No physical discs for Playstation games (1st & 3rd party) from 2028 onward

[Dave A]

The issue isn't really with ownership as you don't own the game either digitally or physically, it's just a license to use said game either way. The issue is with ongoing availability.

Games can be taken down from store fronts to never appear again, never be available in a used games bin or passed on to a friend/family member. Additionally, games can be disabled from your digital library and anyone who thinks it won't get to that, have a real long think. There's actually massive incentive for some companies to do this.

Feel like sticking with FIFA 27 because FIFA 28 and FIFA 29 weren't worth the cost, well, you might have to buy a newer one if you want to carry on playing FIFA. And because you never owned the game in the first place, they can do this. They have already removed other media from peoples libraries that they'd paid for the right to watch/listen to.

It's a logical step and the only way to stop it is to stop buying games digitally. But that won't happen, so this will.

I still enjoy going back to PS1 and PS2 games from time to time. In years to come, you won't be able to go back to a PS6 or 7 game even after you paid for it.

 

[DriveSpark]

There's a few posters missing the point "well, a physical copy is only a licence key anyway, you still have to download it".

True, but what happens if your account gets banned for some reason or you lose access to it ? start a new account, stick the disc in and off you go.
Digital ? please pay another $x for another copy.

If a licence for music / rights to images etc expires they'll remove the game and you won't be able to play it. So you paid your money and are now left with nothing.

Its no different to Steam or Apple TV and probably a host of other services. I do think that the EU (at some point) will get around to looking at digital property, but I doubt they'll make any changes before 2028, if at all.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Online store sales are often cheaper than physical sales ever will be. Discs are license keys on modern consoles. All the poo emoji in the world won't alter that.

It's not just about cost or what you actually get in the box, it's about consumer choice first of all but it's also a discussion point about ownership. Sony have just ripped a massive collection of movies, not only from sale, but also from the accounts of people who have paid for them. Digital media just isn't given the same treatment as physical, companies have way too much control over your content which, from this point on, you don't really own, you license it, and they could withdraw that at any time.

I, like you, make almost 100% of my purchases digitally, but that doesn't mean that the death of physical media isn't going to affect us.

 

[Tired Tyres]

It's stupid. 20% of sales are discs and that percentage has not dropped in years. Why would they willingly give up on 20% sales? This is bad for people who only buy digital as well. There is enough completition from physical sales to ensure sales happen for better value. Once it's all digital all the sale prices will disappear and we will all pay full price all the time. And before anyone replies with Steam sales remember Steam has competitors. Sony store has no competitors.

 

[Robin]

Not that this will ever happen now because of the memory crisis but I had hoped that physical would move to something else that doesn't expressly have to be optical, therefore solving the two regular criticisms about size limitations and cost of drive hardware. There have been examples of boxed PC software distributed on USB so why not follow Nintendo and have games on encrypted SD cards, USB sticks or propriety carts?

Yes it's more expensive but mainly at a cost passed to the consumer who still gets a choice. Sony just needs a slot and not a drive in their future machine and can additionally do away with the involved process of running an optical plant. Unfortunately they wanted to head straight for the nuclear option...

 

[Dave A]

Personaly, I think there's a decent chance that this will increase piracy more than increase digital sales, but I think the key driver behind wanting to do this is control. Though maybe with digital only games they can do a better job tackling piracy at the same time. Typically, the more anti-consumer companies get, the bigger piracy becomes an issue. Take the movie industry for example. When Netflix first came along with decent prices and no-ads, movie piracy dropped massively. But as greed took over, prices increased, packages became less consumer friendly etc. movie piracy increased massively again.

 

[Famine]

Just an additional crumb for those who think it doesn't affect them (it will anyway, even if they don't want to see it) so they're alright jack.

No physical release means this across the board...

