnected Xbox-360, thanks. Nobody can break it by forcing an update or shutting down a server.
• Insanity 3mo ago
  Haven’t bought a physical game in at least 15 years (because of Steam). I do wonder how many people still buy physical copies these days. Not sure what the sales are like on PS but at least on Steam you can find great deals for the digital copies as well. (You lose the reselling though)
  • rrreese 3mo ago
    Due to the steam sales and deep discounting its easy to buy games on steam for much cheaper then the consoles. For console where a game may be £60 for several years, buying physical means you can resell. For anyone with a budget, it makes a huge difference on how many games you can play.
    • artisinal 3mo ago
      Red Dead Redemption 2 is €59.99 on Steam and if you wait for a sale €14.99 For PS4 you can buy the disc version for €19.99 regular price and €17.99 on sale. Used discs start from €9. If you don’t mind waiting for a sale then Steam is great. Otherwise PlayStation is a better deal.
      • ProllyInfamous 3mo ago
        For context, I purchased physical PS4 copies of: RDR2, GTA5, Fortnight, and 2077 – for about Steam's online price for just RDR2 – all "used," from Game$top. They play perfectly, hopefully forever... Steam is the entire reason I even bought an offline PS4Pro in the first place!. Years ago, they required an update from Win7 to Win10 (in order to keep playing my therapeutic GTA5, which for some reason required an online connection for single player gameplay?!?!). After some rageful months without Trevor'ing, I bought my first-ever gaming console – love it. Stays offline, just in case Sony wants to brick my PS4, too (fucking hypothetical corporate bullies!)... Imagine a day where Sony drives around with trucks broadcasting WiFi signals instructing rogue, ostensibly-"offline" PS5s to self-destruct, via backdoor GHz... ---- Welcome to /hn/ – I've appreciated many of your varied contributions (keep it up!).
  • petetnt 3mo ago
• seanalltogether 3mo ago
  I've reached an age where I don't actually buy games anymore, I just load up my wishlist with games and between Christmas, birthday and fathers day I get all the games I will care to play for the year. My wife, parents, extended family likes being able to buy me a physical gift, wrap it, and hand it to me. I understand that this is just getting rid of the disc and keeping the box, but pretty soon there's gonna be no box either, and I know my wife will hate the idea of just handing me a gift card on special days. I just hate how all physical products are evaporating.
• ghusto 3mo ago
  > As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital _Goddamn citation needed!_
• jackgavigan 3mo ago
  "You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy."
• paolfs 3mo ago
  Imho this is no issue, as long as the game is playable after download without some kind of server or account. The moment you need an account or server to play you don't own the game. I think governments should step in here. They must force stores to use words like rent or lease instead of buy. That way it is way more clear where you are going to spend money on.
  • jonhohle 3mo ago
    How do you purchase or download a game without a server or account?
    • simonh 3mo ago
      purchase /= run
    • doubled112 3mo ago
      I think they mean to say that it is fine as long as you no longer need a server or account once it is downloaded from their server. You would be allowed to keep a backup, play the backup, transfer the backup, etc.
• thimabi 3mo ago
  In a few years Sony executives will be wondering why a portion of their consumer base decided to prioritize other forms of entertainment. I can speak for myself in that I’ve never upgraded past the PS3, and I feel no regrets about it.
  • butlike 3mo ago
    PS4 is a great system, but I feel it may be my last Sony console. Steam Deck/Steam Machine will probably become the king of the household, as I don't see video games ever really leaving my life.
    • tapoxi 3mo ago
      There is a tradeoff, the Steam Machine is double the price for worse performance and less storage.
  • mghackerlady 3mo ago
    I personally see no reason to buy anything more than a PS4. I have a PS3 and it plays all the same kinds of games I'd want to play on a 4 or 5, with similar graphical fidelity. I have a 4, but only really have used it to play a remake of a game I can already play on the 3. I also have a vita which is used for indie games since that thing has nearly every indie game you'd ever want to play available (either officially or via homebrew)
  • tacticalturtle 3mo ago
    At this point it’s a pretty small portion. Last quarter 85% of all game sales were digital. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-just-reported-a-new-record-breaking-high-figure-but-its-unsurprising/1100-6539856/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-just-reported-a-new-r...
    • techwizrd 3mo ago
      They've also been pushing digital-only PS5s and PS5 Pro so there are fewer reasons to get a disk if you have no disk drive. They have created the problem that they are "solving."
• brendoelfrendo 3mo ago
  I don't buy every game on a physical disc—I don't see the point for live service games, for example—but I do have a fairly large collection of physical PS5 games because I like that assurance that I can continue to play that game forever. I guess what we see here is that after 2028 I have no reason to own a PlayStation ever again.
• p0w3n3d 3mo ago
  Starting 2029: we don't have your game! and what are going to do now? (Polish movie quote paraphrase btw.)
• callamdelaney 3mo ago
  I will no longer buy playstations starting now
• maxwellito 3mo ago
  This didn't age well : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
  • Telaneo 3mo ago
    Sony won a whole console generation on not being knobheads (as much as MS).
    • bigstrat2003 3mo ago
      I wonder if MS could eat their lunch in the same way, or if the market has changed enough that it won't matter.
      • Telaneo 3mo ago
        I can't see how. Or, well, I can see how, but those options are so radical compared to what console gaming is today that nobody would even dare suggest it in a boardroom. Things like: * Allowing resale of digital games * Transferring game licences between platforms (so now you have all your Steam games on your Xbox (at least those that run) * Developing a new disc format (or other physical format) and locking in that for the next gen * Just buying a blu-ray factory or two to secure supply and locking in and promising physical releases going forward (and then living up to those promises, which isn't going to be easy with bean counters breathing down their neck) These are massive asks in the current reality, so I can't see MS bothering. Xbox already seems to be living on the edge of relevancy. It seems more likely to me that they just won't bother any more and relegate it to a brand for what remains of the gaming part of Microsoft.
• naet 3mo ago
  I have a PlayStation and I exclusively buy my games via discs. On the other hand, these days I exclusively buy computer games via digital download (mostly via Steam). I have more consumer confidence that digital games on my computer will remain accessible vs games on my console, maybe because Sony controls the entire console ecosystem. Interesting timing to announce this at around the same time as the PS3 digital store is discontinued signaling that digital only doesn't last as long as physical. My old Nintendo Wii is modified with homebrew software that keeps alive some otherwise inaccessible features since Nintendo shut off their servers. I hope the community can do similar for newer consoles when they reach the end of their life.
  • freetonik 3mo ago
    There are almost no new physical releases on PC, sadly. I’ve been collecting older games on CD and DVD.
