Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles

Raymond Lin said:
The suits at the top don't care about user experiences or your games ownership, and Sony has a track record of doing anti consumer practice as the dominant market leader. They had a great PS2 and thought they were the best forever so they thought they could get away with charging £600 for a console for the PS3. It's the same here, they are the market leader again in the console space so they are doing things for more profit. It's the same people doing the same thing.
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I remember the "You going to need an 2nd job to buy an PlayStation 3" comment from Sony back then.
 
Eddie99 said:
Retailers will still be able to sell games in a box with a digital code.
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There is no guarantee retailers will want to participate. They don't view digital products as a valuable use of their shelf space, and Sony know this. Still doesn't have any bearing on how legislators will view the PSN marketplace ; as I said, they are already in the midst of a lawsuit in the EU, and their defense thus far has revolved around physical media being available for purchase via 3rd parties. Well, that excuse is about to be thrown out the window in January 2028.

That said, I'm sure Sony have considered the firestorm coming their way, and they may well have calculated losing the EU lawsuit into the equation. Just shows you how much profit they think can be made from abandoning physical media.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I have a feeling the meeting went like this.

Person A "Our margins are being squeezed from everywhere, profits and down, we need to cut cost somewhere".
Person B "90% of our sales are digital anyway, let's stop making discs and stop paying for distributors and logistics and claim back the margins".
Person A "Great idea!"

I think this is how it basically went, the noise about PR, the noise about losing customers, the noise about game preservation, the noise about controlling game pricing and the noise about the secondary market are off shoots from an instant increase in profit from 1 move.

The suits at the top don't care about user experiences or your games ownership, and Sony has a track record of doing anti consumer practice as the dominant market leader. They had a great PS2 and thought they were the best forever so they thought they could get away with charging £600 for a console for the PS3. It's the same here, they are the market leader again in the console space so they are doing things for more profit. It's the same people doing the same thing.
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Shawn Layden, the former Playstation CEO, recently admitted in his own podcast that Sony have been thinking of abandoning physical media for over a decade. He said that he was bombarded with questions on this topic before the PS3 and PS4 launches. In his view, the decision to finally kill off physical media is "a spreadsheet decision". Basically he insinuates they care little for the wider ramifications and how it will affect consumers and trade partners.
 
The petition against Sony's decision to kill PlayStation physical discs has over 170,000 signatures [Eurogamer Link]

You may scoff at how little real-world change petitions typically produce, but you can't deny that this particular campaign has a lot of user support behind it. The Don't Kill the Disc Change.org petition, which was launched in the wake of Sony's bombshell decision to end physical disc manufacturing in January 2028, has amassed over 170,000 signatures at the time of writing.
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Over 200,000 since they published. I don't think this on it's own will change anything, but it is good to see the backlash. Hopefully may it continue so that Sony does have to improve the messaging and do something about supporting people moving from Physical to Digital.
 
Timber said:
The petition against Sony's decision to kill PlayStation physical discs has over 170,000 signatures [Eurogamer Link]



Over 200,000 since they published. I don't think this on it's own will change anything, but it is good to see the backlash. Hopefully may it continue so that Sony does have to improve the messaging and do something about supporting people moving from Physical to Digital.
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Oh no! 200k signatures, Sony will be wetting themselves, oh wait no they won't there are 100 million PS5 owners, so only 0.2% of customers have signed a petition
 
The hope of this changing whilst nice I don’t see it happening

Sony stock went up despite backlash, they have notice on their website for people buying the disc drive about the change.

Short of a law forcing Sony hands or if when ps6 comes sales are significantly hit it will remain

There defence will be pointing to fact pc did it decades ago.

Granted of has more store fronts etc I get that arquement and agree so it would need a law or something saying Sony having entire control isn’t fair etc for this to be reversed again wouldn’t happen over night would no doubt be a long fight

Either way consumer doesn’t win. We all know these corps want physical media gone Sony in consol space just jumped first
 
Grim5 said:
Oh no! 200k signatures, Sony will be wetting themselves, oh wait no they won't there are 100 million PS5 owners, so only 0.2% of customers have signed a petition
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It's unlikely on it's own to do anything. But I do remember reading a simple little reddit post once that asked why it took 40 hours to unlock Vader. I think without criticism nothing will change and at the very least it's worth registering that criticism.
 
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LiE said:
I’m close to doing the same. I bought into PS5 to build a nice collection of physical games I can own for a long time. I can still do that for a while but the entire approach Sony has taken has left a very sour taste.
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Putting my money where my mouth is. Sony ecosystem isn't where I want to put my gaming efforts.

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beachBOYken said:
£760 for used? I don’t follow the used prices but that seems steep even if it does have disc drive and extra pad.
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It’s about the going rate, for a like new 3 month old Pro. Also there’s some negotiation built into the price.

Here are my workings.
£650 PS5 Console

£55 Disc

£10 Stand

£12 Charging stand

£40 Purple Controller



£767
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LiE said:
It’s about the going rate, for a like new 3 month old Pro. Also there’s some negotiation built into the price.