Oh no, Sony is testing dynamic pricing on PS5 games

The experiment, which includes 68 regions, displays differing prices for the same PS5 games. Sony is also testing personalized sales.

www.polygon.com

... so you may be paying a different price for a game than your mates from the exact same walled garden and you have no alternative.

 

[Blitz24]

Online store sales are often cheaper than physical sales ever will be. Discs are license keys on modern consoles. All the poo emoji in the world won't alter that.

Pretty sure they are not always cheaper. Some of them go on sale, but others on the PS Store are still full price... for a game that came out 5+ years ago if they are still listed.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Terrible news especially for those that don't always play the latest games. I'm thinking the next step could be subscription only service.

 

[suomi1]

Online store sales are often cheaper than physical sales ever will be.

Until now, it wasn't the case in France and Japan, the physical format was cheaper.

I used to have a lot of physical discs but since PC got digital only (thanks Gaben) i dont mind digital only BUT digital licences should get better especially with law makers basically making it like physical copy licence because nowdays digital licence is just a glorified rent

Far gone are the days when physical versions of PC games could be so good that they even surpassed their console counterparts.
I was just looking at this on my shelf: the manual that comes with the physical PC edition of Civ4 is over 200 pages long. They were often closer to actual books than mere instruction booklets. As for the leaflet supposed to be in the plastic box, it has been replaced by a poster. It’s not even a collector’s edition or anything like that.

Where are they taking us?

 

[Pearl Jam]

Sadly it’s just a sign of the times, haven’t bought a physical disc for 15+ years so for me it’s no different but I absolutely understand the angst it’s caused so many. The digital ownership conundrum is a bit of a nightmare though and definitely needs more tighter regulations although I’m pretty sure it’s rather low on Burnhams to do list.
Console players really get screwed way more and one of a myriad reasons why I never bothered with a PS5 and switched to PC, the best move ever and will never go back to a console, the fact you can play online for free and the absolute abundance of racing titles made it a no brainer in the end.

 

[Famine]

 

[Voodoovaj]

Sony is self immolating. What's the point of all those backward compatibility features if you can't run the games you own? It ceases to be entertainment because it's no longer about my enjoyment.

Sony is doing its best to give buyers fewer reasons to spend more money. Not to mention the law of diminishing returns where any technical advancement the PS6 can showcase will likely be margin to the average user.

 

[art3mis]

This means the PS5 is the last console I'll ever own. That's a huge bummer. My plan is to shift entirely to retro play. I still own my entire PS collection from the OG PlayStation through the PS5. Never sold games, never lost games. As long as it doesn't need an internet connection to play I can still play it.

No physical media means I'm 100% never interested in anything you have to offer ever again

It honestly sounds pretty bleak to me, especially now that I'm hearing the next gen Xbox will be digital only too. Mainly because with discs no longer being a thing, Sony basically can have full price control. It's possible that the sales I've seen for digital games won't be a thing anymore.

On another note, I'm not seeing much of an incentive to get a console over a PC anymore for me if they're just gonna be digital. If that's the case, I could just stick to my gaming PC and upgrade it instead.

It's not just full price control. It's ACCESS CONTROL. If you get banned your game is gone. Forever. Until you pay them again after setting up a new account.

If they decide the game is no longer something they want to have available it's gone. If they want to change the game it's changed.
Not being physical means having zero ownership of the thing you "bought" and it can be removed from you at any time.

And yeah there are zero reasons to be a console player in a world without physical disks. Hope PD has plans to port GT to PC or they're a dead company they just don't know it yet.

Here are my thoughts..

This 80:20 rule, ok, I get it, but.. why stop doing both? They would still earn, just.. less. This is greedy.

Regarding the fact that the optical discs cannot fit the whole content.. fine, split in two discs (as last of us had done), or keep one disc with as much as it can fit and download the rest. Nvidia has been showcasing neural compression techniques that might make this work. I guess devs aren't really interested in optimizing size unless they really have to.