• snarfy 3mo ago
  If they are going digital only then they are competing with Steam. They will lose.
  • avaer 3mo ago
    They aren't competing with Steam. The console market is a closed cabal where console makers sell the machine at a loss and make up for it with locked down software where publishers pay a significant proportion of the sales to the console maker, who controls supply and dealflow with private contracts. They might lose, but it's nothing like PC.
• asimovDev 3mo ago
  https://www.doesitplay.org https://www.doesitplay.org I guess this resource is relevant to the topic at hand. It lists games and whether you can play and complete them fully from disc without an internet connection
• nzach 3mo ago
  I really don't understand their thinking here. Sure they want more money, I get that. But 'physical media' is one of the reasons why a lot o people make a distinction between PC and console games. Removing this will make it easier for consumers to compare a PS5 to a Steam machine, and I don't think that is a good thing for Sony.
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• akmarinov 3mo ago
  Since they're also shutting down the PS3 and Vita stores - https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playstation-store-for-ps3-and-ps-vita/ https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta... That means that when the PS8 rolls around, any games you've bought for the digital-only PS6 will be unplayable, so think about that when you buy digital games when that (and for PS5 now) comes through.
• akmarinov 3mo ago
  This comes a week after Sony deleted 500+ movies from people that legally bought them https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/sony-removing-over-500-movies-205500646.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/sony-removing-over-50... Who's to say that the games you buy for the PS6 will be playable in a couple of years?
• NDlurker 3mo ago
  And this is coming right after the news about how Sony will be deleting movies from people's accounts.
• ai_ja_nai 3mo ago
  what will happen when in 10 years they will want to discontinue those games? will they be hosting them forever? how are we going to preserve all the videogames production from 2028 on?
  • explosionpunch 3mo ago
    The unfortunate thing is that there actually already is a government mechanism for this, in the US at least, but it's been lobbied against by the industry [0]. So like, there already is a way to do this, the same way that libraries are allowed to preserve copies of every book, but the video game industry blocks it from happening. [0] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/u-s-copyright-office-rejects-dmca-exemption-to-support-game-preservation https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/u-s-copyright-office-...
• CM30 3mo ago
  Well, if Nintendo and Microsoft go the same route (and sadly, I see that being almost inevitable at some point), that's probably the end of my interest in gaming as a whole. I generally refuse to 'rent' or 'license' things on a temporary basis, and have decided in this generation that every game I'll get for Switch 2 will be a physical game on cart version, without exception. And the reasons for that are pretty simple. I like being able to resell games when done with them. I like being able to lend them to friends, or play them on as many consoles as I want. I like the idea of having something that companies (generally) can't remove due to licensing changes or an always online requirement. This sort of change just feels like yet another step towards constantly renting rather than owning, or streaming games and media without any control over how or when you can use it.
  • criddell 3mo ago
    I'm guessing you know this already, but I thought it's worth saying - some Switch 2 carts only contain a game key and not the actual game. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/68415 https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
    • iamjake648 3mo ago
      At least they clearly label them and make them easy to avoid!
    • arm 3mo ago
      Even that Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Card implementation still works better for parent’s game reselling use case (for a limited time) than outright removing the physical media option as Sony is doing. From the link you posted: “Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data. Instead, the game-key card is your "key" to downloading the full game to your system via the internet. After it’s downloaded, you can play the game by inserting the game-key card into your system and starting it up like a standard physical game card. An internet connection is only required when you launch the game for the first time. After this, the game can be started even without an internet connection. However, like regular physical software, the game-key card must be inserted into the system in order to play the game. A Nintendo Account is not required to download the game data.” So lending and reselling game-key cards is still possible in the same way as physical media… at least until Nintendo’s servers stop serving the game, heh.
• ihaveone 3mo ago
  Sony just literally stole 500+ movies from PlayStations last week.
• jmclnx 3mo ago
  Didn't Sony get in trouble for deleting movies from devices ? I guess they want to do the same for their console too. So people should just stop buying games that are not on phyical media. THat will get Sony to change fast.
• guyomes 3mo ago
  Some libraries let you borrow Playstation video games. I wonder if those libraries will have access to a system that allows people to borrow digital video games.
  • Pooge 3mo ago
    Lol, no
  • tavavex 3mo ago
    Libraries? Where we're* going, we won't need libraries! * 'we' - book, film and gaming industries
• ProllyInfamous 3mo ago
  I have a PS4pro; technically I also already own a PS5 (kid-brother arrangement; not currently in my possession). When he gets his PS6, I'll get my PS5 back... then still keep the PS4 (always been offline: RDR2; GTA5; &c). If Sony doesn't offer GTA6 on disc, offline: I'll sell the PS5, too. I just got a 5070Ti, so it's probably back to PC-MasterRace I'll go... Reasons like this [Sony's 2028 disc-stop] are exactly why I won't be purchasing a PS6. At least (in Sony's defense) they're telling us oldtimers about this now, as opposed to on the day of [stopping disc retail sales].
  • tapoxi 3mo ago
    Rockstar has already announced there's no disk for GTA 6, if you buy a physical copy it's just a download code.
    • artisinal 3mo ago
      So not only will a PS5 Pro and GTA6 Ultimate combo cost me €1000, I’m not even getting a disc? I was planning to purchase a PS5 for GTA6 after the first trailer but I’m not sure about that now.
      • ProllyInfamous 3mo ago
        I dream of a future Sony crack, where some ingenious youth has modded a future PS6 to use physical media, offline. As a gesture of kindness, this hypothetical hack could require an already-purchased/licensed copy in order to perform... which then allows offline cartridge-like gameplay (e.g. swap SD cards, or something). ---- When GTA5 stopped working (without updating from Win7->10, years ago), I lost a great therapeutic post-work sytem. So I bought a PS4Pro and have never let it get online – FU.sony – never will. But really hoping the cat-and-mouse game of discless playstations bites Sony in the ass bigtime. I've already got $100 for this future hacker's commissary.
  • sixdimensional 3mo ago
    You're assuming that you'll still be able to get a personal computer in the future. With the rate that we are losing the ability to purchase new affordable equipment, I am not sure how much longer personal computers will remain a thing except for hobbyists, and if they will get much more expensive.
• Pooge 3mo ago
  I can't wait to see the impact this will have on game prices due to the monopoly Sony is creating on selling PlayStation games. Thanks for the fish but enshittification is only getting started.
• wprstw 3mo ago
  The PSN store does have sales often and digital games can be up to 90% off even AAA titles. This news has me wondering how the supply of used physical copies drives game prices lower. It's possible that eliminating physical releases gives Sony the pricing power to eliminate sales, or at least cut back from the huge sales they do currently.
