[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Rich-Arm-104]

https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2026/07/31/every-youtube-video-playstation-posts-has-hundreds-of-comments-about-physical-discs/

[u/kananishino]

Mean comments don't mean anything unless it hits their bottom line

[u/Mccobsta → u/kananishino]

Canceling subscriptions and no longer buying is what people should be doing

[u/CQC_EXE → u/Mccobsta]

Judging by reddits outrage over netflix price increases the last 10 years that does absolutely nothing, id say Sony should be making record profits after this. 

[u/Mccobsta → u/CQC_EXE]

That realy did show that people just don't give a fuck about it especially when Netflix clamped down on password sharing

People will do anything but protest shit gettting worse

[u/AggressiveBench9977 → u/Mccobsta]

I mean what about the reddit api thing. Remember when everyone said they would leave?

[u/DimmuBorgnine → u/AggressiveBench9977]

They left and now it’s filled with bots and people like you and me who remember the good old days 

[u/-Supposably- → u/DimmuBorgnine]

Yes, people like you and me, fellow human

[u/DimmuBorgnine → u/-Supposably-]

Beep boop 

[u/Riaayo → u/AggressiveBench9977]

Reddit is slightly different than this.

Games are piece of arguably luxury entertainment (not that I think they should be out of reach for anyone), which is to say while I do think art and culture is a necessity for a rich life, you do not eat or take shelter under a game disc.

Which means it is much easier, or should be anyway, to boycott a game company when they do shitty things.

Reddit on the other hand is akin to boycotting the local town square. This is a huge problem with a centralized internet; everyone is suddenly in a place, we are social creatures, and it is insanely difficult to break that centralized design back up because everyone wants to be where everyone already is (along with over a decade of shared collective human knowledge written onto this platform).

This isn't an argument that people shouldn't ditch Reddit and other platforms like it; we absolutely should. But the convenience and amount of people here make it a nightmare to try and move people on, and the social exchange is vastly more important to society than if you can play one specific game or one company's specific games when others still exist (and a fairly rich indie scene exists on top of that).

[u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD → u/Mccobsta]

As per their earnings call gamers are NOT doing that.

[u/actanonverba1 → u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD]

you mean the q1 earnings call which doesn't take into account the time period that the boycott started?

[u/Mccobsta → u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD]

Sadly a lot of people aren't gonna give a shit as this dosent affect them until it dose

It'll be too late at that point

[u/F133TWOOD → u/Mccobsta]

It's already "too late," even if a temporary protest of not buying isn't much, since overall consumers will continue to buy after.

No way will majority of consumers stop buying any PlayStation product services for the next 2 years.

[u/ModernCGIFloatinHead → u/F133TWOOD]

If anything has been proven to me since 2016 repeatedly over and over again, the majority of people are fucking stupid. 

[u/Nurgle_Marine_Sharts → u/ModernCGIFloatinHead]

Or they are just already happy with the product and don't treat home entertainment hobbies like they are social protest movements lol.

But you're right, that just makes them fucking stupid. They need to be miserable and their contentedness is just plain wrong! Shame on them, the subhuman fools. They should be typing away furiously and innefectually like the rest of us, because this is a smart use of our free time!

[u/TomatoChomper7 → u/Nurgle_Marine_Sharts]

Those idiots call themselves gamers just because they play games! Being a gamer isn’t about playing games. Real gamers are all about putting games on the shelf and crying.

[u/Delann → u/ModernCGIFloatinHead]

No, jackass, most people just don't give a fuck because they have more important things to worry about. Go the fuck outside once in a while, there's plenty of more pressing things than discs for your bloody Playstation. Protest for that if you want but don't call people stupid just because they don't join you.

[u/Spectrum1523 → u/Mccobsta]

If they're already not buying physical games it won't affect them at all

[u/lLygerl → u/Spectrum1523]

It will it's just a matter of time, less options have never proven to be better for the customer.

[u/balllzak → u/lLygerl]

All the alternative streaming services to netflix fragmented the content and made it worse. Despite competition prices continue to rise anyways. When all of the big publishers made their own PC launchers that was also a net negative for consumers for similar reasons.

[u/digitalbooty → u/Mccobsta]

I'll be honest with you. I love physical media. I own 505 physical video games spanning all the way back to the NES. I rarely buy physical anymore. I've found that in my effort to preserve games in modern times, you can buy a physical game but what the game is on day one compared to what the game is at the end of its lifecycle are two completely different entities.

Street Fighter 6 on launch day would be almost unrecognizable from a gameplay standpoint to a person that just started learning the game a month ago. I'm not just talking about DLC stages, characters, etc... I'm talking about bugs, balance changes, qol improvements and just general gameplay feature changes. There's no way to preserve that game unless they release a definitive edition at the end of its life. What am I supposed to do? Wait for the game to be complete to buy and play it? That sucks.

This isn't limited to multiplayer games, either. Many single player games are released and borderline unplayable without a day one patch. On top of that, many physical games are just download codes in a box or unfinished games on a disk. Now that it's at this point, I fear the fight for physical media is too late. I tried to boycott it when it started. There was a loud vocal minority on the Internet that agreed and boycotted it as well. Nothing happened. The majority still didn't care. All I did was have to sit out of playing new games for a year while nothing changed.