Personally, I usually buy physical for many reasons - you can find it cheaper than it's digital counterpart, you can lend it, you can re-sell it and.. it's yours.

Lately I've been worrying about digital ownership a lot - Steam (which I know for sure) doesn't allow you to pass on your games to your kin after you die. Someone might thing, yeah, ok, share your credentials with your kid. Sure, but our kids have their own lives to live - have their own accounts, likely have built their own libraries by then. It's not really convenient to use multiple accounts.

I assume we are the first generation to worry and have to deal with such issues. It wouldn't be a surprise if someone in these digital marketplaces came up with an idea to start requesting every now and then proof of your existence to otherwise terminate your account.

So, on one hand, you have the convenience of the digital, but I prefer physical means. And then there's the PC.. where only digital is available. I appreciate what GOG is doing, pay it, get it store it yourself, it's yours forever.

I can't speak for everyone but my teenage years were spent swapping disk 1 --> 2 --> 3 --> 4 to play FF7, 8, 9. It wasn't until 10 that FF existed on a single disk. If it takes 3+ disks to hold GT8 then that's what it takes.

 

[odeepaanh]

Good. I haven't bought a physical game in years. They're clutter and little more than a physical license key now. Pointless.

I’m not sure how you’ve come to this conclusion after seeing PlayStation announce they’re shutting down PS3 and Vita stores, saying you can still download from your library “for the foreseeable future,” and seeing them quite literally delete 500 movies and shows from people’s libraries without giving any refunds. With a physical copy, you own the right to play the game whenever you want. Digitally, you own jack all. They can decide whenever they want at the snap of the finger to take it away. You’re renting the game, for the price of owning it. I don’t understand how you see this news and your first reaction is “good.” I’m not quite sure how as a consumer you can be in favor of this because it provides no benefit at all and pushes things closer to a monopoly, it only gives you less choice, all it’s trying to do is give more money to PlayStation’s pocket while you don’t get anything good out of it. If you prefer digital media, sure, it has its own benefits, but to say “good” in response to something like this just makes no sense

Anyway, seeing this announcement has honestly made me lose all interest in buying a PS6 let alone with the supposed price it’ll launch at, for the first time in my life I might just be looking at building a PC if I’m going to spend that kind of money anyway

 

[TheCracker]

Its all just another sign that we're slipping back into a feudal system where no one owns anything other than those few lucky ones at the top of the pile. Fewer and fewer can afford to own their own homes. Corporations are buying up housing, increasing the values out of many peoples reach and those that should be able to comfortably buy now struggle with high interest rates for mortgages as inflation is on the rise with little sign of falling. They'll soon be a rise in company towns once again i should imagine and we can all look forward to being neo-serfs.

But that's a whole other tangent for a different subforum that no longer exists.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Well, blame consumers like me, who over time amassed a number of DVDs/Blu-ray/music CDs and now I play them only if what I want to watch/listen is not in one of the streaming services I dutifully pay every month , and whose last physical game purchase was maybe in 2016, and who was fascinated by the early Game Pass/Netflix/Spotify days (no more visits to Blockbuster! I can do playlists! No switching discs ever again!), and who opted for digital only devices, Series X being the exception because, well, I got rid of my old DVD/CD players.

At this point, I don't see me buying the next console, whatever the company, on the basis of cost and not lack of physical drive, and I will just gradually update my PC (if there is still a components market, that is) and play old and cozy games for the rest of my life.

 

[Abyss1]

Personaly, I think there's a decent chance that this will increase piracy more than increase digital sales, but I think the key driver behind wanting to do this is control. Though maybe with digital only games they can do a better job tackling piracy at the same time. Typically, the more anti-consumer companies get, the bigger piracy becomes an issue. Take the movie industry for example. When Netflix first came along with decent prices and no-ads, movie piracy dropped massively. But as greed took over, prices increased, packages became less consumer friendly etc. movie piracy increased massively again.

not gonna lie, I used to purchase DVD and Blu Rays up to 2017...since then just bought movies via Prime, some obscure movies I still have to pirate.

