That should be more than long enough to get past the attention span of sony customers
Something something sense of accomplishment…
Their competition (Nintendo and Steam) already don’t have physical media. Nintendo is moving towards 100% Game Key cards, and Steam is all downloads. Playstation could have used physical media as a competitive advantage, but decided against it for cost reasons. So now this is the end of gaming physical media. The game sizes are just way too large.
Just to be fair, the Nintendo Switch 2 does support “Game Key Card” games. Such that you still must download the game and use the card to authenticate your game.
However there are zero first party* Nintendo games that are “Game Key Card” games. If you buy Mario or Zelda you do get the game on the card.
I do expect that will change in the future and follow the trend Sony is taking to be 100% digital. So you’re right to be concerned that they are heading in the same direction.in fact with Sony already heading that direction it’s even more certain.
*(Pokemon, which feels like a first party and Nintendo owns a large portion of, is technically third party.)
Sorta annoyed Nintendo didn’t receive as much flak as this with hoards of people trying to justify game cards by pointing at Microsoft and Sony.
Nintendo is beyond the event horizon at this point.
And that’s alright. Like, if you can afford a Switch and you get it so your family can play Pokopia and Animal Crossing, all their nonsense doesn’t really matter to your lifestyle.
…But if it does matter, “Nintendo Fans” are in waaay too deep to plausibly defend them anyway.
I had no idea “game key cards” were a thing until this comment sent me down a rabbit hole. What a total scam! Clearly deceptive and anti-consumer. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a class action lawsuit yet. Maybe most are ignorant like myself.
How is it a scam? It is exactlly what is printed on the box. Not everything you dislike is a scam.
The box and packaging makes it look like you are buying a physical game that will play for years after Nintendo turns off their servers. If someone wanted to buy a download key, they could buy the little cardboard scratch off things. Packaging it as if you were actually buying physical media is intentionally misleading.
There is a huge banner at the bottom of the cover art that clearly states that a download is required. It’s only misleading if you can’t read.
the cost to produce and distribute (or rather, the lower profits), was secondary… waaaay tf under the top 5 reasons for dumping physical media: control, control, control. control, and control… control over your “purchases”
You know. Store agnostic game key cards would be so cool.
I’m fine with archiving downloads I’d want + keeping keycards.
Task failed successfully?
In a just world they’d never go back.
They’re just trying to ride out the backlash until we all get distracted enough by other news to forget about it.
Yeh they’re expecting the upcoming Microsoft/xbox layoff-ocalypse to dominate the news and make their news yesterday’s story. I’d bet they were expecting the layoffs to be announced yesterday on the Friday.
Also there’s nothing they can say that hasn’t been said already that will make people who are angry change their minds, so there’s literally no point. It’s a vocal minority and the best thing for them to do is ignore it.
it’s a vocal minority and the best thing for them to do is ignore it.
lol no the best thing for sony to do is not be shit.
Sony have been shit for 10+ years, and PlayStation is literally in the best financial position they have ever been. They’re printing money for Sony.
Like I said, it’s a vocal minority complaining, and the best thing for Sony is to ignore them. It’s not the best for the people complaining, in fact it’s the absolute worst because they’re complaining because they want Sony to acknowledge them and reverse course, but Sony are not going to do that so saying nothing is in their best interests.
They’re betting on GTA VI dominating the news as well.
Should’ve waited until September or something before announcing it.
Nah, it’ll have blown over long before then. It’ll be out of the news and people’s minds by August.
I agree. No point in documenting the backlash with social media posts when they aren’t going to change their decision.
On a side note, are physical copies of games anything more than install disks anymore?
Not really, but they’re install disks you can trade in or lend to a friend.
Provided the disc doesn’t require a phoned-in registration key. I think Bioshock started the trend along with limited installations.
Console games aren’t like that, never have been.
Console games also used to be entirely on disk, and didnt require online connections just to play an offline single player game.
Times change.
So you think that they’re going to re-introduce disks and add a “phone home”?
I’m saying, not be cocksure in the ignorance of “That never happened before, surely it’ll never happen in the future”
Because gaming companies have spent the past 15-20 years stripping away our rights and our ownership and our ability to play our games that we’ve paid for.
Depends on the game. Many games are still playable from disc.
It’s interesting because Japan has traditionally been very big on physical media. I guess Sony PlayStation has had some foreign CEOs recently that may be a factor??
Sony is a weird shitshow of a company. Too big and too many departments and branches, with no one knowing what the other is doing. Back in the day, as Sony Electronics was developing their first physical MP3 player, Sony Music was lobbying to make MP3s illegal. Department heads shift to a different branch and shutdown anything their predecessor was working on.
