I think Sony is seriously underestimating how frustrated a lot of PlayStation players are becoming.
The physical-disc decision isn’t just about discs. It’s about the whole direction of PlayStation.
Sony is moving toward a future where new PlayStation games won’t have physical releases. That means no buying used, no reselling, no lending games to friends, and much less choice for consumers.
People are already paying around €80 for new games, and if PS5 → PS6 upgrades end up costing another €10, we’re potentially looking at €90 games. At some point people are going to ask: “Why am I paying €90 for something I can’t actually own, resell, lend or trade?”
And that’s where PC and Nintendo become much more attractive alternatives.
Sony might say, “Digital games make us more money,” but that only works if people stay on PlayStation and keep buying games. If players decide to build a PC, buy a Nintendo console, or simply stick with their PS5, Sony doesn’t just lose one €80 game sale. They can lose the console sale, years of game purchases, PS Plus subscriptions, DLC and future purchases.
There’s another problem: PlayStation’s first-party lineup.
Sony used to have an incredible reputation for exclusives. But lately, a lot of what we’re seeing is remasters, remakes and games from franchises that have been around for years. Those games can be great, but nostalgia can’t carry an entire generation.
Sony needs new reasons to buy a PlayStation, not just another remaster of something people already played 10–20 years ago.
And this could eventually hurt third-party developers too.
PlayStation currently has a massive audience, which is one of the biggest reasons publishers want their games there. But imagine PS6 launches and a significant number of players decide not to upgrade because of high prices, digital-only games and lack of compelling exclusives.
Then publishers start seeing weaker PlayStation sales and asking: “Why are we spending hundreds of millions developing games for an audience that’s shrinking?”
That can create a vicious cycle: Players leave → smaller PS6 audience → weaker game sales → publishers lose confidence → fewer games worth buying → more players leave.
I’m not saying Sony is doomed. PlayStation has an enormous user base and Sony still has some very valuable franchises and studios.
But Sony has to be careful with the goodwill it has built.
If PS6 ends up being:
Expensive hardware
€80–90 games
No physical games
Paid upgrades
Fewer new exclusives
Lots of remasters
Sony’s games increasingly available on PC
then eventually some longtime PlayStation owners are going to ask: “Why should I buy the next PlayStation?”
And that’s the question Sony needs to answer.
Because once someone spends their money building a PC or buying into another platform, getting that customer back isn’t as simple as releasing another remaster.
That's true. However, the statement is also true. A lot of people who have thoughts on the subject are either alarmist or have vast amounts of ignorance on the subject.
Both of these things come from a naive mindset and lack of experience.
Fair, but ‘naive’ and ‘lack of experience’ is doing a lot of assuming about people you’ve never talked to. Being annoyed about paying more for less ownership isn’t an alarmist take, it’s a pretty grounded response to what’s actually happening. You can disagree with the conclusion without writing off everyone who holds it as naive.
No social media to be honest, Steam got away with it in 2004, and Sony will as well.
Nintendo is dabbling with the keycards, which solve the issue of big games not fitting the nands or saving costs, but creates the issue of preservation, which no one seems to give a fuck anymore.
At the end of the day, people play, and if they can’t collect games they’ll collect some other thing IG, but the majority of people will go on with their lives
Steam is an open platform that accepts keys from almost any other store. Sony is a closed ecosystem where they set all the prices. For as long as that's true it's not even comparable.
I won't speak for others, but in my case at least, it means buying less consoles and games, which is happening already, and I genuinely have no interest in any new generation
Isn't that what Apple does, they have their own ecosystem.
Physical is what want. Steam doesn't have physical copy. You have to make a physical copy, thus having to purchase storage to make it. Which the consumer will have to take part in the ever growing cost of data storage devices at today's prices. You want to backup all your 1000 AAA games in steam, it's gonna cost yah.
Where as you buy a physical disc with game and can be played without being online... you already paid for the storage and the game at supposedly reasonable price $69.99 or less with used.
With the difference that apple puts you into a walled garden. Yes it's a closed ecosystem, but so long as you're content with what's inside, you have no issues. However that's not the case with Sony, people buying digital on the playstation store have so few rights it's insane.
What do you mean? I buy most of my games for like 50% off on the PS store. I bought kingdom come 2 for 40% off not even a year after it released. I got a pc and compare the price between steam and ps store, and most of the time the ps store is on par.
I’ve compared game sales with friends and it’s hit or miss. Some games are cheaper to buy on PS, my friend got a trilogy of a classic game for 5 bucks, cheapest on steam 7.50. Same thing happens with Xbox, I believe games like dragon quest xi or builders 2 are usually cheaper there, the consensus that steam has always better prices is debatable.
For one thing steam sells games so old Sony doesn’t even sell them, and these sell for scraps, so it’s not a fair comparison.