Here are my workings.
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Ah that’s fair, considering how long you have had it, and I didn’t see the extra things like stand in your listing at first.

I’m not ready to sell mine any time soon, something I may consider in the future though.

I just ordered AC Black Flag Resynced on disc and it comes with a map.:eek:
 
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@LiE is doing better than me. I'm still sitting here having not even reset, or boxed up the PS5 Pro yet. Indeed I've already spent the proceeds before I've listed it as my new CPU and GPU turned up from OCers today.

Mines only a launch unit so I'm thinking less with one extra Dualsense. I've got more controllers and a charging stand, but I do want to keep some back for PC gaming. Plus I've modded some with TMR modules.

EDIT; because this isn't a sales thread, so removed the number.
 
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beachBOYken said:
I just ordered AC Black Flag Resynced on disc and it comes with a map.:eek:
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And an art book :)

I never buy on initial release, and I've only pre-ordered the Witcher 2 back in the day on pc (for a nice box and bits)

However I have got the Resynced launch edition coming my way but I didn't buy it so that doesn't count as me preordering :)
 
adidan said:
And an art book :)

I never buy on initial release, and I've only pre-ordered the Witcher 2 back in the day on pc (for a nice box and bits)

However I have got the Resynced launch edition coming my way but I didn't buy it so that doesn't count as me preordering :)
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Same, I thought it was a reasonable price at £49.99 even if it is a remake. Looking forward to playing it.
 
xaldub said:
There is no guarantee retailers will want to participate. They don't view digital products as a valuable use of their shelf space, and Sony know this. Still doesn't have any bearing on how legislators will view the PSN marketplace ; as I said, they are already in the midst of a lawsuit in the EU, and their defense thus far has revolved around physical media being available for purchase via 3rd parties. Well, that excuse is about to be thrown out the window in January 2028.

That said, I'm sure Sony have considered the firestorm coming their way, and they may well have calculated losing the EU lawsuit into the equation. Just shows you how much profit they think can be made from abandoning physical media.
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Frivolous lawsuits get filed all the time that have little hope of succeeding, I doubt they're too concerned about it. There's no law against selling a product that can't be resold, and they clearly won't have a monopoly when retailers have the option to continue selling new games on shelves and alternative gaming consoles/PC exist. We do need better digital rights though, they shouldn't be able to remove access to your whole library if your account gets banned from a chargeback or something, at least not without refunding the whole lot.

My prediction is that a vocal minority will throw their toys out of the pram for a few months, cancel PS plus and sell their consoles etc, but Sony aren't going to budge and the noise will die down. Xbox will go digital only too and people will have to accept it or not buy any new games. The trend towards digital is clear with 80% of sales so the market has spoken IMO, in 10 years the kids will be amazed that people used to swap discs to play a different game.
 
Eddie99 said:
Frivolous lawsuits get filed all the time that have little hope of succeeding, I doubt they're too concerned about it. There's no law against selling a product that can't be resold, and they clearly won't have a monopoly when retailers have the option to continue selling new games on shelves and alternative gaming consoles/PC exist. We do need better digital rights though, they shouldn't be able to remove access to your whole library if your account gets banned from a chargeback or something, at least not without refunding the whole lot.

My prediction is that a vocal minority will throw their toys out of the pram for a few months, cancel PS plus and sell their consoles etc, but Sony aren't going to budge and the noise will die down. Xbox will go digital only too and people will have to accept it or not buy any new games. The trend towards digital is clear with 80% of sales so the market has spoken IMO, in 10 years the kids will be amazed that people used to swap discs to play a different game.
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The thing is though, the average age of console gamers is going up and up. Kids aren't getting into consoles like they used to and this is just another barrier to entry stopping them. No more cheap used games, no more lending games from your friends.

You may be right that the noise will die down eventually and we'll go back to business as usual. But the reality is that Playstation will have lost a lot of customers (and a **** load of good will) - many of whom are long term fans and enthusiasts who spend a lot of money. I am one of them, and having had every Playstation since 1995 (spending thousands of pounds in the process) I won't be getting PS6. I'm not spitting my dummy out either, it's simply a pragmatic choice. If I'm forced into digital gaming then I'd rather do it on PC where I have options.

The 80% figure which keeps getting banded around is very misleading too if we're being honest.
 
Eddie99 said:
Frivolous lawsuits get filed all the time that have little hope of succeeding, I doubt they're too concerned about it. There's no law against selling a product that can't be resold, and they clearly won't have a monopoly when retailers have the option to continue selling new games on shelves and alternative gaming consoles/PC exist. We do need better digital rights though, they shouldn't be able to remove access to your whole library if your account gets banned from a chargeback or something, at least not without refunding the whole lot.

My prediction is that a vocal minority will throw their toys out of the pram for a few months, cancel PS plus and sell their consoles etc, but Sony aren't going to budge and the noise will die down. Xbox will go digital only too and people will have to accept it or not buy any new games. The trend towards digital is clear with 80% of sales so the market has spoken IMO, in 10 years the kids will be amazed that people used to swap discs to play a different game.
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Frivolous ? The current lawsuit is for £2 Billion damages ... hardly pocket change.
 
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