Last physical game I purchased (that I could remember) was GTA4 and this was ~2015.

I get it tho.... I still have my OG GT1 PS1 disc. I also have still have the OG wolfenstien on diskettes ...havent touched either in decades tbh

 

[Eggstor]

I'll put it this way - I wouldn't have been able to get the "pre-release" version of GT7 2 weeks after release, when I was finally able to find a PS5 to play it, had it been digital-only. That said, I'm surprised Sony hung onto it this long; disc players have disappeared entirely from the PC and automotive markets, and all-but-disappeared from the home entertainment market to the point one has to have it delivered.

With a physical copy, you own the right to play the game whenever you want. Digitally, you own jack all. They can decide whenever they want at the snap of the finger to take it away. You’re renting the game, for the price of owning it.

Which is only true if the disc (be it floppy, compact, DVD, or Blu-Ray) isn't only a physical DRM device, as GT7 is. I suppose one could try to keep the console offline to play the 1.00 version of Music Rally if (really, when) Sony decides to brick GT7, but that would be it.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Personaly, I think there's a decent chance that this will increase piracy more than increase digital sales, but I think the key driver behind wanting to do this is control. Though maybe with digital only games they can do a better job tackling piracy at the same time. Typically, the more anti-consumer companies get, the bigger piracy becomes an issue. Take the movie industry for example. When Netflix first came along with decent prices and no-ads, movie piracy dropped massively. But as greed took over, prices increased, packages became less consumer friendly etc. movie piracy increased massively again.

I’m a little confused about this comparison. Film piracy is really easy because you can screen record a film, and if that fails, you can record it on video and readily redistribute it through whatever means.

Hypothetically if a game is all-digital and exclusive to the PlayStation store with no other physical media releases on other platforms anywhere, how does one even pirate that? You can’t really.

 

[Joey D]

I’m a little confused about this comparison. Film piracy is really easy because you can screen record a film, and if that fails, you can record it on video and readily redistribute it through whatever means.

Hypothetically if a game is all-digital and exclusive to the PlayStation store with no other physical media releases on other platforms anywhere, how does one even pirate that? You can’t really.

People pirate Steam games despite them not having physical media. I don't know how it's done, only that it is done.

 

[Rodster]

My take on this FWIW, is that this was all inevitable even if Sony mocked Microsoft with the launch of the XBOX One and its failed disc-less approach. This was all put into gear by Gamestop about 10-15 years ago when they bragged about record used game sales.

It pissed off many publishers because they saw that as decline in new game sales. Gamestop essentially gave them the middle finger and rebuffed it by saying that one trade in would result in one new game sold. I had friends who were Gamestop mgrs and told me that was stretching things. Publishers no doubt began to put pressure on the platform holders and the digital store idea got fast tracked.

However this is going to have a negative impact on the industry as a whole. Former Sony CEO Shawn Layden was interviewed by Polygon and he told them that the Console Era is coming to an end. It was pretty prescient because with higher prices for games and hardware as well as gamers being older, many will just move on from console gaming. I have the finances to afford a $1000+ console from Microsoft and Sony but tbh, the PS5/XBOX generation has been pretty disappointing. When I had my PS4, Gran Turismo 7 looked just as good on that sans a few more jaggies vs when playing it on my PS5. The PS5 version looks nearly identical to that when playing it on my PS5 Pro.

Here's the interview if anyone cares to read it: https://www.polygon.com/shawn-layden-interview-console-era-ending/

 

[odeepaanh]

I'll put it this way - I wouldn't have been able to get the "pre-release" version of GT7 2 weeks after release, when I was finally able to find a PS5 to play it, had it been digital-only. That said, I'm surprised Sony hung onto it this long; disc players have disappeared entirely from the PC and automotive markets, and all-but-disappeared from the home entertainment market to the point one has to have it delivered.