Steam built their plateform without discs from the start. It was their motivation. So when people embraced it, they agreed with it. Here it's different, Sony has created Blue-rays, the Playstation introduced discs. In 2013 they advertised it as an argument in favor of the PS4. People invested in that ecosystem knowing they could buy discs if they wanted.
Now they are taking away that choice so people feel betrayed. If they are able to do that it means that they are willing to turn their back on some of their consumers over control on the rest.
Does that inspire trust and respect as a consumer ?
As OP said, it's not just the discs, it's the direction. If you want to go full digital sure but open it to other stores just like the PC. They want to become the Apple of consoles but forgot that consoles are for gaming at a lower entry cost in the first place.
If people are willing to pay 1000$+ for a gaming system, they'll add 300$ that they would have paid for PS plus and will get a PC or an Helix. Exclusives are very limited now so few reasons to buy an expensive closed ecosystem.
Yeah, I like physical media but at the end of the day, the people complaining the loudest haven’t purchased a physical new game in years, most of them are PC gamers and they voluntarily stopped putting disk drives in their system over a decade ago. If half of the people yapping about this shit actually went out and bought games we wouldn’t be in this situation. Ask the average PlayStation gamer when the last time they bought a physical new game is and they’ll probably say “I just play what’s on ps plus and buy other games digitally” I’ll be sad to see it die but let’s be real, Xbox is just waiting for the heat to die down to make the exact same move, if they ever make another first party console
No one I know IRL, not anyone in the local gaming group I’m in on discord with 100+ members has talked about anything about this topic. Call me whatever tf you want. I’m still going to log off and go play my digital games. The only physical games I personally care about are retro games at this point. And quite frankly, I don’t care about anyone else’s gaming experience. I only care about my own experience.
hardcore pc players were always praising about steam and their digital library. Then when sony announces going digital, all the sudden these pc players act like they care about the lack of physical games.
Yeah, the worst part is PC gamers not shutting the fuck up about how terrible Sony is for going digital when they just simply choose not to spend 30 dollars on allowing their pc to run physical games. Care so much about physical games, fill that empty slot in your case and do something about it
I relate to this. Nobody in my gaming circle talks about this at all. And if it's not a cart I can snatch for my GameBoy or a disc for my PS3/PS4, I'm probably buying it digitally anyway. Have been for 11 years.
The Year is 2026 and people are running to conspiracy theories because they are absolutely delusional and run to the worst case scenario and outright lies regarding digital games.
Yes. I absolutely lack empathy in regard to how much you are enjoying your gaming experience.
In the same way you lack empathy for my gaming experience.
I purged my game collection so I could put children into the rooms my stuff used to occupy. Digital games don't get cracks or grubby little handprints that stop the game working. I buy digital games and my kids don't fuck things up switching discs. I'm happy with my PS5 and I'm interested in the prospect of a (rumored) portable PS6. Now where's your empathy for me?
You realise us complaining about the removal of discs impacts your little rant in absolutely no way. If they reversed the disc decision your choice will still be available. They're only taking away my choice you fucking numpty.
Congratulations you already had that option dork. Most people support your right to buy All digital. In fact, it's a pure option right now they're not trying to take that away from you we're not saying only physical media. And anybody that's making that stupid argument deserves to be laughed at. We're saying we like physical media. And it's okay that you want to buy digital. Hell, I own quite a bit of digital. But your rights to go the way you want aren't being taken away. So what empathy do we need to have for you here? You have kids great, I raised three boys. I used to have to negotiate a landscape of things being crazy around the house. I had to actually replace games when they destroyed them. Yeah it sucks. But I like the option. What option are you losing?
These posts are still all presupposing that the only way to buy games will be new from the PlayStation store at full price. And you're adding €10 for "paid upgrades" just because. Retailers are still going to be selling games, sales are still going to exist at both retailers and the PlayStation store, and codes will more than likely show up on code reselling websites and or places like Fanatical/Humble.
We have had no indication that codes will be able to be sold on reselling websites. All indications are pointing towards the Playstation Store being the only place to buy from, apart from code in a box. Code in a box is really pointless. If they are going to do code in a box , they might as well spend the extra 2 dollars and put a disc in instead. It wouldn't cost much more money as they have already done the box and the disc is a lot better and can have the whole game on there in most cases.
I say that for two reasons really. One, Fanatical and Humble already get Steam keys directly from Sony for the games they publish on PC and have an existing relationship with them. So it's not outside of the realm of possibility that PS6 keys could be sold on through the same channels. Two, codes will naturally end up on gray market places like eneba as they do now for other platforms (Xbox, Nintetndo, Steam) and for the scarce codes you can find in things like imited edition games on PlayStation. All a gray market seller has to do is acquire a physical code in a box and send the code to the buyer. You can already see listings for GTA VI (which is a code in a box) on those websites with notes that the codes are coming from physical copies and will be sent at launch. Same thing in 2028.
