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nzach 1 minutes ago [-]
I really don't understand their thinking here. Sure they want more money, I get that.
But 'physical media' is one of the reasons why a lot o people make a distinction between PC and console games. Removing this will make it easier for consumers to compare a PS5 to a Steam machine, and I don't think that is a good thing for Sony.
lelandfe 57 minutes ago [-]
To illustrate why this is stupid, I will furnish two links to purchase Dark Souls 3 (PS4, 2016)
You've illustrated exactly why Sony is getting rid of physical media.
Money.
exitnode 52 minutes ago [-]
It's sadly not stupid from their perspective
nottorp 43 minutes ago [-]
You don't even need to go used. Discs constantly drop in price even new.
asimovDev 23 minutes ago [-]
in europe it's often cheaper to buy a game new in box from the retailer than from the PS Store. Not for long maybe. I will mourn the loss of physical games as they are such a big part of console experience
nottorp 10 minutes ago [-]
I am in Europe but I just don't do launch prices on any platform or delivery form so I didn't notice that.
> Sony's announcement follows Rockstar's announcement that Grand Theft Auto 6 will come with a download code in a box rather than a physical disc. It's a move that most notably stamps out second-hand reselling of a game.
This is the big point for me. If one buys a digital PlayStation game there's virtually no easy way to transfer it to another owner or sell it like one could do in past console generations. There will always be modding and ways to play game dumps, but it limits that level of "ownership" to those technically inclined to make it work.
alightsoul 50 minutes ago [-]
they weren't happy about people reselling their games for 5 dollars each, when they could charge 75 dollars to each of those people instead
seanalltogether 33 minutes ago [-]
I've reached an age where I don't actually buy games anymore, I just load up my wishlist with games and between Christmas, birthday and fathers day I get all the games I will care to play for the year. My wife, parents, extended family likes being able to buy me a physical gift, wrap it, and hand it to me. I understand that this is just getting rid of the disc and keeping the box, but pretty soon there's gonna be no box either, and I know my wife will hate the idea of just handing me a gift card on special days. I just hate how all physical products are evaporating.
thimabi 28 minutes ago [-]
In a few years Sony executives will be wondering why a portion of their consumer base decided to prioritize other forms of entertainment. I can speak for myself in that I’ve never upgraded past the PS3, and I feel no regrets about it.
They've also been pushing digital-only PS5s and PS5 Pro so there are fewer reasons to get a disk if you have no disk drive. They have created the problem that they are "solving."
tacticalturtle 6 minutes ago [-]
Which you can explicitly buy a disk drive for, if that’s important to you:
They actually did a good job giving the consumer choices - it’s just customers didn’t choose physical media.
mghackerlady 18 minutes ago [-]
I personally see no reason to buy anything more than a PS4. I have a PS3 and it plays all the same kinds of games I'd want to play on a 4 or 5, with similar graphical fidelity. I have a 4, but only really have used it to play a remake of a game I can already play on the 3. I also have a vita which is used for indie games since that thing has nearly every indie game you'd ever want to play available (either officially or via homebrew)
butlike 19 minutes ago [-]
PS4 is a great system, but I feel it may be my last Sony console. Steam Deck/Steam Machine will probably become the king of the household, as I don't see video games ever really leaving my life.
techwizrd 13 minutes ago [-]
The PS5 is great. We have a PS5 and PS5 Pro, both with disk drives (internal or external). But I really hate this policy. My brother comes over regularly to watch my pets, and he can simply bring a couple of his PS5 games over and play them rather than rebuying them and digitally downloading them. This breaks the in-person social aspect of gaming and game sharing that we've become accustomed to for decades.
Insanity 34 minutes ago [-]
Haven’t bought a physical game in at least 15 years (because of Steam). I do wonder how many people still buy physical copies these days.
Not sure what the sales are like on PS but at least on Steam you can find great deals for the digital copies as well. (You lose the reselling though)
crumb1e 48 seconds ago [-]
I constantly rotate physical games for my PS5.
