Well when we have clear leaks highlighting that in recent big physical releases, outside of the US, ROW is still quite physical heavy, to the point overall sales for a load of big games in the Insomniac leaks were actually at best 50:50, and in cases like Ratchet and Clank were more like 3:1 physical to disc...yeah, they're gambling. The rather substantial sales of the disc drive addon over the last few years also doesn't sell the story of a marketplace that doesn't care about physical either.
I also find the fact that senior Sony leadership sold SUBSTANTIAL amounts of shares several days into the blowout of the announcement is fairly telling; it tells a story of people who think this may well be going to get worse, not better, and that brand reputation [and indirectly share prices] may just have taken long term damage. The CEO sold over 50% of his shares, if that does not send alarm bells, I don't know what will, especially as it wasn't just one person in leadership there, it was multiple.
There's also the very real chance that this is actually essentially stock market manipulation to sell shares, announce, push prices up, sell, move on.
Either way, ****ing awful look for Sony, who are burning a substantial chunk of the goodwill they earned in the PS4 era.
Now, to be real, I'm not doubting digital sales have increased. GTAVI alone will ensure that number is higher than ever, but I very much suspect if we could actually take a clear 1:1 look at big titles released both physically and digitally, not niche ones, we'd find a much less rosy picture on how well digital is doing; once the noise of digital only titles (and potentially PSN+ monthly titles etc) is removed.
Realistically though, to me, PS5/PS5 Pro had several major selling points:
-Unique controller that is actually optimised for (minor, but real)
-Hardware platform that is optimised for
-Physical games I could buy, resell, pickup second hand etc
-HDR generally just works (it's still flaky in windows) (minor but real)
-Relatively cheap compared to decent PC
-Some exclusives (realistically nothing I couldn't do without, so minor)
Fundamentally, with prices going up substantially the relative cheapness argument is already damaged for both this generation, and with next generation sounding like it's going to be well over $1000/£1000, and with the physical media now potentially going away, realistically the only MAJOR selling point left for me would be titles optimised for the hardware, the rest are minor. Whether they like it or not, I'm an enthusiast and have spent THOUSANDS on Playstation/Sony since the PS1 era, and by killing physical games, and the wider market killing relative cheapness of the consoles, they're leaving very little to justify me not just going elsewhere right now, whether that be to Xbox again if they stick with physical after all, Nintendo, or just PC, which has a more diverse, competitive and healthy market.
Given Asha Sharma's recent posturing about resetting and repairing Xbox, I hope she is genuinely paying attention to this all, and the amount of potential goodwill she could pickup by listening and pivoting as necessary. I am sure Nintendo are also watching, whether they admit it or not. They already leant further BACK into physical this generation, rather than away from it. This backlash has been bigger and louder, than I expect anyone (with a voice that mattered) inside Sony was ever expecting, maybe because they were a little too focused on the US market since moving HQ there some time back, and I genuinely hope it has repurcussions.