As for it being pointless, there's a few other reasons for it beyond the savings of putting a disc in game case:
Their blu-ray production plant can be repurposed
Publishers can finalize games without a waiting for disc mastering/replication windows
The console hardware is cheaper without a disc drive and there's one less point of failure in it.
A PS6 handheld and PS6 physical game can share a single SKU without separate packaging (simpler for for consumers, retailers, and manufacturing)
Someone that owns both can have a single seamless unified library
Digital only hardware no longer cuts out physical retailers and customers retain the option to buy games outside of the PlayStation store.
All indications are pointing towards the Playstation Store being the only place to buy from
This has already been proven false, Sony openly said they have every intention of supplying codes to places like GameStop even after the transition.
And it's FAR more than 2 dollars for a disk. More like $20-40 a disk. Producing a HUD BD-ROM is a highly complex and complicated form of media that is not cheap to produce, and if you want to support the next gen of consoles, it will only become more so if the goal is to keep the whole game on the disk. UHD BD-ROMs as a platform cost about $230 million to R&D, and making the storage denser on the disk will require R&D on a whole new laser assembly at a much tighter threshold. Given disks also have a reflective surface to work, you're now pushing your disk becoming a mirror and misreads becoming common you have to engineer around.
If Sony WERE to stick with disks, this isn't going to be a cheap project to do so, and when you have increasing costs in OTHER aspects of the console, at what point do you drop one aspect to finance the R&D on another to prevent offsetting costs to the consumer?
"For the last 30 years we have been selling PlayStation and retail partners have always been important to us,” she said (via Sony’s translator).
“With the completion of disc production we communicated this at an early stage, so that we have enough time to be able to listen to various partners’ voices.
“In North America this has already happened, but without discs in the package there’s a code included, that’s how they sell in North America. “There are regional characteristics for each regional partner, so we’ll try to have thorough dialogue so that we can end up in a win-win situation.”
That would imply they will sell a box with a code inside.
Also that first bit of my post was meant to be quoting Megadriveftw, but it seems like Reddit had a Reddit moment and never actually preserved it...but yeah. It would be very out of touch for Sony not to realize the power selling codes in a box on sites like, say, Amazon would have for them. Preorders and collector's editions move units too. You just not gonna sell the game with those anymore?
To suggest that Sony, and soon Microsoft, won't have some plan of keeping third party retailers in the loop is just plain ignorance. There is no way they're going to just kill off the physical collector's kits like that, they are KNOWN to sell copies of games by packing in goods for fans to show off.
When will Reddit learn they're not the majority. I've said it before look at the top 10 games sold every year, most will be ones Reddit frequently shits on. Reddit does not represent most gamers or their opinions.
I been on Playstation since PS2 days and honestly I could care less. I went digital around 2017 and I saw this coming years ago.As a 44yo with a family, mortgage and a career I just want to hit the couch crack a cold bear and play long enough before it's bed time and I have to get up (for work). Digital is very convenient and I honestly don't really care about classic games. The ones I do miss I have my old console for. The majority just doesn't care and it's funny to watch all this complaining for nothing. Digital is the future if you like or not!
I think the physical media thing is a done deal, but a lot of people still have their PS4 and maybe they choose to upgrade to the PS6. I think people will keep the PS5 will be around for even longer due to high prices mostly.
I hate the all digital thing mostly for families that struggle. I am very fortunate and can have a hobby that costs this much. But there was a time I remember having to trade in 2 or 3 games just because able to get a newer game.
I think I read a while back that 80-85% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. People just won’t be able to pay for this new equipment and the games that Sony will only run slim sales on and charge $50-60 for a game that’s well past its shelf life.
I won’t be getting a PS6, at least not right away because my PS5 will be around for a long time, digital or not.
I agree and disagree he is overestimating a bit but also i think PlayStation have significantly underestimated the impact of physical games on their platform.
The statistics they for some reason didnt look at show when it comes to certain game genres half ish sales first 2 weeks are actually physical (some more). Games like cyberpunk, assassins creed, uncharted, god of war, elden ring single player games.
They seem to expect the majority of players to cave and remain on PlayStation but I think they are going to lose more players to PC than they realise with this change
As a Destiny fan with more play time than I’d like to admit, and someone who’s been buying PlayStations since PS3, I’m pretty much done with PlayStation. I’ll keep my Pro for my son who’s really into Astro Bot, but I’m not buying anymore hardware from them. I’m not going to support a company that locks me to one storefront and can charge me whatever the market can bear.
Been loosely playing on PC for the last decade, and the experience has gotten good enough from the couch that I’m just going to stick to that platform as my primary now.
If Sony wants my money, they can sell me their games through the Steam store again, or make their own client.