• somepleb 3mo ago
  Wow. Looks like I'll be skipping the PS6 and exclusively gaming on PC.
• Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
  That will put them in direct competition with Steam, though. Suddenly their cheaper console will result in way higher cost for the lifetime of the console. Killing the used market is a very bad idea. Remember what happened with xbox?
  • kouteiheika 3mo ago
    > That will put them in direct competition with Steam, though. Suddenly their cheaper console will result in way higher cost for the lifetime of the console. ...funny that so many people were complaining about the recent Steam Machine not being worth it compared to just getting a PS5; maybe now it's not that bad of a deal after all, huh?
    • Fire-Dragon-DoL 3mo ago
      It still costs double a PlayStation, but yeah, I just bought one. I have kids and a big Steam library, so I am actually saving money with that over a console
  • bhelkey 3mo ago
    When buying a gaming console, I imagine folks think more about the upfront cost ($600 for PS5 vs $1,050 for steam machine) as opposed to the total cost of ownership. The steam machine may be cheaper in the long run once you consider: * Playing PlayStation games online costs $11/month. * PlayStation games tend to be more expensive than steam games.
    • somenameforme 3mo ago
      Steam isn't the Steam machine. If somebody's on a budget a PC you could get for a couple hundred is way more than enough to run nearly all games on Steam; $600 could get you a beast of a machine. I don't really know who the market for the Steam Machine is, because that price is kind of insane. I suppose we'll see how things look in a year or two there.
      • 3mo ago
• 0x457 3mo ago
  I never understood why disc versions of current gent console exists at all. Don't @ me about internet speeds: even if game does come on a disc, day 1 patches got out of hand before this generation was launched or in works.
  • artisinal 3mo ago
    For me: resale value and being able to buy used games for cheap.
    • simjnd 3mo ago
      Exactly this. Today I can get a physical copy at release date for ~10 EUR cheaper than on the Playstation Store, then resell it for 3/4 of the price, or lend it to a friend easily. Everything about digital-only is anti-consumer. Games will be more expensive with fewer and less important discount, the second-hand market will be dead, and so will be sharing games to friends so they can experience it for free. Nintendo has implemented lending a digital game, but with arbitrary limits (you HAVE to be in physical proximity for the lending process, it lasts a maximum of two weeks, and you can lend 3 / borrow 1 game at a time). Sony and Microsoft don't let you do that.
      • artisinal 3mo ago
        As a child trading in games I didn’t play anymore was a great way of getting the latest titles at a discount.
    • _rwo 3mo ago
      > resale value and being able to buy used games for cheap This is exactly how I do it - I don't have much time for gaming as much as I would like to so I just buy one game at a time (~90% of the time it's used one), finish it, sell it and possibly look for another one; as the catalogue is so big there is no point of hoarding games I used to own xbox and had digital collection of games - most of them I never even started (much easier to hoard stuff when it's digital); I don't have that console anymore and I was left with a useless collection of stuff I don't own tied to my online account - never doing that again Overall I hate this news so much, I probably will give up with 'modern' gaming altogether
• j45 3mo ago
  One huge downside for this is allowing kids to understand how things work. A digital delivery world does not teach the same way as children learning to put a DVD into a player, hitting play, and understanding how things get somewhere. Physical game disks, were also about community, gathering. This is surprising because Sony obsessed over the isolation it was creating when it released the walkman.
  • 0x457 3mo ago
    > A digital delivery world does not teach the same way as children learning to put a DVD into a player, hitting play, and understanding how things get somewhere. What did putting a disc in disc reader thought you? > This is surprising because Sony obsessed over the isolation it was creating when it released the walkman. And they have the only online storefront on PlayStation, therefore 2nd-hand market is gone. So what is surprising here?
    • j45 3mo ago
      Good point about the second-hand market disappearing digitally, if anything it might renew efforts to jailbreak consoles. The disc is a step along the way, from record players, to reels, to cassettes, to video tapes, to discs. Instead of experiencing changes forward, it can be experienced step by step backwards. Much like Gen Z are rediscovering the 90's, along with single use devices, music players, dedicated cameras, etc, and hopefully remember some people got to experience it as their real present life.
• javierhonduco 3mo ago
  This is very sad. I bought a PS5 with disc precisely to “own” the games. End of an era, I guess.
• germandiago 3mo ago
  Bye bye then. I love physical collection. If I buy it, it is my copy, not my provider's copy for rent.
• sehw 3mo ago
  We use M-disc for archival. Fuck Sony.
• charcircuit 3mo ago
  Now Sony can take away your entire game collection at any time. If you get flagged by some random AI system and your account gets flagged you can kiss goodbye to hundreds of dollars worth of games you have.
• fhn 3mo ago
  just in time for Sony to sell you a digital game and delete it at their whim
• ex-aws-dude 3mo ago
  This sucks but I guess PC has been like this for a long time and no one seems to care/talk about it
• LetsGetTechnicl 3mo ago
  Gaming is in a really tough spot right now, and it's not being made easier by the drain AI has put on chip and RAM prices. It's absolutely insane that Sony and Microsoft have had to raise prices on their years-old consoles.
• cbolton 3mo ago
  I wonder if piracy will eventually fill for physical releases of movies and games. It might be a fun project to make an online store game work on blue ray with nice packaging...
  • dominictorresmo 3mo ago
    In Brazil we have some websites that do this with old console games. Like this one: https://oldgame.com.br/ https://oldgame.com.br/
    • henriquecm8 3mo ago
      This is really nice, some even come with a manual that looks like the original.
• dominictorresmo 3mo ago
  You'll own nothing and be happy
• MrGilbert 3mo ago
  This will hopefully backfire. As soon as there are no more physical copies of games available, Sony will run into the same situation that Apple is currently, which will make them a Gatekeeper in the EU. That will eventually mean that they need to open their platform for third-party-vendors. But, yeah. It will be bad for a few years at least, I'm afraid.
  • jwitthuhn 3mo ago
    Why would physical copies matter for this? All physical games have to be signed by Sony anyways so it's not like a third-party can produce them.
    • testfrequency 3mo ago
      Retailer exclusion. Monopoly behavior. Total market control of goods.
    • raro11 3mo ago
      They'll be forced to embed alternative stores in the PlayStation. I won't wait for it though. After 28 years of always having a Sony at home, it ends here for me at the age of 35.
      • overfeed 3mo ago
        > They'll be forced to embed alternative stores in the PlayStation. Steam Summer sales on a PlayStation? I want that today. If this decision somehow ends up with Steam and Proton for PlayStation, it will be well worth it. Gaben, please get some lawyers to write to the EU posthaste, and start porting Proton to iOS & PlayStation
        • potwinkle 3mo ago
          Technically already possible (and works surprisingly well!) if you have a PS5 with old enough firmware. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhnLdFYR2-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhnLdFYR2-s
• comandillos 3mo ago
  It backfired with the PSP Go. It will backfire again. No-go I would buy a console without disks. Sorry. No.