And Sony “solved” the issue by requiring you to use software called Sonicstage to transfer music, and that software re encoded everything as ATRAC with OpenMG DRM.
Could this be a signal that CDs DVD and Bluray Discs production maybe coming to an end soon? The companies that make them are very likely reporting low sales and a lot of stock on hand.
I mean, I’m all for replacing physical items as it reduces physical plastic waste.
But it does put the onus on consumers to pay for the storage rather than the manufacturer and prices for digital are not any lower than physical so all it does is save the manufacturer money, not the consumer. If it resulted in a 10% decrease in game prices that would help.
The other issue however is that manufacturers do not guarantee a download will be available forever. If that were guaranteed there wouldn’t be an issue, as digital games often need to be re-installed if a bug or error occurs.
physical media for movies and tv is next on the list. sony makes those, too.
they saw the $$$ in perpetual subscriptions.
PlayStation has had foreign leadership for 7 years
How crazy is that for a Japanese company.
Nissan was ran by a Brazilian guy for almost 20 years.
Sure. I just found it humorous a multi-national company like Sony is run by a ‘foreigner’. Foreigner to whom?
Most publicly traded companies are ran by a revolving door of CEOs from around the world. They live a totally different lifestyle from normal people. The majority of wealthy people are not aligned to any country. Only to money.
Most CEO’s have a ‘big item agenda’ which they implement in 5-7 years. After that, it’s time to move on to look for the next challenge. I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing in and of itself as it provides new insights and goals for the company.
Sometimes this works and sometimes the company dies due to the incompetent new CEO or is a CEO hired by a hostile takeover private equity firm to extract as much money from it as possible.
PlayStation, not Sony.
Omg. Do you know the difference between a product and a company?
I wish this would be the anine cabbage of the gaming world.
Wouldn’t that have been the Golden Horse Armor?
It still is in regards to music releases.
Almost every indie creator in the touhou scene releases CDs on booth or somewhere adjacent.
24+ hours? Wow.
Now that Xbox is dead they can do whatever the fuck they want
Wait what? I thought there was a new one in the works? I could have swore I saw a post about it this week.
Yeah, but unless Helix suddenly fixes everything Xbox has been doing wrong since they debuted the XB1 in 2013, the brand is probably dead shortly after it launches.
I would have understood them making this call for PS6 onwards - digital edition only. But while they’re still selling disc PS5s at eye-watering prices? What the fuck are they thinking? Way to burn good will with your ever-shrinking fanbase.
I am imagining the marketers leaving the office with life jackets riding small boats. 🛟🚣
Just buy a PC, fuck the consoles. That will teach em!!
Unfortunately even a super low spec pc is still double the price of a PS5.
Also the overwhelming majority of console owners are already 100% digital.
Right now? Yes.
Before the AI bullshit, no. There was a ton of builds you could do for the cost of the PS5. Not everything needs to be current gen. On top of that most people who build a PC don’t upgrade it for a good 5+ years usually (if not longer), and you’re usually not upgrading everything at once, just the GPU usually. It’s not needed since games literally still run perfectly fine for years and years on older hardware. AM4 systems running ddr4 are now a decade old. I have an AM4 system running a 5800xt (second CPU) and a 6900xt (bought used), and it still handles pretty much everything on high settings @ 1080p, even new stuff that comes out.
That or buy a steam deck for like $300 used lol
Right now, and for the foreseeable future.
No one should be buying a steam deck, even a used one, in 2026 as their main gaming device. That makes the steam machine look like a 5090 powered beast.
People don’t want to buy a PC that already can’t play current gen games.
Yep. The steam deck was basically the equivalent of a budget PC stripped down and shoved into a handheld.
And this was 4 years ago when its new. Which relied heavily on low resolution and resolution scaling to even make due.
Now its even worse, especially with no significant price drop, and double especially with the ridiculous price increase they put on it.
Steam deck is an interesting device, and I’ll give valve credit for it. But its past its time, especially with the lack of price reductions.
With how underpowered it is, there are a dozen Android handhelds like the Retroid pocket 6 that are significantly cheaper and will be better at playing your steam library than the steam deck.
From the digital side,you can purchase games from gog, which offers DRM free games. You can download the installers and use them in perpetuity.
Yeah, as long as you don’t want to play anything other than indies. GoG misses out on 99% of AA/AAA games specifically because of the lack of DRM.
Its getting better BG3 and Reanimal and a few other AAA games recently have made their way there.
I think selling it back from CD Projekt to the original creator will slowly see this change to where more and more games are found on there day one.