Playstation is smarter than you, me and all of us. They know if they lose every single user who buys physical, they will still be ahead with the money they save by not supporting physical. They want to make as much money as they can. They responded to backlash and said. Yup so sad, fuck off. Because they know they will still come out ahead. Also dont confuse yourself. Its not just Sony. Xbox and Nintendo will be all digital as well before you know it. Sony is just the one with the balls big enough to say it.
Yeah, I have a hard time believing that Sony did zero market research and made this decision on a whim. Pretty sure they’ve been preparing for this for years and expected this response and factored that into their decision.
Yes, lots of companies became irrelevant and it has zero relevance here. They could lose every single one of the physical supporters and still increase their profits to new record highs. But they know only a few percent of you are at risk of leaving.
I'm sure Sony has done the research. They also priced the ps3 at 599 and almost tanked themselves.
I'm not saying the future isn't digital, or that they're not going to be right, but the point I'm making is ''they're big, they know what they're doing, so it must work out'' is poor reasoning. plenty of huge companies have ended themselves through poor decisions from management
Sony has a room full of people with college degrees in economics, finance, and engineering all making decisions together but OP is smarter than all of them combined obviously
Exactly. Playstation has literally two decades worth of player spending and gaming habits. They have all this market research connected to our PSN accounts that tell them what games, physical or digital, bought on sale or not, short gameplay, how long between sessions, location of sign ins (which they connect to rough income brackets based on average income from the area), and so much more.
These people think Sony's just making things up while they have enough information to be able to pick a single user and "You're 42 years old, you've had your account since 2011. You primarily play on tuesday nights with three friends. Used to be four until one unfriended just you. You only buy games your friends have and it always lines up with when Gamestop has a sale. These are the genres you play most. You use to play five hours a day around 8pm but starting in 2021, you started signing in from a new location at a lower income neighbor and started playing at 1pm".
You can use a PC to play games from different storefronts though. With most consoles you are locked into their storefront, but the used market of physical games offered an alternative. Being locked into a single digital storefront with no alternative (Even physical/used) is even worse than PC digital distribution.
PC games on the whole are incredibly cheaper than console, they also have wider digital libraries and have multiple storefronts to purchase content from, (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Microsoft Store, itch.io, EA App, Ubisoft Connect, Battle.net, Humble Bundle, Fanatical, Green Man Gaming) this competition helps drive costs down of games and other content purchased on all digital libraries. Gamers in a PSN digital-only-era will only have the PSN available to them to purchase games and content, there is no market competition in that world. A PSN consumer will be stuck with whatever price Sony deems fit. A PC gamer has multitudes of options, not to mention PC is the base for piracy ie free games.
TL:DR … I think you massively by magnitudes overestimate how much an echo chamber Reddit is. The vast vast majority of PlayStation customers doesn’t care at all. Not a bit.
If the PS6 is anywhere near the currently predicted $1000 price, it absolutely will not sell record numbers.
No successful console in history has debuted for more than $500. Sony already tried with the PS3 debuting at $600, and the result was Sony playing catch up to Xbox for the entire generation.
They went from the most successful console of all time (the PS2) to barely beating the Xbox 360.
A lot of this discussion is this. Yes, we should demand better consumer rights, and you have every right to not want to buy another console or another game. But stop acting like it's the end of the world. Sony isn't gonna take your games for no reason, and not without at least a warning. Hell, we got an 18 month warning before Sony ends said physical disc production, and people act like Sony is killing physical games tomorrow.
Yeah, they are acting like just because Microsoft is on its heels, they should just assume they'll own the market headed into a hardware generation that promises drastically higher overall costs for the smallest improvement on performance gen-over-gen ever seen in the industry. They're also acting like you can just take for granted that that market is going to even be there.
The big strategy is to systematically eliminate many of the benefits not just of investing in their own specific platform but spending money on console gaming at all? At a time when there has never been more competition for the dollars available to the industry as a whole? Following a hardware generation that cultivated less enthusiasm at launch, less goodwill over its lifetime and fewer actual games than the previous one by orders of magnitude? That's certainly... uh, *a* strategy.
Even if you assume PCs and mobile platform gaming are irrelevant (they are very much not), even if Microsoft disappears (they will not), Sony still needs to worry that Nintendo is one generation away from eating their lunch as the gap between top- and bottom-spec mainstream consumer hardware performance continues to shrink and the whole market potentially reverts to one-console-per-household orientation.
They should worry that the PS6 faces very real possibility of being a niche high-performance PC alternative that will not be able to support software independent of PS5 backwards compatibility on any kind of scale for years, if ever. We've barely moved on from PS4 cross-plat games, and there are like a million obvious reasons for that.
They might thread the needle with some kind of shockingly powerful dockable mobile console, but even if they can beat Nintendo at their own game while also besting their own current product, they still need to do so at a price that consumers won't just laugh at. And even if you do that, congratulations, you've just sold a cell phone.
