For those who don’t know, there has been somewhat of an uproar due to Playstation’s announcement about stopping making disks.
Nope. PCs haven’t had physical games for well over a decade. Even “physical” games like Battlefield 1 just had a code in them, and that was 2016, a decade ago now. Discs were going away for PC games by the early 10s. I’ve been surprised that consoles held out for as long as they did, considering the always online stuff, the updates, seasonal DLC, DRM, etc. I miss when games were feature complete, like Pokemon Emerald or the early Sonic franchise.
I would like to be able to legally resell my digital games that I don’t want anymore.
Its a dumb ask. I bought the Playstation to play it when I have the time. I think way more people would be on board if it was a ps store blackout. No MTC, no purchases, nothing. Easy. Doable. Asking people to ignore the $600 widget they already bought and use? Pretty unreasonable.
PlayStation sold more PS5 without BD reader than the one with. Consumers have already voted
It’s kinda not only customers fault. Sony charges much for the bd version plus 9/10 of the games require huge downloads and installs even if they are physical. Most people just don’t see the point anymore.
If the disk cannot install and play the full game, then it holds little value as physical media for preservation. At that point the only value it has is for collectors.
Or someone who wants to resell it when they’re done playing it. Us old dudes did that often. You could always get a little of the cash back from a game you could use to put toward a new game. With digital it’s full price and no resale.
Yeah, but every game has an expiration date if you have to rely on a server still being live to download the full game, which is kinda my point.
On top of reselling, you could let friends borrow games that you weren’t using.
Or someone who wants to resell it when they’re done playing it
you mean the days when a $80 game could be resold for $5?
Only to GameStop. You could get more money for them selling on eBay or outright.
According to Circana (formerly NPD), as of October of 2024, 82% of PS5s were the disc version.
Do you have a source for that? Because I know for a long time the disc version outsold the digital by a pretty wide margin. And the pro doesn’t count because it doesn’t offer a disc option.
I’m pretty sure that was in the media release from Sony but I could be mistaken
Feel free to link this media release
This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs
That’s about games, not consoles.
They have manipulated their data so they can push this narrative. According to their own sales data, most of their biggest first party games outsold digital at pretty high rates. When they are saying this is the trend, they are including digital only games in the numbers to skew the perspective. When the game is available physically, and it’s a big release, physical sells just fine. This statement from them is manipulation to justify fucking over consumers.
I bought the one with the disc drive and buy physical games as much as possible. I honestly always felt ripped off paying full price for a console game without getting the physical media. The problem is that nowadays, shipping games before they’re fully cooked and patching later has become the norm. Buying discs of brand-new games doesn’t actually let you keep the full experience anymore. You can resell them though.
Did the same thing
Consumers are dumb
Buy the disc system, then Its only a few physical games, and then youd have saved the money a disc drive would cost
Ive gotten all physical games i have, for 70% of the price sony sells them for on their digital store
Incl brand new releases
And i own it forever
Sony has rigged the game though, and you’ve bought into it.
Your physical discs are only as good as your ability to download the game files and day-one patches from their servers. For the average user, there really is no benefit to having a disc.
I hate it, but Sony made the choice for us as far back as the PS3.
Most games play just fine without internet
“And i own it forever”
We are not talking about the PS2 or even PS3 here though. These new games do not fit on a disk and require constant updates and connection to servers. Any game that requires you to connect to the internet, even if you own the disc, you don’t really own. They can shut that down anytime they feel like it.
Certainly depends on the game
My baldurs gate 3 came on 2 discs
So thats an option too
A lot of the games i have, got someonline functionality, multiplayer or online content etc but they work just fine offline too
I mostly buy that type of games for my ps5, then i get the “online” games like path of exile or whatever, on PC
To add to what you’ve said, Microsoft has effectively abandoned physical media as well, with Nintendo being the last hold out whom is constantly lambasted for their prices. Computer gaming had completely abandoned physical media for over a decade.
No.
