Between Sony and Xbox it’s clear the major corps just want to take your money without actually making or delivering games anymore. What’s the point.
Kids are out here paying like $60 for vinyl records and overpaying for CDs and cassette tapes and you’re telling me you can’t sell physical games anymore? Skill issue. This is a mistake.
Nintendo is a pretty anti-consumer company and has been for a long time. I had long considered their malfeasances worth not supporting them - but at this point they’re comparatively the good guys now? Turns out having games be your only/primary business model is kinda important for a games company.
Blaze have made a success out of the Evercade as a physical first platform by appealing to enthusiasts. I don’t see why Sony couldn’t approach physical games in the same way, especially when a disc drive is already an optional extra on PS5 Slim/Pro.
This news was the cherry on top of a shit day for me personally. Man this is such a bummer, I love having my games physical. Some of my friends have asked me what the issue is if most of the game data isn’t even on the disc any more…they shut up as soon as I mention “MFER HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BORROWED A GAME FROM ME?”
Very frustrating time overall in the games industry. Between this, the Xbox layoffs, and the GTA non physical/$100 complete campaign issue the games industry is in a weird spot for larger studios. Thankfully smaller studios and indie devs are pumping out incredible games so there won’t be any shortage of games to play.
As someone who just got into the PS5 system about 2 years ago, the only reason why I buy games on PS5 Is because I can play the games ON DISC. Yes it copies from the disk to the SSD and I’m ok with that, but at least they can never take away my copy. I love having my physical media shelf full of the games/movies/anime I love. Sorry not sorry Sony, you now just lost a future ps6 owner and customer of future games guess I’ll stick to Steam and Nintendo from now on. Guess now is the time to get the games I want on discs because prices will now only go up sadly.
Incredibly boneheaded move in a time where physical storage is increasing higher and higher. Digital-only in a locked-in console ecosystem seems like an incredibly bad deal for consumers— physical media was one of the long time core arguments in favor of these types of systems. At the very least with the Xbox Rog Ally it let’s you have an Xbox and Windows experience, so you’re not beholden to their siloed storefront. Could be an easy layup for Microsoft if the Helix is a similar mini-PC, but then we likely are going to see egregious pricing issues like what the Steam Machine released at, as selling multi-use devices at a loss it not economically feasible.
Will be very interesting what some consumer advocacy groups over in Europe have to say about this, especially with all the longstanding legal challenges to the Apple & Google Play stores on their respective devices. Feels incredibly easy to loop this situation into a similar type of argument.
I’m in the same camp. I was thinking about picking up a PS5 the last couple weeks because of Sony’s decision to pull back on bringing their 1st party titles to PC, but if they’re going to be this anti-consumer I’m just going to shift my money towards a Switch 2. LCD on my Switch 1 just started experiencing issues so looks like Sony made the decision of which console to get pretty easy for me. There’s basically no reason to buy the PS6 now whenever they come out with it; you’re just going to be getting a worse PC, and for what? A few exclusive games?
The industry keeps wanting to ramp up prices on games, but yet they’re making it less appealing to buy them. Their claims that demands for physical media is dying must be coming from some kind of cherry picked data because from what I’ve heard all forms of physical media outside of gaming have seen major increases in demand in recent years.
I think this move may actually make PlayStation even more kid unfriendly than it already was. Kids like things and recieving gifts.
Even with code-in-a-box as an option they will open the gift, then have to wait for a parent to put the code in and download the game before they can play with it. Savvy parents might download the game ahead of time, but then that defeats the purpose of getting the box.
Sure, as it currently stands, physical games on PlayStation do need to be installed and may require patches. But installing from a disc will be faster for a lot of people and patches would ideally be a smaller download than a full game.
As someone who’s had physical games my entire life and has been building my own curated collection for the last 8 or so years, I am PISSED about this news. I expected this from Xbox sure but not Sony. It’s honestly put me in a foul mood. A very enjoyable past time of buying a physical game and having it on my shelf ready to get out and play whenever I wanted is now gonna take a massive hit.
I haven’t bothered with an Xbox Series console so I have barely any physical Xbox games after the 360, now PS5 is gonna be the last PlayStation with physical games. Well fuck. I guess this next 18 months is gonna be the last bastion for PlayStation games on disc. I do enjoy my PS5 still, but it’ll be my last.
At least more games on Switch 2 seem to be getting full game card releases which I am very pleased about. At least a key card can be traded in, but still vastly inferior to a proper card/disc. I am now genuinely concerned for retro game shops now, and I have a few close by. What are they gonna do when no more physical games get released? I do certainly hope they can survive on the existing collective used games market.
Honestly makes me want to go home and fire up my PlayStation 2 even more than I already did. This has not been good news to hear
I’m gonna be honest, after this news I am still not sure how I want to continue with the hobby going forward. For years I had it in the back of my mind that when they kill physical I might bounce, but that always seemed way off until now.
I don’t imagine that Nintendo will turn their backs on physical any time soon, not with the Switch 2 only being a year old. But I wouldn’t be surprised if their next console goes digital. So I have plenty of time to make a decision.
I could switch back over to PC, where I at least have some control, but it would be a shame to lose that console experience I love and the simplicity of not having to deal with compatibility.
Or there is the option of just dipping entirely from modern gaming, but then I would be missing out on any new titles. And I know resisting FOMO is a good thing, but I don’t want to completely lose out on any experience that I genuinely feel are worth having.
And obviously, I could just decide to give in and accept the digital console future, but that feels like being a defeatist and generally does feel appealing.
Personally moving forward I’ll still buy physical games when possible, If not I’ll buy them on GOG or steam since I “trust” them more than the others. I have every modern console plus a pc so I have choices unlike many other gamers sadly trapped in their ecosystem of choice due to hardware prices.
So I can choose to buy pre-owned games from stores and new games up until 2028. I’ll be buying physical on my ps5 as long as I can so persona 4 and FF7 Revelation plus a few more games will be added to my shelf. For Nintendo switch 1 and 2 I will always buy physical games if given the option to. Then there is PC where you can at least make your own physical copies using GOG or DRM free steam titles, or even just steam back ups on disc to give you the same feel and a back up copy. And retro games plus emulation will always be an option or modding old consoles.
The choice is up to you of course but my personal outlook on this whole situation after a few weeks to sit and think on it is. If you still love the hobby support what you wanna see in the space, yeah you will have fomo at times but at the end of the day do you really need to play that new game when you have plenty of other games. You can buy a new game but make sure you play it, I feel the modern gaming landscape wants you to buy, buy, buy, but not actually play the games you buy. So if you only buy one game a year (even digitally) but play it that whole year or even for half I’d say that is worth staying in the hobby
Also this isn’t just about a digital only future it is about locking you into their ecosystem so that you feel truly trapped if you ever wanna jump ship to pc from ps5. If you jump ship then you will lose out on all your games on play station. So if you have to go all in on a platform moving forward, PC might be the best bet and the second being Nintendo or both if one can afford it. That’s my personal take.
I refuse to let it diminish my love and investment in the hobby. If anything, I’m more determined than ever to extract the most value from the hobby that I can - and to make sure I’m always doing it on my terms.
So I’ve had a good long think about this and have decided to focus on curating my library and just do what feels right for the hobby at the time.
I have access to PS1, 2, 3, 4, PSP, Vita, DS, 3DS, Switch 1 and 2, with plans to add the Gameboys. My ability to enjoy this medium isn’t gonna go away any time soon.