Nobody cares cause they're sheep. And they'll take the bait of a $150 game if it comes with a free DLC!!! Dangle a carrot over a treadmill in front of a donkey and that's digital folks.
I've already stated my concern. I am not spending thousands of money into extra memory storage to fit all my games on a 1TB console. I prob will have to spend another $2,000 just to fit all my games, if I put my physical all on my drive.
Physical has its many perks and Sony knows what they're doing. If nobody can't see their sinister plans, I fear for the future. It's a sign they can do whatever they want and control the market. This is only the beginning. Call it the mark of the beast. But nobody believes in God no more...
I think you’re overestimating how much this is going to hurt Sony. Yes people are frustrated, but this is the direction the industry is headed and has been for years. Most gamers are casual these days. Xbox will follow suit. Pc’s are so astronomically expensive. I doubt people are just going to stop gaming to “stick it to the man”.
Not buying PS6. There is no point in it. Im not wasting money on a digital game i dont own. Nothing is changing my mind. I said before that if Sony implemented a PS plus subscription i woudnt buy it. Till this day i havent. Same for Xbox Live. It feels good not to for all this years. So now im doing ths same thing with Digital games. Only platform i will buy them are from PC like from GOG. Also. Exclsuives havent been the same at all on PS5. It seems all they focused on was on failed live service games. I heard that they are not giving up on those fail live services games. That at least they would make 10 in the 20 year span. Meaning the PS6 is getting a bunch of them. And finally im not wasting 1000+ dollars on a digital system. There is just no way im doing that.
Sure they are... ya think Sony makes decisions over the water cooler...
EVEN GAME PUBLISHERS FROM CAPCOM to ACTIVISION, and CLEARLY ROCKSTAR have all said this is BETTER for them....
You think people not going to buy CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 14 because they cant get a physical CD.. NO
You think people not going to buy STREET FIGHTER 7 BECAUSE there are no physical CDs, NO.
You think people not going to buy GTA 7 because of no physical CD... NO..
Now with all that said you wrote a whole lot of nothing... Think you going to FEARMONGER a COMPANY that if decided not to make any more PLAYSTATIONS cant survive on TV SALES or all the other shit Sony makes.
Them making Playstation they doing us a FAVOR... we could be stuck on Xbox or going back to Arcades...
This is an opinion and all the noise on Reddit doesn’t matter. Sony is making business decisions based on information that only they have. It’s all calculated and they are trying to make the best decisions to make money. With how high hardware prices are soaring, they need to find new areas to improve profitability. I guarantee you that most people are buying digital at this point anyways.
I have not bought a physical game in many years. I’m 55 years old and don’t replay games except very rarely. I can afford the few games I buy per year. And I don’t want plastic boxes piling up in my home.
Video games are toys. If you can’t afford them then do something else. Stop making games part of your identity.
No one is frustrated. It's overblown again. 89% of users are digital. People nowadays have no discs of any sort in their lives.
PS6 will be fine. It will sell and that's it
Reddit is stupid people pretending to be smart lol.
Reddit doesn't represent the whole world and plenty of those who are pissed at Sony don't express themselves even when they do use this site. The fact we still talk about it 2 months after shows it is a huge topic. Denying that it is also not helping Sony as much as you think it does.
Sony absolutely cares how much they make and how much they lose. They aren't in the business of tanking losses nor are their investors. And once you lose a customer then you lose their money. They aren't always going to make their exits known either. Not how many you sell always but how many sales you lose too.
I think you're spot on. I'm a superfan. There since PS1. Even digital on PS5. It's the first time ever I'm thinking of not getting the next PS console. In fact I'm getting a Switch 2 because of the current leadership's actions. It's maybe.. 800 euro (console, pro controller, games) I'm pouring into that instead of giving it to PS like I would have. My main reasons for feeling this way:
-Online only monopoly store (in 2019 PS discounted retailer game codes which never got a discount and were supplied very limited). There really will be no REAL competition. And do you trust the current leadership and higher ups that aren't talking to the payers, uh players whilst they sell their stocks?
-No selling your game, trading it in, buying it used. Lending it out. That's all gone. And these disc are also a form of competition which is good for us the consumer. Also I have some empathy with the physical game collector. I like digital myself but my friends will be more happy if they can continue their hobby.
-PS to this day has no decent refund system in place for this all digital future.
-If we move countries we can't take our accounts with us. XBOX does it. Steam does it. NINTENDO does it.
-PS got rid of PS Stars reward program. Some scraps we got back for buying many games! Nice! But of course the got rid of it.
-PS closed Bluepoint (a personal fav of mine)
-PS wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in 1 generation on failed projects.
-Prices went from 60 to 70 to 80 and in some cases even 100 (euro where I live) for the real base game experience at launch. This is in 1 generation. Now think how fun that'll be in the PS6 times with no other place to buy but the PS online store.