• zuzululu 3mo ago
  If buying isnt owning a physical disc then burning dics isnt stealing
• sleepybrett 3mo ago
  total capture of gaming by cloud streaming by 3030. You thought you owned that thing you paid for? pshaw.
• yieldcrv 3mo ago
  > Sid Shuman (he/him) Ironic to be excluding the same percent of the population as the population he is being inclusive for I find this comment substantive in that it may spark introspection by the decision makers in his or similar positions
• azraellzanella 3mo ago
  I bet people who bought the PS5 with a disc reader will be really happy...
• 1-6 3mo ago
  I wonder why Sony or Microsoft don't try to 'game' the used market by becoming the used marketplace for virtual copies. They can charge a commission for every game that changes hands.
  • hootz 3mo ago
    Why would someone ever buy new, if that was the case?
    • 1-6 3mo ago
      I'm sure they can think of some things to make new copies a differentiator such as DLC's and perks in game. Also, 'new games' eventually get discounted as the title gets old. It's one way of keeping money in the game store ecosystem constantly changing hands.
    • postexitus 3mo ago
      Maybe introduce virtual scratches? Or like maybe blur the textures a bit every time it's played?
  • bhelkey 3mo ago
    Because if they don't offer a used virtual marketplace, everyone has to buy new games directly from them. A used game market provides downwards pressure on new games.
• AJRF 3mo ago
  I wonder if the leadership at Playstation and Xbox understands they are killing themselves.
  • guax 3mo ago
    They're not. The tide changed once gaming became a mainstream activity and a common item on lots of households. Most people want to play the same games. In Brazil there are play stations that never saw any other game other than FIFA whatever year. And people will be happy to pay the subscription to keep doing that. Sony loves those people more than anyone that was loyal before because we are too demanding.
    • AJRF 3mo ago
      If you don't think Playstation and Xbox are dying I would suggest looking at their performance and statements from the past 24 months. Xbox hardware sales down 30%, 5% on services and revenue. Sony PlayStation operating revenue is down -41%. These are not healthy businesses, and the future looks even more bleak. Years away from new hardware sales, and the franchise front is desperately bad - which means when hardware eventually does land, the drivers to buy them don't look like they are going to be there. I'd love to bet against you on these businesses dying.
      • guax 3mo ago
        I don't know if they're dying. I don't know (or care) enough to figure out. Not having a disc kills it for me for sure. The ps5 sold very well very fast during the pandemic, which could explain why now that the seas are rough the sales slumped. If PS and Xbox become abandoned and cause game studios start focusing on PCs again I think it would be a good outcome. But that is just me wishing on a star.
        • AJRF 3mo ago
          I present article A: https://x.com/asha_shar/status/2074124008795369482 https://x.com/asha_shar/status/2074124008795369482
• markus_zhang 3mo ago
  That ship sailed and was sunk many years ago. I'll educate my kid to play real games from decades ago, and if he really wants to rent games he can work his ass off to buy them. Same reason I prefer GoG over Steam -- at least I can download the installers and store them, and there is no string attached.
  • autoexec 3mo ago
    > Same reason I prefer GoG over Steam -- at least I can download the installers and store them, and there is no string attached. Mostly. GoG sells games with DRM now and they don't tell players about it in advance either. Not only are there many multiplayer games with DRM on GoG but there are also single player games. For one example see https://www.gog.com/en/game/cult_of_the_lamb https://www.gog.com/en/game/cult_of_the_lamb I have no idea why they allowed that, maybe it happened when they changed owners, but I hope it doesn't keep spreading.
    • markus_zhang 3mo ago
      Ah that was said. At least I only purchase classic games.
• bromuk 3mo ago
  How times change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
  • dtech 3mo ago
    Microsoft just tried a generation too early. They could have gotten away with it this gen, and assuming 2028 will be start of next gen it looks like next gen it will go over without a fight.
    • mrandish 3mo ago
      > assuming 2028 will be start of next gen Estimates for next gen used to be 27 or 28. With the RAM shortage, end of 28 is considered the earliest.
• complianceowll 3mo ago
  Modernity, ladies and gentlemen.
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• stego-tech 3mo ago
  My household has been tied to the gaming industry in some form for decades. We’ve owned at least one of every console and handheld during that time, and a myriad of games for each. Collectors Editions, physical copies, digital if there was no other way or it was on sale. We all agreed that we’re done with this. Nintendo gets a pass for making physical carts, but we’re done with paying full price to rent content in general. That also means no PS6, no Xbox-Whateverthefuck, and avoiding Game Key Cards where possible on Switch 2 (or buying them used). If it’s not on GOG or Itch.io free of DRM, or there’s no physical copy available for sale, then we’ll wait for a deep discount on Steam or use our family library instead. Fuck this noise, we’re out.
• mrandish 3mo ago
  Between DRM, DLC, mandatory connectivity and the end of physical media, the future will look back on this era as the 'dark age' of digital gaming history. Maintaining activation servers, cloud storage and digital delivery costs money. If it doesn't disappear when the title reaches EOL, it certainly does when the company is gone or shifts business models. And draconian copyright laws create legal jeopardy around orphaned games from long-dead companies while the DMCA makes it illegal to remove DRM. We simply have no way to preserve games.
  • mywittyname 3mo ago
    For now, it's still possible to crack consoles and extract the games from disk. However, we are probably approaching an era where encryption / trusted computing is so good that future systems will never be cracked. However, the flip side is that so many games are built using common game engines, and receive multi-platform releases. So there's a broader surface area for potential preservation. Maybe the PS6 version is permanently dead, but the PC version lives on.
    • cjk 3mo ago
      Sony in particular is doubling down on platform exclusives again. I was waiting for Ghost of Yōtei to come out on PC, but Sony cancelled the port. We're well and truly fucked without physical media for exclusives like this.
      • bitmasher9 3mo ago
        Except Sony is notoriously bad at actually securing their consoles.
        • junon 3mo ago
          It shouldn't be the case that this is relied upon. There needs to be a cultural shift in the industry back to physical - or at least, preservable - media.
        • 3mo ago
• VectorLock 3mo ago
  They want this even more than they want $100 games. Rockstar not shipping discs for GTA6 and PlayStation ending disc production is the perfect two pronged approach. Honestly gamers have been stomaching this for decades with Steam so Sony wants in on some of that sweet sweet action as well.