Which is only true if the disc (be it floppy, compact, DVD, or Blu-Ray) isn't only a physical DRM device, as GT7 is. I suppose one could try to keep the console offline to play the 1.00 version of Music Rally if (really, when) Sony decides to brick GT7, but that would be it.

Even then, having a physical disc is still beneficial because you can still more easily share the game, sell it, if you get banned you don’t lose access to it, Sony can’t decide on a whim to just remove your access to it like they did with those 500 something movies and shows. If it gets delisted digitally, you can still buy a physical copy and access the game. If we’re talking about GT7, I don’t have much doubt that it will be playable offline when GT8 comes around, given how they handled GT Sport

 

[CGT980]

I wonder if the Stop Killing Games movement will pick up more support after this news. Their initial goal is to make developers enact updates so games that "require a constant internet connection" just to play single player can remain playable despite their online services being shut down. This is right in the same vein.

I would hope so, but my expectation is that people will let it happen. Most consumers probably don't care enough and would see it as more convenient. They see the pros of not worrying about losing/breaking the physical copy, not needing dedicated storage for their collection, being able to purchase games from the comfort of their own home, not having to swap out discs, and all that jazz. It's easy to overlook the other side of the fence when convenience is brought into the argument.

People might not care now, but they definitely will when something happens they have no control over because they no longer own the games themselves.

By then, it'll be too late. Once it happens, there's no turning back.

 

[mef]

Just to further highlight why this is a problem in the long-term, or at the very least highlight some points that I don't really see being considered in this thread, with Sony making this move:

• As a consumer, the choice of how you get you games, and by extension media in general, is being taken away. Even if you are someone that mostly or only buys games digitally, it's at least a choice on your part of how you want to spend your money. By getting rid of the option for physical media, your options are being forcibly reduced, so if you really want to get a new game, movie or whatehaveyou, you're being forced to spend your money the way Sony wants you to, instead of the way you want. That sets up a dangerous precedent within the entire industry going forward, because it gives the likes of Nintendo and Xbox the greelnight to take choices away from people on other products (Nintendo is arguably already experimenting with this with Switch 2 Key Cards).
• It basically removes a large chunk of competition for Sony, because this kills the second-hand market for new games, as well as killing your ability to get a game from another retailer. Have rewards points at your local big-box store that typically lets you get physical new(-er) games cheaper than digitally? Well, say goodbye to that route. Have a title on your radar that you're not sure about, and as such you don't want to commit to a full-fledged digital purchase? Well, the ability to get it used or used on the cheap from someone else is now gone. That could potentially be a major issue for local mom-and-pop shops who thrive on attracting people with used copies of recent games, among other things.
• Related to the above, there ends up being significantly less incentive for Sony to put things up for sale on their platform. As mentioned, there'll be no second-hand market for newer games, so Sony don't have to worry about losing out on cash from a prospective buyer, because their only choice to get a game is through Sony's own digital distribution. As such, what reason does Sony really have to put things, especially 1st-party releases like Gran Turismo, on sale? On PC, you have Steam, GOG and others that have sales on media regularly, and as such are competing against one another. There's no way in hell that Sony will allow a different distributor to compete against them on their own platform, and Sony has made it clear that they're no longer interested in putting select PlayStation titles on PC.
• In the grand scheme of things, this makes the issue of consumers actually owning the stuff they buy even worse. As already mentioned, Sony unilaterally decided to go into people's libraries and pull content that was already paid for, and consumers can't do anything about it. Now that they've created a precedent, they (or other companies) can decide to remove other paid content, including games, from one's digital library. Since the only way to even get said media begin with was through the PlayStation Store, consumers have next-to-no way to acquire that game though other means.
• Lastly, and I think this is important from a big-picture cultural perspective, this has the potential to really hurt the longevity of games beyond their initial lifecycle, and create even more Lost Media. It's bad enough that there's established precedent for paid content to be taken out of peoples libraries, for always-online games to be lost when servers shut down, or for games to become damn-near inoperable in the event of a server issue or other network failure. What does the future look like for "regular" games or other media that can only be bought digitally online when it's decided that said media no longer worth selling? IMO, a big part of the reason games, movie, music etc. has evolved to where they are now is in no small part due to having the means to go back and engage with older examples of said media, learn from them and see how things have changed over time. Right now, I can go across my room, grab my copy of GT1/2, Final Fantasy 10 or Armored Core Nexus, among others, and play them right now, despite said titles being 20 to nearly 30 years old. What's the over/under that GT7, or even the next Gran Turismo will be around and playable in their full glory for a decade+ for people to enjoy? Or, if you're describing an older game to someone who's never played it, but you aren't able to truly show them what the game looks or how it plays due to it being a de-listed item that was only available digitally, and as such can't be engaged with any longer? The idea of not being able to pass these ideas along sucks quite a bit in my opinion.