- most people don’t know about it
- many actual children won’t care
- many “gamers” are little better than children
or the main point, modern games can’t really fit on physical media.
Discs is probably not the future but we could go back to cartridges with solid-state storage and get more than enough for a large game. It doesn’t have to be particularly compact so I assume companies could save money on not opting for the most state of the art densest drives
I suppose. But I remember old games came on multiple disks.
I also think that chasing every higher graphics has reached diminishing returns. Style counts for more than fidelity, I think.
Nope.
I’ll answer with a question that should well serve as an answer
What boycott?
No. Convenience always wins. Same reason people decided streaming is better than owning.
Some percent of those upset and boycotting will simply give it up. These things have about a 2-4 week lifespan. Then they’ll just miss their PlayStation and everything will be over, except they’ll own even less.
And the same thing that could also work in Win365’s favor against PCs should it get a consumer tier.
No. Its that simple.
People will keep using the playstation, people will keep playing games, buying shit etc. Its wishful thinking that the boycott will do anything other the slightly lower overall numbers. The equivalent of a normal workday.
If there’s an actual boycott - yes it will work. Will EVERYONE refuse to buy their products?
Yeah… right.
The disk battle is the wrong one to fight.
The correct battle is that buying=owning not leasing.
All I know is I’m not buying shit from them again.
Yes, the even more powerful way of protesting: not giving a shit.
Noup, it’s not going to have any effect. Like the other person said. People have already voted with their wallets and will keep voting the same way, because for some reason. Not buying something is completely unthinkable to way too many people.
Plus like I pointed out, even if PS and their home electronics division died, Sony themselves will still live on because they have their hands in basically everything. They have a pro audio and video division, including ENG. They’re in the still cam business and make image sensors for pretty much everyone else too, and unless that changed, they also have an industrial imaging division as well.
Also, Sony barely makes dedicated disc players anymore, only having one model each of 1080p and 4K BD players in production, and I feel like those won’t be much longer for the world either.
Sony’s future dedicated media player is probably gonna be a glorified Roku-type streaming box; effectively a thin client to stream rented media to.
I’m surprised they even still make traditional AVRs and speakers and didn’t switch exclusively to soundbars or drop out of that market entirely yet, even.
The future for physical media is gonna be grim as even though you can still buy BDs/DVDs and CDs and vinyl second-hand, there might not be any new players for those formats being made in the foreseeable future anymore apart from videophile/audiophile stuff. Although in an odd twist of fate, and potentially a repeat of a trend from the early '80s when the audio CD first launched, CDs are outselling vinyl again.
That too, even if through some way gaming market crashes completely. There are multiple other branches that will keep Sony afloat.
As for second-hand physical games, from PS4 onward, there’s the chance that a lot of your discs might not work once support is dropped for those consoles as most of them are glorified license keys.
Nintendo made that concept literal with the Game-Key Cards and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Switch 3 if one actually happens, dropped carts altogether, and the Switch 3 effectively become a glorified tablet that you lost access to your games on after support is discontinued because it’s digital-only.
The only thing that’ll kill Sony as a company is if they have a CED-level screw-up as the CED was such a massive screw-up that it killed RCA as a company, and Sony has yet to screw up that badly. I make the RCA comparison because RCA in their prime, before their stupidity got the best of them, was basically in the position Sony is currently in with having their hands in basically everything. I really feel like Sony and other big companies for that matter, should treat RCA’s demise and the CED debacle that caused it as a cautionary tale, but that’s just my opinion.
I think people underestimate the power of collective action. People have been underplaying the strengths of these actions in online discourse to the point where I wonder if its coordinated.
Being loud and boycotting does work. And even if it doesn’t why support anti consumer practices.
No.
People already buy digital games at greater rates for years, plus most digital games havent been the full game for a while now. Some of them are literally just download codes now.
Also, boycotts and protests almost never work.
If I know gamers, it will be just as effective as the Modern Warfare 2 PC boycott back in the day