  • overfeed 3mo ago
    > They want this even more than they want $100 games Killing the secondary market for games hasten how soon they can sell $100 games.
  • somenameforme 3mo ago
    I don't think this is really comparable at all. Sony is trying to kill off the used game market in hope of being able to coerce people into paying more. Steam is basically one giant used game market in that you get stuff constantly for 50-90% off. And pirating stuff off Steam is generally extremely trivial, so it's a largely coercion-free business-customer relationship, and I think that's a large part of why they're doing so well. People like to support businesses that treat them well. And for those that don't? Well I think there's a reason that video game piracy is plummeting, while film/media/streaming piracy is surging.
    • Jiro 3mo ago
      Prices on Steam are set arbitrarily. Getting things at "50-90% off" could just as well be described as sometimes getting them at normal price and otherwise getting them at 2-10 times normal price. It's not a used game market unless you can transfer it to other people an unlimited number of times without the original company getting a say.
      • somenameforme 3mo ago
        I have no idea what world you're living in. No prices on Steam are anywhere near 2x the "normal" price, let alone 10x. Companies that set their prices to the typical MSRP are generally seen as largely out of touch (with Japanese companies being particularly renowned for this), let alone above MSRP.
• djhworld 3mo ago
  I feel the physical disc died a long time ago, most games require heavy patching to fix bugs or download new content, or even in some cases download whole portions of the game, so they rely on PS servers to even function anyway. The only advantage they have is you can sell them or buy used. I know there's a strong desire for physical media, but games are not the same as movies or music and haven't been for a long time.
• Jigsy 3mo ago
  I don't own a PS5, I do own a PS4 however and still buy physical copies of games - some of which of late have been secondhand from CeX - because 1. I don't like renting content, 2. I hate DRM, 3. physical copies are harder to censor. Sony recently expunged copies of movies people had bought, so I honestly don't trust them not to do the same with games. Also, they announced the closure of the PS3 store, so that's even less reason to trust that I won't be able to reobtain the games I've bought digitally in the future...
  • ivanmontillam 3mo ago
    Though you have a physical copy of the game, I don't discount a future where a console refuses to load a physical copy of the game because DRM impedes it. Much like when short-lived TLS certificates expire on their own, even by being offline. Physical copies of games have in their EULA that the game is licensed to you, so theoretically they could still disable it. Precedent? BlackBerry phones refused to connect to WiFi if you didn't pay for your mobile data plan. It became a 2G brick.
    • zerocrates 3mo ago
      They have easier options. For one, just don't put a drive in the newer ones.
  • Jigsy 3mo ago
    Actually, thinking about this now, I tried to play PS1 games on my PSP about two years ago, but couldn't because they needed to be (re-)authenticated. Sadly, there's NO way to authenticate PS1/PSP games on PSP anymore. Even connecting it to the PS3 via USB and trying to authenticate it didn't work. (At least PS1 games still work on PS3 for now, though.)
    • Gigachad 3mo ago
      I think about how much hardware and software is tied in to internet activation or fragile software like ios apps that need constant updating or they will be delisted. All of this stuff is just starting to be shut down and deactivated now, the amount of ewaste is going to be massive. I now refuse to buy anything that requires an app or the interenet to use.
• complianceowll 3mo ago
  I'm done with companies whose only goal is maximization of profit via manipulative, engineered outcomes.
• Lammy 3mo ago
  They also changed the way DRM works for digital games purchased after March 2026. It used to be a permanent license at purchase time and is now a temporary license that requires online check for the duration of the refund period with the claimed reason of combating “refund fraud”. It's pretty hard for me to believe that going through the trouble to set up an entirely new Playstation account, buy a game, refund it, and have the dedication to stay offline forever to keep the game could possibly have been a widespread behavior. It will obviously be easy for them to ratchet that into online check required every 30 days once the current thing is out of the news cycle: https://kotaku.com/playstation-drm-ps4-ps5-support-30-days-online-2000691241 https://kotaku.com/playstation-drm-ps4-ps5-support-30-days-o...
• zuInnp 3mo ago
  I hope for the EU to come after Sony. Before you could argue that you could buy games as a disc and just play them. It of course was a monopoly before, but now it is pretty clear
• Animats 3mo ago
  Note related article yesterday: "Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For". Seems to be part of a general anti-ownership policy. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the lord.
• mring33621 3mo ago
  Anyone with shitty internet, have fun!
• gxs 3mo ago
  The sad thing is that the knee jerk reaction here is going to be “omg just vote with your wallet, don’t buy” But the truth is it’s bullshit and this attitude that companies should be able to do whatever they want because it’s a free market is getting so tiresome Clearly there is agreement that things can be taken too far - as soon as one single consumer protection/anti competitive/monopoly preventing law exists, you’ve admitted those types of laws are needed So then you’re only arguing about degrees and companies shouldn’t be allowed to do shit that harms consumers this way On the surface this seems reasonable - it’s inevitable - discs aren’t going to hang around forever But this goes back to what it means to own something and we’re all being relegated to serfs who don’t own shit You wanna get rid of discs? Fine, but give me an alternative so that I still own what I buy and can resell it at will
• overfeed 3mo ago
  A lot of people - rightly - pilloried Stadia for requiring a subscription and forcing gamers to "buy" games. It turns out Stadia was 1.5 generations ahead of its time. Google - give us Stadia 2 in 2027, you cowards.
• benguild 3mo ago
  This sucks. It’s better to have physical copies for retro gaming down the road
• napolux 3mo ago
  i’m a console gamer from 10+ years, bear my stupid question isn’t this the same with steam? can i buy a game on steam and copy and use it on another pc i own without downloading it from steam again?
  • chrisjj 3mo ago
    > can i buy a game on steam No you can't. When you pay for a Steam game, you rent not buy it.
    • tokai 3mo ago
      Not true. The wast majority of games can be backed up locally and reinstalled indefinitely without online access.
      • chrisjj 3mo ago
        > Not true. True. https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ "The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services." > The wast majority of games can be backed up locally and reinstalled indefinitely without online access That doesn't mean you bought/own them.
  • deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
• yumraj 3mo ago
  This is an opportunity for MS to make a contrarian bet and keep supporting physical media. IMO they will benefit from acquiring gamers who want to keep using physical media. Though, I think they will follow what Sony is doing.