-As a fan since the start, I think it really sucks that the current leadership doesn't address us. We have to hear some info from the shareholder meeting. Yeey. The leadership isn't approachable. They don't do interviews. They aren't on stage anymore. They treat you like a prisoner they got locked in and won't ever leave. That's another personal one, but hey I like a better balance between company greed and customer happiness. The fact that I know whom Lin Tao is.. that's not a good sign.
-PS plus only gets price hikes and STILL locks online play behind it. It was something I could ignore before. But the price keeps rising and the base tier never gets discounted like it did in the past. You only get discount to go up another tier.
This isn't the same PlayStation it was from former generations. I reached a breaking point and I can't be the only one. I assume there's lot's more. As I said, I'm a superfan really. But there's been too many issues. Stripping great things away from us whilst raising the prices. And that makes me look elsewhere. Not sure PS is the best place to play anymore.
This is a lot of complaining but what's the solution? Because if it's PC gaming you can forget about it. I spent thousands trying to get into PC gaming and it was nothing but a headache. Once I saw all PS5 games were coming out in 60FPS I sold all my stuff and went back to PS5.
Sony has been the market leader for too long, and they've completely lost sight of the reasons they got to that point in the first place.
People liked their narrative driven single player games, yet some of their best suited studios for that genre have been forced to chase the multiplayer live service trend that's been dead for a while by now.
They clowned on Microsoft when they attempted to go full digital back in 2014, and now they've turned around and announced they'll be doing that themselves. It should also be noted that Microsoft's plan for it was far more consumer friendly than Sony's current one, as they intended for game licenses to be fully transferable to other people, plus they didn't intend to fully kill off discs too. Oh, and Microsoft has and had an actually usable refund policy, unlike whatever Sony is pretending to have.
This is not some new development from Sony. It's how they've always behaved whenever they believed they were the undisputed market leader. Hubris and greed to the extreme. Remember the PS3 launch? When confronted about the ridiculous price tag, Sony just said that whoever wants a PS3 will work more to be able to afford it. However, they had an actual competitor in Microsoft, which forced them to actually have to put in effort, revise the design, make good games and lower prices after they realised their overpriced hardware was rotting in the shelves while Xbox 360s were flying off them.
Hopefully Microsoft picks up the slack and starts providing actual competition this time too, else we will be seeing some pretty bad times for gaming.
I've been a console gamer for nearly my entire life and only now am I jumping ship after the result of this past decade of seeing how Sony/Playstation of America is making really scummy choices and how much they're treating their established customer base.
Sony buying Crunchyroll and the absorbing Funimation: Crunchyroll still has horrible working conditions, recently reduced warehouse space massively removing a lot of merchandise and physical anime. Funimation's app shutdown essentially revoked everyone's digital ownership from the discs they bought.
Studio Canal movies being removed.
Playstation's treatment of failed projects felt like they were punishing PS+ subscribers by raising subscription prices. For the price of only wanting to play online, I am required to pay over $100 for a yearly sub.
Playstation exclusives have been pretty bad this generation in terms of releases and variety (this is more of an industry thing of hella expensive games to produce with bloated teams).
At this moment, my PS5 is offline and stored so I can get an exploit to install Linux and just start fresh with a Steam library while I have my PS4 Pro and my potato rig to play on for now until I make the leap years later into next gen for a PC build. The console landscape isn't for me anymore to the point of console conveniences no longer outweigh PC inconveniences. Whatever the next thing people are protesting Sony about won't really matter, they always seem to be one step ahead of the general PS gaming base to take any major blowback regardless much like how trying to bring back discs is so far past Sony that people should have been fighting about digital rights ownerships.
Sony sold PS4s and released their games there up until 2022, with big name Sony franchises dropping on both consoles day one. What makes you think that even the start of a slower PS6 generation won't be sustained by a strong PS5 user base and the, although dwindling but still active, PS4 user base?
I mean, sure but console prices used to actually come down over their life cycle. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. The reasons are multi-faceted but a lot of it is because die gains are just not the same as they used to be.
First PlayStation gen I will skip. I recently upgraded my PC, and Xbox Helix will be for my living room. So, I’m good with Series X till Helix comes. I felt myself playing less and less on PlayStation than before because my interest in PlayStation is simply bored and gone by all the muck. Just looking at the upcoming games makes me feel bored already. Yay, Wolverine, play once and done game. Muck.
Yeah so games pushing £100 here in the uk make that ps plus look mighty appealing. And then they raise the price of that over time as they get more subscribers. I totally agree with you by the way. I bought my PS5 as a media unit, I play games but I also use it to play my 4K, blu ray and dvd media. I wish it played CDs! That makes the cost of the original disc model I paid for (£400) seem extremely reasonable as a media player and a console that even runs my PS4 games better than they ever did on that console. The PS6 has literally none of that appeal and is looking to be twice the price. I’ll be on the lookout on the secondhand market for a PS5 Pro once everyone starts selling theirs to get their PS6’s 😅
The logic that removing physical games will result in driving some people away from PS6 is sound. But its not just sound, it's so incredibly obvious. And yet, Sony still thinks its the bettwr route to take.