I'm in the UK, and CeX is a great shop to trade in a game for store credit once I'm finished with it, then pickup whatever I want to play next. Most of the time I can completely cover the cost of the next game with the credit received from the trade, or use some store credit leftover from a previous visit!
petetnt 28 minutes ago [-]
Unlike Steam keys, there are no ways to distribute Playstation keys outside of Playstation platform. By removing retailers and second hand markets, what exactly would make Sony or any other publishers to continue offering any deep discounts on their products on a closed platform, especially when their biggest competitor Xbox has dropped the ball heavily.
asimovDev 20 minutes ago [-]
When a Sony studio Insomniac Games were hacked and a lot of internal documents were leaked, there were statistics for Sony's first party titles and their sales stats and what the split was between physical and digital sales[0] and for some of the titles, they sold mostly physical compared to digital. Apologies for poor quality, couldn't find a better image
Due to the steam sales and deep discounting its easy to buy games on steam for much cheaper then the consoles. For console where a game may be £60 for several years, buying physical means you can resell. For anyone with a budget, it makes a huge difference on how many games you can play.
r0ckarong 1 hours ago [-]
Most games with retail copies drop in price soon after the hype window is over. They stay full launch retail price in the PSN store unless there is a "sale". Anti-consumerism at its finest.
gdulli 52 minutes ago [-]
I wonder if that's because there's a downward price pressure on physical inventory because it needs to get liquidated to free up physical space for new inventory.
pryelluw 1 hours ago [-]
Guess I’m throwing my PS5 out the window and going to PC. This war on physical media is ridiculous. Pretty soon they’re going to require us to buy the console but rent the controllers for the very low price of $79.99 a month.
functionmouse 60 minutes ago [-]
steam games don't have discs either
the real problem here isn't lack of plastic circles
callamdelaney 22 minutes ago [-]
Valve have shown themselves to be reasonably trustworthy unlike say, Sony and Microsoft. If there are no disks then there is no point in consoles in my view, they're just worse computers.
mghackerlady 15 minutes ago [-]
plus, nothings stopping you from distributing a physical PC game. Heck, iirc steam still supports it. Even if it didn't, you could still buy a physical PC anyway since they can just have an exe, flatpak/snap/appimage, or dmg
asimovDev 20 minutes ago [-]
On PC you can fight this by buying from GOG DRM-free digital storefront or the second more sinister option
gdulli 50 minutes ago [-]
Steam normalized the loss of resale rights on PC long before the consoles caught up. Younger people don't even realize it's a right that prior generations gave up.
z0r 34 minutes ago [-]
Steam has existed for an eternity compared to any console specific game store. It's not great that you can't resell what you have on Steam, but at least you get to 'keep' it.
alightsoul 49 minutes ago [-]
and yet, Steam is seen as the superior service that deserves to keep their monopoly.
nottorp 45 minutes ago [-]
The thing with Steam is that it's more convenient than piratebay, but for the collector in you, piratebay is still there for insurance.
Not to mention whatever's available on GoG where you don't even need a crack to make backups.
With Sony you have no insurance.
callamdelaney 13 minutes ago [-]
Steam isn't a monopoly, it's just a good service. Why would I use a shittier one created by, generally, extremely greedy and woke corporations?
kaishin 55 minutes ago [-]
To solve what exactly? Sure you will punish Sony but that won't bring optical media back. We need to accept and move on with the times.
Nekorosu 50 minutes ago [-]
It is still possible to actually buy PC games, not rent them.
ludamn 1 hours ago [-]
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raadore 1 hours ago [-]
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paolfs 28 minutes ago [-]
Imho this is no issue, as long as the game is playable without some kind of server or account.