• catapart 3mo ago
  I remember having a goal of eventually publishing on a Nintendo and/or PlayStation console, when I first got in to game dev. Now they've both gotten so far away from gaming as I knew it that I would be embarrassed to publish on either company's consoles. Now my focus is to be able to publish high quality games that run well on those anbernic/miyoo/ayn-style handheld devices. Those things are actually priced for consumers and the ones that have card slots provide a method for physical media. And of course, using those as a floor, the games could always upscale for more powerful machines. I'm just so tired of this continual march toward investor appeasement at the expense of the consumers. They're games. They're entertainment. For people to play. Not how I want them to play them; how people want to play them. People shouldn't have to have an account to play them. They shouldn't have to invest a month of rent to play them. They shouldn't have to worry about me revoking their ability to play them. It's just so frustrating to see how far we've gotten from "drop in a quarter and enjoy". The industry is in sad shape and getting sadder by the day.
• t1234s 3mo ago
  My last unit was a PS2 many years ago. Back then you could bring your disc over to a friends house and play on their PS2. Is that still a thing people do?
  • oybng 3mo ago
    No, all games require updates, they do not function without them
  • vel0city 3mo ago
    Back then it seemed like a lot of the big games actually bothered having local multiplayer support.
• Varelion 3mo ago
  This move, executed when storage prices are as outrageous as they are? Again, class warfare is being waged one-sidedly.
• metrognome 3mo ago
  To play devil's advocate here, imagine a world where the exact opposite has occurred: physical media (CDs specifically) is the norm, and there's no DRM, so the raw data can be copied right off of it. In this world, scalpers scoop up all available inventory of physical media from local retailers, consumers pay a premium to them for the original product, the scalpers sell cheaper copies where the game binary has been modified to insert advertisements or mine cryptocurrency, out of the woodwork appears a cottage industry of companies offering services to modify game binaries and connect them to the ad networks and crypto exchanges. The scalper gets a cut, the gamer gets a cheaper game, everyone is happy.
• xpct 3mo ago
  Yes, phasing out physical discs is predatory. I'd like to also add that buying a console which can only run vetted games has already been predatory, and digital games are only the next natural step.
• madhacker 3mo ago
  PS6, see ya wouldn't want to be ya. Sony u can keep your crappy console.
• animal_spirits 3mo ago
  I think this is good. We don't need more e-waste for disks that get used for a year and thrown away. The games can live on a tiny hard disk that takes a fraction of the resources to produce.
  • junon 3mo ago
    Not really. If the services that grant you access to your own hard disk ever go under, you lose it. You do not have access to the files. You're effectively paying for a licence to play the game for a finite amount of time, for the same (if not higher) price that physical media used to cost.
• fcsp 3mo ago
  Great buildup on Sony's side to gain trust in this move in the gaming community ahead of this announcement when just this week they again pulled hundreds of "purchased" movies from customer's libraries without refund, reminding everyone that digital content is rented, not owned. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/sony-erases-digital-content-from-libraries-were-reminded-we-dont-own-what-we-buy/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/sony-erases-digital-...
  • Marcan 3mo ago
    And don't forget closing the PS3 and Vita Playstation stores, which they announced at the same time: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playstation-store-for-ps3-and-ps-vita/ https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta... This is a weird marketing strategy. They must feel free to do as they please since they know consumers are trapped.
    • dogwalker5000 3mo ago
      > they know consumers are trapped. Gaming is a luxury good. We can all just walk away.
      • NegativeLatency 3mo ago
        Plenty of PC games, the linux distros that run steam are great too!
        • Pxtl 3mo ago
          Just because valve is a benevolent dictator doesn't mean they don't already have the same dictatorship powers that Sony is currently chiseling out for themselves. I wish NFTs had taken off as a system for managing decentralized transferrable digital purchases instead of being another investment scam.
          • brendoelfrendo 3mo ago
• animitronix 3mo ago
  Lol "shifting customer prefs" my ass. Will never buy another Sony product until this is reversed.
• soulofmischief 3mo ago
  This sucks, especially given the recent content rug pulls by Sony, but as someone who has never owned a current-generation console outside of the PS2/Wii, I'm out of the loop: What percentage of game discs sold today are even playable without first connecting to the internet and downloading additional content? Not in defense of Sony, I just think this battle may have already been lost and not enough people noticed.
  • underlipton 3mo ago
    Many games re-release as "complete" editions with updates and sometimes DLC. I don't know if those always find their way on to the disc proper, but unless they're relabeling and re-boxing dead stock, I have to imagine "stamp it with some extra bytes" is more economical than "make all-new discs put in all-new boxes but it's just the base, non-updated game AND we have to keep the servers running."
    • soulofmischief 3mo ago
      I just checked around, and according to Doesitplay?: - over 1/3 (34%) of PS5 games on disc from their sampled games are either too buggy or missing required/advertised content without downloading something from a server before first play. 13-18% are unplayable without an initial download. - 40% of games on Xbox One/Series X are too buggy/missing required or advertised content, and 10-11% are unplayable without an initial download. Some of these games may even have hardcoded download requirements. https://www.doesitplay.org/methodology https://www.doesitplay.org/methodology
• self_awareness 3mo ago
  Well, if people would prefer physical discs over digital distribution and would insist of having a proof of ownership, I guess Sony wouldn't have a choice but to prefer physical distribution. But since customers don't care, who else should care? I always prefered physical disks. That was my #1 pro-console argument. Without those disks, I simply won't buy anything console related. I vote with my wallet, simple as that. Of course I know that people will still buy digital disks and then cry when Sony will do something unthinkable like revoking access, but I guess that won't be my problem.
• Getchowned 3mo ago
  It's a pretty cynical move for certain. Hang on to the disks/consoles you have, ready for the boom in the used disks market.
• post_break 3mo ago
  The deal with consoles is if you buy physical discs, you can trade them share them or sell them. The deal with PC is if you buy with steam or GOG, you keep the games, upgrade your pc, keep playing them. You can download them to your hard drive and keep them. Taking away physical discs from consoles means the worst of both worlds. You can no longer sell or trade your games, and they are essentially locked to that hardware.
  • guax 3mo ago
    And because the hardware gets deprecated the store for that generation also goes away. So even if you keep the hardware working, the games are gone. A PS3 is still useable today even with the store gone and will be useable for a very long time. The PS6 might become a brick if its secured enough.
  • vel0city 3mo ago
    > Taking away physical discs from consoles means the worst of both worlds....they are essentially locked to that hardware. This isn't necessarily true, it really depends on how they go about implementing the sales. The question being, is the sale tied to the hardware or to the account? I've bought a number of games on the Xbox store over the years. If I were to go buy a new console and log in with my Xbox Live account, I could re-download and play those games. The games aren't permanently associated with any particular piece of hardware, they're associated with the account. Nintendo's processes have seemed like its tied to the hardware, but since at least the Wii U its technically tied to the account. This may not have been true for the Wii though, but I never really owned the Wii or Wii U. They have sometimes made it difficult to release your account from the old hardware to associate it with new hardware though, sometimes necessitating calling support if you weren't able to disconnect your account from the old hardware. When transferring accounts to a new Switch 2, my wife's account somehow got locked and it required reaching out to their support for them to unlock it so it could be properly paired to the new hardware. Definitely a frustrating pain on the first day of getting the new console. The "no longer sell or trade" part is almost always true though. I'm just talking about the game being locked to the hardware.