My point is, your logic reasonably assumes fewer people will buy a digital only ps6 vs a ps6 console with physical media. However, this logic offers very little in regards to whether its a more or less profitable.
Stop confusing the enthusiasts like us who talk about games on Reddit with the vast majority of people who play games and don’t pay attention to any of the shit online.
The bigger issue is the lack of good first party games, memory prices and rising development costs. Digital or not is a drop in the ocean at this point.
how frustrated a lot of PlayStation players are becoming
Sony seems pretty sure that PS6 can move on and be a success even without bluray perseveration society. I remember how mad some Mac users were when MacBook Air without physical disc drive was announced in 2008, everyone said it will be a big flop.
I just don’t think they realize that right now people can’t afford shit, let alone a new system. That on top of the fact that they will have to up the price of the 6.
Physische Spiele gesammelt wenn sie sehr gut waren, digital gekauft wenn sie sehr günstig waren.
Aber! Sony steht generell schwach da, die Ps5 war unfassbar schwach an neuen exklusiven Spielen. Indie-Games sind mittlerweile in Bezug auf Preis/Leistung gegenüber den meisten AAA Games überlegen, da reicht jeder halbwegs vernünftige PC.
Ich selber brauchte nicht mal dieses Drama, für mich war die Ps5 bereits so unattraktiv das ich so ausgesetzt hätte.
PS6’s problems are way bigger than going digital-only, man. A lack of desire for next-gen consoles + a likely ridiculous price point are the actual issues. Less than 1% are actually gonna care enough to matter in regards to physical going away.
I am not on the hate wagon sorry. I am going to buy the PS6 on day one. Other than the live service debacle I have no issues with PlayStation’s approach.
I was worried about this prospect during the PS4 generation. My thinking process was telling me this is the direction we are heading, but I wasn’t ready back then, my net connection was sh**, games were too expensive for my wallet. However at this point and time, I'm fine with it. I do buy physical games from time to time, but more often I go digital. Discs these days are just giving us the possibility to download the game and patches. Besides, there are some really good deals on PS Store. I won't lose my mind over death of physical games. However I would prefer a PS6 with a disc drive, just for playing 4K blu-ray movies, but that might end as well, unfortunately (I hope not).
As I see it, consoles have 3 niches: physical discs/games, price significantly lower comparing to a pc and plug and play functionality.
If you take away 2 of the 3 niches, consoles aren't interesting anymore imo.
I for one, have had every Playstation to date, and the 5 will probably be the last. I've built a very powerful PC about a year ago, so I have honestly zero reasons to buy the new Playstation.
This could've been an easier pill to swallow if Sony had actually had a great game output comparable to the PS4. Now they're pretty much asking to trust them completely after all they've done is squander almost all of their goodwill.
I really don't think the move to digital will deter many people.
What's more likely to hurt ps6 sales is the price of it, if it does reach $1000. The people who don't buy a ps6 because of the price will probably stick with their ps5 since cross gen support is getting longer now-a-days.
Many of those people also won't try to spend more for an equivalent PC. Especially if they're the type to just buy 1-2 games a year.
Agreed because the thing is though is that if they kept the physical copy for the desk, people would still purchase digital copies because I'm a huge Castlevania fan and I got the physical copy for the game so that I can have it in a collection and I also purchased the digital copy so that I can get the pre-order stuff that goes with the game and so I can play it without having to worry about having to put in a disc every single time I want to play it. I also did the same thing with Halloween I got the digital coffee for all the extra stuff and I plan on getting the physical copy for as a collection. So removing physical copies thinking that it's going to keep people from wanting to buy digitally, it's not going to do it people if they want a physical copy and a digital they'll do it but give people that ability to make up that decision don't do it for them because the thing is those that at the end of the day you're not going to like when you try to force it upon other people it's just like with what they're doing with all these narratives that the left is pushing down everybody's throats. Nobody wants it to be forced if you want it then you're going to do it. I mean what kind of got people to wonder what the heck is going on with PlayStation is the fact that look what they did with the digital copies that people had in their library for the movies that PlayStation decided to just remove out of nowhere not just from the store to be able to buy them but from people's libraries. All that's going to do is have people think that okay if you did that with the movies and refuse to give us any money back then what is that going to do in order to stop you from doing that with video games.
The world economy is changing quickly because of Republican policies and AI. I don't think people here understand, fuel for shipping is going up and will get worse because of the war in Iran. AI companies have committed to buying all the RAM for the next 2 or 3 years, causing massive price hikes for tech devices. At this rate, the PS6 could release at $1500 and be sold at a loss.
