Right!!! We paid EXTRA for the disc drive for physical media!

This is what pisses me off the most - they committed PS5 to physical media the second they made a disc edition. Any reasonable customer would interpret that as discs being a viable format for the lifetime of the console. If they were making a call for PS6 and beyond I’d understand, but they took our money for the disc edition, then reneged on their commitment to it. There’s a class action lawsuit here for sure.

Might very well be that they were talking about the PS6 since the announced date was 2028 and they’ll probably have the PS6 come out around that time or even before?

Remember, PS4 release date to PS5 release date was 7 years. PS3 release date to PS4 release date was 7 years. Logically they’ll try to shove the PS6 down our throats starting November 2027 and any new games coming out on PS6 only, are going to be digital only. Game releases aiming for Christmas 2027 are still expected to target both platforms, hence free to ship both physical and digital.

It’s just a single lost sale so it doesn’t matter to Sony or R*, but I was considering getting a PS5 to play some Sony first-party games and GTA VI assuming good reviews… But then we got the digital-only announcements for the future of PlayStation and GTA VI… And apparently GTA VI is going to lock you out of some singleplayer content if you don’t get the ultimate edition or whatever… Yuck.

They don’t care. They think (and hope) people will buy the new ps6 at whatever price and will accept digital because what choice they have? Get a switch 2? Or an xbox (can you even buy them?). Nah, the guy playing fc, or cod, or nfl or gta will buy one. And let’s be honest, that casual gamer who gets the same titles every year and eventually buys something else (still mainstream) is the biggest part of their playerbase.

Some people will switch to pc but the majority will silently buy a ps6 only digital because let’s be honest, they don’t care if FC26 becomes unplayble in 2030, by that time, they’ll be playing FC30.

Jokes on you Sony. I’m still playing emulated PS2 games.

The RPCS3 collection is pretty good too.

They’re doubling down, nice. I didn’t expect anything less from you, Sony.

All because they can fire a whole division that’s responsible for physical media to improve margins. Then control and limit the users ability to be able to play the content at virtually no cost to them, while also forcing them to purchase a subscription (double dipping) to be online, while also enforcing an always online policy so they can collect data (triple dipping).

Someone will be getting a new yacht and the users will be getting less value for more cost. PS5 is my last console, it sucks anyway.

Sony has a whole division dedicated to physical PlayStation media? Do you have a source for that?

I left PlayStation after the 3 for Xbox. Then I left Xbox for steam. 🤷‍♀️

I did the same, Xbox-360->PS4->Steam Deck

I wasn’t going to buy PS4 but I got it as a Christmas gift from family. Same with my Switch. I don’t use either one. Haven’t used the PS4 in at least 2 years.

I never had Xbox but I do use Steam. At this point I’m not even buying AAA games because of so many studios and platforms being terrible to consumers.

I have to think that they just haven’t parsed out the games that are downloadable-only vs those that have both digital and physical editions.

I also think they don’t care and they really just want more control, like every other awful corporation driving these anti-consumer practices.

They didn’t; GameTheory on YouTube actually went through the numbers pretty recently, and of all the games available physically - I believe sales were ~50:50, or slightly trended towards physical.

Oh dang. That’s awesome. I’ll have to look that video up, as I love it when people parse out the data and give us more insights.

It’s because platform owners can do whatever the fuck they want, it’s disgusting. There was some movement about PS5 blackout but it won’t do shit because there are enough plebs an whales who will more than make up for the small proportion of conscious gamers. I seriously hate this market so much.

I seriously hate this market so much.

People contribute to it. People don’t leave for alternative markets without central networked service dependency. Such alternative markets would need financial power to contribute to their survival (of course there’d be pressure to kill them), and for that they need to grow. It’s a chicken and egg problem.

Until enough people get burned by it, nothing will change. When they will, it’ll still be very uncertain, because there are harder and easier markets to make money. P2P applications make little money, because of their advantages being downsides for those trying to commercially sell them, for example. Providing infrastructure makes more money, but still less than platforms, where you sell infrastructure, connectivity, moderation and advertising simultaneously.

So when it’s only professionals’ and businesses’ choice, we lose and platforms win. They need to eat something, they prefer to eat better than to build a better world where someone else will say “thank you” to them and that’s all.

Conscious customer associations and education are mechanisms that might eventually change things, but that will take time, because both have been unbalanced by the insane amount of money tech industry has raised in the last 20 years and will raise more. Society takes time to adapt. Then it’ll be so-so, not good and not terrible, like with most things.

I’m in blackout since the news. Fuck them.