• thraway3837 3mo ago
  I'm not sad about physical disc production ending, since a lot of those games already required a constant internet connection to play (check DRM status). What upsets me more is removing games from the library that people have already bought. Or, not having a unified store strategy where games can still be downloaded if supported on that device. Much like Apple's App Store. If compared to an iPhone/Apple, Sony takes the cellular carrier approach: tightly integrating the game developers to the platform and the platform can remove that game at any time because the "contract expired". That is disgusting. You can still download games onto the latest devices from ages ago on the Apple App Stores, as long as you performed some minor binary updates with a newer Xcode. That's it.
• osmukka 3mo ago
  Now is the perfect time to jump ship and stop supporting these greedy blood-sucking soulless conglomerates. Game companies and brands like PlayStation, Nintendo, Activision-Blizzard and XBOX have demonstrated time and time again that they don't give a flying fuck about customer satisfaction, quality of service or such meaningless things. The only thing they care about is growing their revenue like cancer and sucking every last fraction of a penny out of customers like a dehydrated vampire. The only reason they are able to do this is because we are allowing them by voting with our wallets against our own benefit. Luckily people have finally started to notice this and I really hope 20 years from now the previously mentioned companies, among others, have strangled themselves to death with their own greed. I just wish more people realized that they are not actually dependent on the services these companies provide and, in fact, it's quite the opposite. More people realizing this and acting accordingly would make the death of those greedy giants happen faster.
  • lenerdenator 3mo ago
    There's only one thing that gamers love as much as gaming: complaining about how greedy gaming companies are. But that's an equal love at best. They'll still fork money over hand over fist for games and the associated revenue streams. They're addictive and are literally designed by companies to be that way. And it goes beyond that these days, really. There's identity and community wrapped up in these online games. Some dude who's been playing WoW since the late part of the Bush administration and who has tattoos and talks daily with his clan or whatever it is literally doesn't have anything else. He's in middle age. The marketers won.
• daytonix 3mo ago
  welp def not buying another ps product ever again lol. if i have to have digital games i'd rather just have the files on my pc where i actually own them.
• insane_dreamer 3mo ago
  dammit I only purchase physical games (usually used); I don't want a digital library. Expect XBox to follow suit soon (maybe even Nintendo)
• retinaros 3mo ago
  that will be my last gale console
• petarb 3mo ago
  Not a fan of this and other consoles moving to digital only. Behind us are the days when you could share/borrow games with friends
• tancop 3mo ago
  the backlash is already massive. 5k negative comments on the official blog post and counting. ign, dexerto, local non gaming news accounts from my country all full of people in comments saying they want to go pc or xbox if sony follows through. i know theres a lot of defeatist talk here about how physical media is dead but almost everyone is taking this as a big deal even if they buy all their games on digital. people want that choice. the only question is if they care about it enough to get the government involved. im not 100 confident its happening but when you look at stop killing games its proof that players can organize.
• dzonga 3mo ago
  I guess the steam machine just came in at the right time. so if you want offline access what happens ? if I wanna trade games what happens. ?
• dzonga 3mo ago
  just to add - the only way I was able to play Last of US 2 - was buying the PS4 version and playing it on my PS5. now that avenue is closed. :(
  • compiler-devel 3mo ago
    I did the same thing with Ghost of Tsushima because I heard that the PS5 version had performance problems.
• sehw 3mo ago
  You can buy copies of DRM-free games on GOG.
• temporallobe 3mo ago
  Guess I’ll be boring and stick to my old hardware and games (PS3, Switch, GameCube, Wii, and even my SNES Classic).
• compiler-devel 3mo ago
  The PS5 will be my last Sony console. The PS4 probably should've been my last, but I got caught up in the new generation hype cycle. The PS5 has, practically speaking, no games. It hosts a lot of ports from other systems, but the number of unique, new, and interesting games is near zero. Just rehashes from the PS4 era in the form of DLC, remasters, etc.
• NoPicklez 3mo ago
  I think console players are going to enter the era PC gamers did over a decade ago, but this time it will feel forced as opposed to happening naturally as it did with PC's. Heck, I have games I bought digitally over 2 decades ago that I can still download and play. There's no way I'd still have kept a box from when I was a teenager.
• whatever1 3mo ago
  You will not have to deal with clutter if you don’t own anything.
• PostOnce 3mo ago
  One of the selling points of consoles is the secondhand market, and the physical games. If digital only, then consoles have fewer differentiators to PCs, and PCs let you play online without a subscription. It's not a given, but it's a plausible future that steam boxes outsell playstations, and that Sony loses its lucrative cut of game sales because people moved to PC since there was no differentiator for consoles other than extra hassle and costs compared to steam.
  • drdexebtjl 3mo ago
    They must think platform-exclusives titles are the differentiator.
    • PostOnce 3mo ago
      There are far fewer of those than there used to be, because games take longer to develop now. Nintendo has been the only one really good at that, and even there, they're slipping. For example, the Switch 2 has been out for a year and has no exclusive Mario or Zelda games yet. They announced another Zelda remake.
      • saghm 3mo ago
        They've had a couple pretty well-received Pokemon launches in Z-A (not quite mainline, but also about as close as you can get outside of an actual mainline games) and Pokopia (which kind of took everyone by surprise how well-designed it actually was), and don't forget the that the Switch 1 era was sandwiched by two insanely popular Zelda launches that virtually reinvented the franchise and brought a huge number of new fans to it (myself included; I had never played a Zelda game before 2017) who would potentially be extremely interested in a remake of one of the more popular older games. They wouldn't be slipping compared to the Switch 1 Zelda renaissance if they took another six years from the previous title to come out with an original one, which would put it in 2029. I'm not saying they don't have their issues; Pokemon launches since the late 3DS era have been somewhat notorious for performance issues (and of course aren't technically developed first-party, although they're certainly Nintendo exclusive, and I think there's a pretty strong argument that bringing them in house might actually improve the situation), and the Mario Kart entry for the Switch 2 seems to have been considered somewhat lackluster, but I don't think it's totally reasonable to start making long-term predictions yet. In the aftermath of the Wii craze, it would be easy to make similar predictions given the lows of the Wii U era, but they obviously came back pretty strong in the following generation, and there doesn't seem to be much evidence that they've come close to sinking that low again yet. I think they tend to try to vary the order that they do major releases between generations. The Switch 1 era had Breath of the Wild as a launch title (that also launched on Wii U, which is easy to forget), and Mario Odyssey came up before the end of that year, and they re-released the Wii U version of Mario Kart rather than coming out with an original entry. After the huge cultural zeitgeist around Wii Sports when it was paired alongside a Zelda title for the Wii, they seem to have been trying to repeat that with somewhat quirky minigame compilations alongside major franchises; the Wii U had a weird theme park thing with the new Mario game, and they paired Breath of the Wild with the extremely forgettable 1-2-Switch and a co-op puzzle game that I don't think I ever heard of anyone actually playing.