Long post I know, and apologies if repeated myself in this, but I'm at least a little passionate about this as someone who has a mix of digital and physical media in my collections, though admittedley the physical is definetly a bigger portion. I know that the world for the most part has moved on to digital distribution, but taking away the choice in order to make it where digital is the only option for buying games and other media in the future only benefits Sony in the long-run, and doesn't truly do anything for consumers as a whole, outside of adding a little extra convinenece.

Doesn’t the EU plan to enact a law that will force publishers to keep games alive? To me that’s the critical part. I don’t care how installation files are delivered to my console, but if I don’t actually own the game and Sony can just remove the game from me, then thats nothing but corporate greed that requires regulation to be tampered.
This is obv a first world issue, but similar issues exist in planned obsolence which is far from a first world issue only. i hope the EU will pass some laws in this regard or even China, we cannot rely on the US even caring about any of this. There are too many US companies that invented the en****tification we are witnessing, so no help can be expected from that part of the globe, imho.

 

[mef]

This already failed in EU (at least in its initial form - the proponents are pushing to integrate it into Digital Fairness Act) and California (which had exemptions for F2P and subscription titles).

Keyword is “initial form”.

Your link mentions customers rights are protected in the EU and killing games may infringe on that.

There are concrete steps being planned such as forming a code of conduct about the end of life for games. Read here

Commission will engage with industry following European Citizens\' Initiative on the disabling of videogames by publishers

The European Commission will engage with consumers and publishers by the end of 2026 to explore ways to improve industry standards, as a response to the European Citizens\' Initiative (ECI) ‘Stop Destroying Videogames\'.\u202F

ec.europa.eu

I’m sure this will all take a long time, but point is, there are EU politicians that care.

As gamers we also need to learn to vote with our wallets, when gt6 went online online for no good reason we all bought the game. We let Sony get away this this.

 

[tankuroded]

It's not just full price control. It's ACCESS CONTROL. If you get banned your game is gone. Forever. Until you pay them again after setting up a new account.

If they decide the game is no longer something they want to have available it's gone. If they want to change the game it's changed.
Not being physical means having zero ownership of the thing you "bought" and it can be removed from you at any time.

Feel like sticking with FIFA 27 because FIFA 28 and FIFA 29 weren't worth the cost, well, you might have to buy a newer one if you want to carry on playing FIFA. And because you never owned the game in the first place, they can do this. They have already removed other media from peoples libraries that they'd paid for the right to watch/listen to.

Damnatio memoriae is a thing, and it doesn't have to be because they decided to end online services or had expired licenses for the title (this one is important for single player-first titles) - bankruptcies, scandals, change of societal values, and "strategic decisions" (see WB cancelling three completed movies few years prior) can also be an availability killer.

Keyword is “initial form”.

Your link mentions customers rights are protected in the EU and killing games may infringe on that.