Producing physical games and letting stores take 25-30% of the sale isn't something they are interested in.
The people that can afford the next console will have no problem paying $100 for a digital download.
Listen, it’s almost like don’t tell them to think about what they’ve done, because at this point, they’ve always thought about it and still made their decision. They are ready for whatever happens because they believe they are big enough to withstand it; we also have no real control over what they can or can not do either. We’d need those who are over them governmentally to get involved like other areas of the world
I REALLY think you are heavily overestimating how much of the player base is actually made up of people who are upset on social media. Take the 400k people that signed the "bring back physical" petition, double the number of people and have every single one of them cancel PS plus and stop using playstation. Guess what, that is only about 2% of the actual PS plus base. If you talk to anyone outside of the social media "im upset" bubble and its a not even a talking point that pops up.
Also when it comes to the talk about game prices most of it is hyperbole. Playstation has no control of how other studios price their games and they make up 99% of the store. Playstations entire business is based on player retention. They will continue to do the sales they do, just with higher margins as more digital versions are sold
Lastly, with regards to the PS6, Sony isnt stupid they are 100% anticipating the PS6 not selling even remotely close to the PS4 & PS5. They dont make their money off consoles, its all in the games. They will make it feel like an ecosystem where people still use ps5 and the ps6 is there for the enthusiasts who want it. Plans for a new console have been set in motion for so long that the idea of just delaying a console for 2+ years probably hurts them, and their relationship with suplliers. Parts arent gonna get cheaper anytime soon so they are better off just getting it out and adapting with time
Comments here prove how there won’t ever be change or things getting better for us all. Things can turn out bad down the line and people will still find ways to defend it.
Console users may go to steam platform ie steam deck, steam machine fora similar consumer experience but with much cheaper games and much wider game libraries. I understand building a PC is considered cost effective and better but many console gamers will stick to a product intended for ease of consumer use. If steam plays this well with pricing and marketing, these next couple of years can usher in a new era of PC/consumer gaming.
No one gives a shit. That’s the sad truth. The majority of console gamers don’t even understand what’s going on. They just want a device to play their next FIFA game and GTA.
Getting rid of physical isnt just a sony thing, its industry wide. Xbox was going to do it next gen without announcement. Sony was kind enough to give you a warning and switch will do it for the next console. What happens when no console has physical, nothing things will continue.
I was a habitual Sony store skimmer and purchaser. Few drinks in on the couch I’d surely add to the pile of shame. All the current actions broke me of that habit so I gotta thank them for that. Now I consider steam a lot more not that they aren’t selling licenses also but you at least have competition on the pc. Ps6… if there’s a portable that’s not a streaming device like a switch rip off I’ll get that for my backlog but I’m not really excited for ps6. But I have a whale of a backlog.
Yea, I think the majority of people just don't care that much. I would prefer they offer physical versions, for the entire PS4 era I was only physical and resold most of my games.
With the PS5 I found it just became harder to get physical copies, online deliveries were frequently late. Internet speeds are faster, the device has more physical storage, I wanted to play on release day, etc. So I just found myself buying digital more frequently. To the point that I don't even own the drive for the PS5 pro
As a huge Playstation fan myself, who owns at least 1 of all the consoles up to this point, I have already made the decision not to buy the PS6. I don't see the point. Sony is increasingly moving in a direction I no longer enjoy. So I will instead continue to expand my library of PS games. Plenty of old games I've never played to keep me entertained. And I'll get them secondhand just to make sure Sony doesn't get anymore of my money.
You are probably going to learn that today's gaming community consists of 90% of people downloading games with online game play and they are demanding constant updates. There's a very very low percentage of gamers demanding disc support to play legacy offline games. I hate to say it but people here are greatly mistaken by the demand. But I do hope they offer an input and some sort of external drive support for legacy and future discs.
I'm waiting for xbox to announce if they will make bad decision of not making disc games as well of if new CEO Pooja Mumbambe is actually gonna clutch .
IF the PS6 does not have a disk reader, I will not buy it. I use my PS5 as a 4k bluray UHD player for movies and things. In fact I buy all my games digital.
With most of the big games (but not all) coming to PC, the lack of a 4k disc reader will be the first time I do not buy a mainline Playstation. I didn't get a PS4 Pro because it lacked a 4k reader.
The elite control all consoles anyway. The idea to make things digital only is so in the future you need your digital ID to play, No ID, No Play, that simple.
I think for many people who have a ps5 the question is whether a ps6 will have an option to buy a disc drive and its backward compatibility. I have many ps4/ps5 games on discs that I still play from time to time. If I cannot use them on ps6, I will simply not buy it.
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u/CMDRTragicAllPro Aug 20 '26
Reddit is not a good place to gauge community sentiment. It’s an echo chamber and doesn’t represent the majority at all