• oliyoung 3mo ago
  PlayStation saw Microsoft's recent news and decided to take out the trash this week. The entire console gaming industry has been decimated in the last few weeks.
• rietta 3mo ago
  And thus demarcs the extinction of games published after that date. 100 years from now those disks will be all that is knowable to the extent libraries and museums preserve compatible drives.
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• DiabloD3 3mo ago
  Thats a weird way for Sony to announce the end of the Playstation
• asdaqopqkq 3mo ago
  They should make a draconian law that if anyone for any reason caused by the vendor is unable to access the game afte paying for it, the vendor will have to upload that game in a torrent for free for everyone on the planet. The people will decide how long the torrent lives.
• millerm 3mo ago
  This just means I am done with buying game consoles. I'll be done with buying any new games soon. I've been around long enough where there is a backlog of games that can last for the rest of my life. I don't need $2000 video cards, tomorrow's hardware, and MMOs driven by big corps. Indie devs will still exist for the people who wish to keep buying games for PCs. Hopefully Linux takes off in that world. Who even knows how much longer we'll be able to buy our own hardware that isn't infested with some sort of regulatory must connect to the Internet kind of garbage. I'm passing the baton. I'm just done.
• VanTheBrand 3mo ago
  My first thought reading this was I wonder if Sony is planning to wind down or spin off Sony DADC, their commercial optical disc manufacturing subsidiary they’ve run since the dawn of the CD. Sony DADC presses every PlayStation games but also has spent decades manufacturing CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, UHD Blu-rays, software, and other optical media for 3rd party customers across the entertainment and computer industry. If PlayStation discs disappear in 2028, that removes one of the last massive, guaranteed sources of demand for optical disc production inside Sony. Even if the plants continue serving movies, music, and third-party clients for a while, it’s hard not to wonder if this announcement is also the beginning of the end for one of the last major end-to-end optical media manufacturers in the supply chain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Digital_Audio_Disc_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Digital_Audio_Disc_Corpor... https://www.sonydadc.com/productsandservices/manufacturing https://www.sonydadc.com/productsandservices/manufacturing
• p1necone 3mo ago
  Ever since I had the disposable income to burn (so ~PS3 generation onwards) I've been someone that always eventually owns every console from each generation. Usually just one of them initially and then the others a few years later when they get cheap. I think I'm going to stop buying new game consoles and games now and just stick to PC (mostly via Steam) and emulation. Might continue with switch stuff if they keep publishing proper physical media. I find myself revisiting console games that came out 20+ years ago often, and that's a large part of the reason I buy them. It's still putting my trust in an online store, but I have much more confidence that my Steam games will still be usable a couple of decades from now than the xbox/ps stores. And historically Nintendo has totally axed the online store for each console when the new one comes out, including killing the ability to redownload already purchased games, although they did retain the same store between Switch 1 and 2. Will be interesting to see whether Steam stays safe when Gabe eventually dies/retires. I think if he passes it on to a trusted successor it might be good for another few decades+, but if the company gets sold or publicly listed I have no hope. (As a side note, if anyone is a console gamer primarily because of the nice "turn it on, get controller, play with no stuffing around" vibe of it - a pc in a small case with bazzite-deck installed that's just permanently hooked up to your TV is a very seamless experience, it's remotivated me to play a lot of stuff on PC that I would normally default to buying on consoles - JRPGs, racers, platformers etc.)
  • abrookewood 3mo ago
    Valve are one of the very few companies that I trust & respect. Of course, that could change ... which is why stores like GoG are so good as well (only sell DRM free games).
• wackget 3mo ago
  Consumers need to fight back on this, and I don't just mean by protesting or complaining. Consumers need to start buying more used media instead of buying new. They need to use services like GOG.com instead of Steam, even if it's less convenient. They need to decide that if they can't buy a DRM-free or a physical copy of something then they simply won't buy it, and be confident in that decision instead of caving in to FOMO. It requires a mindset change which I fear will be too difficult for most -- which is exactly what Sony is banking on.
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• jimbobbam 3mo ago
  Great Sony, go to thumb drives.
• Acrobatic_Road 3mo ago
  I've been thinking of diving into Kazeta. Its a linux distro for DIY physical media.
• sevenseacat 3mo ago
  Looks like the PS5 will be the last Sony console I buy.
• Schlagbohrer 3mo ago
  [dead]
• rldjbpin 3mo ago
  time to short gamestop? jokes aside, as someone who has never bought physical games, the landscape for physical ownership in this space was already shrinking. there is a major chunk of playerbase who only plays online multiplayers, which are tied to always-online mode and constant updates. even if you could buy these titles on a disc, practically speaking they carried very little value of physical ownership. we are just boiling the frog with little more intensity now. if it is possible to repurpose the bluray reader of ps5 to connect to pc, it might be a nice way to invest in one before they stop selling too.
• jurgenburgen 3mo ago
  It was nice while it lasted. I usually borrow games from the library since I don’t really have enough time to play for justifying a 80€ purchase. Will skip PS6 and probably just not bother with gaming.
• poulpy123 3mo ago
  You will own nothing and will be happy
• throwaway613746 3mo ago
  [dead]
• lofaszvanitt 3mo ago
  It was long expected. Sad news, but to be honest I can count on my one hand how many games I replayed throughout the years. Since most of them are one shot, the story and gameplay is usually not that strong to warrant a replay. So, other than becoming exposed to Sony's aggressive pricing antics, there is not much to be seen here. At the same time this might bring people closer together (eeerrrm, it won't) by sharing their accounts between each other.
• codingjoe 3mo ago
  Is that going into effect globally? It's hard to believe this will sit well with Japanese customers where second hand gaming markets are, dare I say it, culturally relevant.
• SlightlyLeftPad 3mo ago
  For me: All incentive to purchase a console is now gone. PC and Steam is the way, at least while Gabe is around.
• prios8 3mo ago
  Will this become the new vynil?
• surcap526 3mo ago
  [dead]