There are concrete steps being planned such as forming a code of conduct about the end of life for games. Read here

Commission will engage with industry following European Citizens\' Initiative on the disabling of videogames by publishers

The European Commission will engage with consumers and publishers by the end of 2026 to explore ways to improve industry standards, as a response to the European Citizens\' Initiative (ECI) ‘Stop Destroying Videogames\'.\u202F

ec.europa.eu

I’m sure this will all take a long time, but point is, there are EU politicians that care.

As gamers we also need to learn to vote with our wallets, when gt6 went online online for no good reason we all bought the game. We let Sony get away this this.

I did mention "pushing to integrate [SKG] into Digital Fairness Act" as extension, since it's their goal after the initial form failed:

 

[Dave A]

I’m a little confused about this comparison. Film piracy is really easy because you can screen record a film, and if that fails, you can record it on video and readily redistribute it through whatever means.

Hypothetically if a game is all-digital and exclusive to the PlayStation store with no other physical media releases on other platforms anywhere, how does one even pirate that? You can’t really.

You don't need to speak hypothetically, digital only releases are already being pirated left right and centre. But the point isn't a technical one nor is it in any way an endorsement of piracy, it's that history proves correlation between anti-consumer practice and increases in piracy. When decent, consumer friendly options that don't break the bank, exist, piracey decreases.

 

[Quakebass]

If the disappearance of disk-based readers and media formats is an argument… We’ve had solutions for that for years. The Switch already uses SD cards for games, and the DS and N64 and earlier used cartridges, basically archaic hard drives with some extras.

I have a quarter and a half terabyte card for my camera that I use to shook 4k cinematic video. I could plug these into a PS3 and read the data. There’s no excuse to kill the physical option.

Right now all ram and high speed storage is unaffordable though, so in general I don’t know how ANY normal consumer will be affording any kind of hardware in the next 3-5 years. You could get these cards for $12-20 2 years ago (which is what I did), now they’re $150-200, and they still aren’t rated to write 4k slow motion footage. Virtually all SSDs worth a damn that can store more than 6-8 games are approaching or over $1000. Any medium tier RAM chip is in a similar spot. It won’t be long until even phones and work laptops get caught up in this.

 

[MisterWaffles]

You don't need to speak hypothetically, digital only releases are already being pirated left right and centre. But the point isn't a technical one nor is it in any way an endorsement of piracy, it's that history proves correlation between anti-consumer practice and increases in piracy. When decent, consumer friendly options that don't break the bank, exist, piracey decreases.

Genuine question. Are you aware of any instances of someone pirating a game off the PlayStation store and playing it on their PS4 or PS5? I’d be genuinely impressed if that’s a thing that ever happened. Keep in mind I’m talking PlayStation here, not Steam, which is a different service.

Also another genuine question here for those saying “vote with your wallet.” If the trend of physical game sales is already something abysmal like 20% or less of all total sales, and it’s trending towards digital even further with each passing year, is that not already a case of consumers voting with their wallet about which format they prefer their games on?

Again I totally get people who don’t want to have an internet connection and want to play the game without needing to be online, but no game comes on the disc anymore these days, and the market for that is becoming niche to the point that running production lines to cater to that niche is bleeding money.

I’m not against physical media at all, and I like it when it’s an option, but every time I go to the game section of a Walmart even, or a GameStop, it’s just an incredibly depressing vibe and so empty and devoid of life compared to the early 2000s, and it’s been that way for years. All the backlash is neat I guess but it feels like too little too late honestly, I don’t see how anything anyone says is going to convince Sony to start putting full games on discs when it doesn’t even constitute 1/5th of their sales anymore.

Everyone seems convinced there’s going to be some “le epic revolution” and Sony is going to be forced to hit a magic “go back” button to the way gaming was at the start of the PS3/360 era. But I just don’t see the numbers being there even with a very optimistic boycotting to support a drastic shift back the other direction. I think legislation about keeping digital games downloadable and playable offline is far more important than empty discs still being on shelves.