The moment you need an account or server to play you don't own the game. I think governments should step in here. They must force stores to use words like rent or lease instead of buy. That way it is way more clear where you are going to spend money on.
jonhohle 27 minutes ago [-]
How do you purchase or download a game without a server or account?
simonh 22 minutes ago [-]
purchase /= run
techdmn 35 minutes ago [-]
Never been happier that I've turned into a retro-gamer. This is more the result of being old than a principled stance, but never the less. Increasingly I don't view myself as actually owning anything that connects to the internet. Minecraft is delightful on my disconnected Xbox-360, thanks. Nobody can break it by forcing an update or shutting down a server.
I guess this resource is relevant to the topic at hand. It lists games and whether you can play and complete them fully from disc without an internet connection
MBCook 52 minutes ago [-]
This was bound to happen. I’ve long suspected the #1 reason physical games exist was to placate a few big retailers like Best Buy and Walmart and Target so they’d continue to carry the console.
Clearly that’s no longer necessary. Download-only retail boxes or gift cards or whatever are enough.
I know some people really care about physical releases, but I think the writing has been on the wall for years that this was coming.
nottorp 49 minutes ago [-]
The Sony that has just proved you can't trust them to maintain access to the digital content they "sold" you right?
If they are going digital only then they are competing with Steam. They will lose.
avaer 10 minutes ago [-]
They aren't competing with Steam. The console market is a closed cabal where console makers sell the machine at a loss and make up for it with locked down software where publishers pay a significant proportion of the sales to the console maker, who controls supply and dealflow with private contracts.
They might lose, but it's nothing like PC.
dude250711 36 minutes ago [-]
Last step is for them to say that due to rising components' cost, they are transitioning to rent-only model for consoles.
This way you will finally own nothing except for maybe console rent arrears.
brendoelfrendo 26 minutes ago [-]
I don't buy every game on a physical disc—I don't see the point for live service games, for example—but I do have a fairly large collection of physical PS5 games because I like that assurance that I can continue to play that game forever. I guess what we see here is that after 2028 I have no reason to own a PlayStation ever again.
jackgavigan 30 minutes ago [-]
"You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy."
ghusto 31 minutes ago [-]
> As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital
But 'physical media' is one of the reasons why a lot o people make a distinction between PC and console games. Removing this will make it easier for consumers to compare a PS5 to a Steam machine, and I don't think that is a good thing for Sony.
Ebay, to buy: $11 + shipping[0]
PS Store, to rent: $60[1]
[0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/298370753624
[1] https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/dark-souls-iii/
Money.
Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/606/
This is the big point for me. If one buys a digital PlayStation game there's virtually no easy way to transfer it to another owner or sell it like one could do in past console generations. There will always be modding and ways to play game dumps, but it limits that level of "ownership" to those technically inclined to make it work.
Last quarter 85% of all game sales were digital.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-just-reported-a-new-r...
https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-accessories/disc-dr...
They actually did a good job giving the consumer choices - it’s just customers didn’t choose physical media.
Not sure what the sales are like on PS but at least on Steam you can find great deals for the digital copies as well. (You lose the reselling though)
I'm in the UK, and CeX is a great shop to trade in a game for store credit once I'm finished with it, then pickup whatever I want to play next. Most of the time I can completely cover the cost of the next game with the credit received from the trade, or use some store credit leftover from a previous visit!
[0] - https://imgur.com/lDhRmUh
the real problem here isn't lack of plastic circles
Not to mention whatever's available on GoG where you don't even need a crack to make backups.
With Sony you have no insurance.
The moment you need an account or server to play you don't own the game. I think governments should step in here. They must force stores to use words like rent or lease instead of buy. That way it is way more clear where you are going to spend money on.
I guess this resource is relevant to the topic at hand. It lists games and whether you can play and complete them fully from disc without an internet connection
Clearly that’s no longer necessary. Download-only retail boxes or gift cards or whatever are enough.
I know some people really care about physical releases, but I think the writing has been on the wall for years that this was coming.
<Unplugs PS5>
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745456 Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation (playstation.com)
1 hour ago, 32+ comments
They might lose, but it's nothing like PC.
This way you will finally own nothing except for maybe console rent arrears.
_Goddamn citation needed!_