But yeah if a publisher is a dickhead and not budging on DRM steam or Epic is pretty much your only option. And that does tend to happen. But in that case it isn’t really GOGs fault for what the publisher won’t allow.
That’s the thing - it’s not GoG’s fault, but that doesn’t change the reality of the fact that it is a wasteland if you want recent AA/AAA games
The fact that CDPR sold it says to me that it’s never going to be anything more than it is now in regards to being a real alternative to steam. If CDPR couldn’t do it, with all their financial backing, no way in hell can a single guy.
Unsurprisingly, when a publisher is paying $100mil-$300mil to make a game, they don’t want it ending up on pirate bay and every other download site free of charge for all within an hour of release. They will never release on GoG without DRM.
That’s not true at all, but yes consoles will be a bit more expensive than comparable Consoles.
What’s not true? The steam machine and comparable PCs are about USD$1200 when you add in a controller. The base PS5 is USD$650, or $600 for the digital one which is more comparable since the steam machine and PC’s are digital only.
The Steam machine isn’t as powerful as a PS5.
That a super low spec PC is twice the price of a PS5.
A PC that will outperform the PS5 Pro by a decent margin could be had for about $1000 today. An entry level gaming PC could be had for $700 or so.
The premium you pay for a PC over a PS5 is only 10-15% and that’s only because Sony sells them at a loss to recoup later in PSN subscriptions and online store purchases (This is why they’re killing physical media).
You’re saving 10-15% up front at the cost of being trapped on their platform forever and you’ll pay more over the life of it in PSN subscriptions unless you play single player only games.
That’s not true at all. Have you had your head in the sand since the steam machines reveal? A machine that matches the steam machine is about $1000-$1100. That is less powerful than the regular PS5.
To make a PC as powerful as the PS5 Pro will cost a lot more.
Care to show me this ps5 pro beating pc for $1000?
It sure is. I think your problem is you don’t know much a gaming PC costs, or much at all about hardware, so your only frame of reference is the Steam Machine, which is a small form factor pre-built machine with notoriously poor value for the money.
Care to show me this ps5 pro beating pc for $1000?
This dynamically changes with price, so for posterity this listing is $1,062
Literally the only thing the PS5 Pro beats out in this build is that it has DDR5 instead of DDR4 RAM, but even that in no way makes up for its shortcomings in other areas. The PS5 Pro’s GPU is close but doesn’t quite match the performance of the 9060 xt, and the PS5 Pro’s CPU is absolutely gimped next to the 5600x due its remarkably small cache and power limitations.
Yeah but you don’t pay monthly for internet access and you have tens of thousands more of pc exclusives
PS Plus is $80 a year for the basic and $160 a year for the ultra premium with like 300+ games. And they give you 3 free games a month even on basic. And if you buy a game, you can share the game with a friend and play online together with the same copy at the same time. With steam sharing one of you has to be offline on that game.
At $600 for the system and $80 a year that’s going to take over 6 and a half years before you hit the $1000 mark.
I have PC and PS5 and am in the middle of making cheaper PCs to get my friends to finally jump ship from PS’s BS and I can tell you absolutely with 100 percent certainty that the guy is right. It is not cheaper. It is way more expensive.
Not sure why he got down voted for that truth.
I’m resorting to making BC 250 builds for my friends (basically will pay a subscription cost through electric now but progress is progress) and it still isn’t cheaper for what you get with PlayStation.
But fuck them though killing off physical and throwing their weight behind ESA to try and make hosting your own game servers illegal and just years of anti consumer bullshit has made me intent on leaving them for good after this year.
SONY has always been a
littleenormous shit.Actually they used to be pretty good back in the 80s and early 90s when they were a hardware maker and the company was always headed by somebody from the Engineering division - they made high quality consumer electronics at reasonable prices.
This is how they built quite the brand name.
Then in the late 90s (if I remember it correctly) they bought a major movie studio in the US and after a few years the top job went to somebody from the Media division.
After that all their electronics (such as Bluray and the MiniDisk) was locked down by design, quality fell a lot, they started lobbying heavily for things that would make Intellectual Property more valuable such as extending the duration of Copyrights, the DMCA and Anti-Circumvention legislation, and became so anti-consumer that they even put out music CDs with rootkits for people who listened to it on a PC.
But yeah, for over 2 decades Sony has been pretty much Evil.
I see someone remembers the 2005 rootkit debacle. Such assholes.
…and killing the dual boot feature of the PS3, and attacking Geohot for rooting the PS3 (so people could resume dual booting)…
Shows how much they care lol
They are afraid haha. And they should be. Dammit.
they gotta come back sometime