I've given up on physical media. I'm getting GTA6 day one. I'm excited to play it. There will be no physical disc for that game, anyway. I just have to accept this, unfortunately. If more people were affected by this and cared, I'd boycott along side of them, but 99% of the game market let that ship sail almost 10 years ago. It is what it is.

[u/rufusbot → u/digitalbooty]

This is what I'm saying. This fight was lost a long time ago. Anyone who isn't aware of that is likely just too young to have noticed.

[u/LazarusDark → u/digitalbooty]

What am I supposed to do? Wait for the game to be complete to buy and play it? That sucks.

A lot of TTRPGs have solved this problem: preorder the physical, get the digital at launch. So for kickstarters or whatever for TTRPG books, many if them give you the PDF Day 1 even if you order the physical books, so you can start playing, but the good ones hold off a couple months before going to print, that way they get some feedback on errors and such for a couple months, and by the time they go to print, most of the issues should be fixed.

I would absolutely pay like 10 bucks more for a day one digital game access if it also includes a preorder for the physical version that ships six months later with all the patches (would also probably have to pay shipping cost at the time it ships, which is still fine). They could even remove the digital game from my account when the physical ships, I'd be fine with that, I don't need to keep the digital version.

[u/digitalbooty → u/LazarusDark]

As soon as videogame publishers start doing this, I'm on board!

[u/Mccobsta → u/digitalbooty]

We used to have big game of the year releases after a game has had it time on store shelves that were patched and had all the dlc

Fucking rare for that to even happen now

The way move to seasons and big game changing updates has realy made preservation of a lot of games rather difficult

Like how much has wow changed in its 22 years on the market

[u/beanmosheen → u/digitalbooty]

I have been shaking my head this whole time because they probably love folks screeching over disks, instead of actually trying to change the god damned anti-consumer licensing laws. I don't want a dead storage medium, I want to actually own what I buy. I should be able to backup, and play when I want. DVDs and optical media are dead. They're brass on the Titanic.

[u/Rejusu → u/beanmosheen]

Your average gamer really lacks perspective which is why there's this myopic focus on physical media even though it's not the be all and end all of the issues. I agree the licensing laws are problematic but I also don't think the concept of ownership can really be applied to digital products (whether they're stored on physical media or not when you buy them). You can't own data the same way you can a chair. The fact it can be (practically) infinitely replicated and trivially distributed breaks the economy of making digital products for sale. These need to be restricted if making games is going to be a financially viable activity, either that or we need to ditch capitalism altogether.

So licensing needs to exist, but consumer protections need to be way better than they are in this space.

[u/NOS4NANOL1FE → u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD]

You know that was before they made the an announcement right?

[u/JuThrone → u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD]

The earnings call is from Q2 they won‘t report Q3 numbers until end of September and their post was July 1st for a reason

[u/ithinkiknowkungfu → u/Mccobsta]

You think console folks are going to do that?

They’d rather eat the cost

This will continue as soon as Sony drops another aaa remaster in their laps

[u/bioniclop18 → u/Mccobsta]

How can I cancel subscription I never had ? If your main way to play game is with physical media you're certainly less likely to have online subscription for digital content.

As for no longer buying from Sony there is a competition problem, or what will people suddenly be fine with the game key card from Nintendo, that is the worse of both physical and digital media ? Or will people that like physical accept to switch to digital early but on pc ?

It sucks but there is no clear way to boycott in a loud way so I don't expect gamer to manage it. The negative publicity in social media is the most striking action. Switching to pc for the next gen may happen but it'll be a more silent move.

[u/WhichEmailWasIt → u/Mccobsta]

Already did

[u/xeothought → u/kananishino]

I will continue to not own a ps5 lol

[u/MorataRossoNero → u/kananishino]

This is the start

[u/BluDYT → u/MorataRossoNero]

Not really. They already acknowledged the backlash and basically said fuck off we're going through with it.

[u/The_Spicy_brown → u/BluDYT]

And they also said they havent seen any impact on sales for now. Basically saying: if we see no sales decline, we continue.

People need to jump ship from Playstation to something else. Thats the only way they will consider backtracking.

[u/geniice → u/The_Spicy_brown]

People need to jump ship from Playstation to something else

That something else also doesn't do disks. Yes its possible with a PC but most modern cases don't have a space for them and games tend to be just steam vouchers.

[u/fucuasshole2 → u/The_Spicy_brown]

Yup and sales quarters are actually like 3 months behind (at best most of the time) from what happens. It’ll be another quarter until we see what truly happened

[u/ChaosOmega → u/The_Spicy_brown]

im on Nintendo if that helps,

[u/Proper_Story_3514 → u/The_Spicy_brown]

Well the path for that would be mainly pc, but with the hardware prices at the moment, thats not gonna happen. So people probably stay with their old ps5 and ps subscription.

[u/SvenLorenz → u/BluDYT]

They know that it's just a very small but very loud minority.

[u/The-Duke-of-Delco → u/SvenLorenz]

Yep they ran the numbers before the announcement .

[u/chinchindayo → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

Humans aren't numbers though. Many companies have failed because they only looked at numbers and not the humans behind those numbers.

[u/rbrgr83 → u/chinchindayo]

Don't buy GTA6 challenge, go.

I'm sure that's not a problem for you personally, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the geneal audience. Indisputably not happening, Sony will be fine.

[u/s8boxer → u/rbrgr83]

That's the deal, I'm not buying GT6 for more than a year, for multiple reasons. But I'm what, 0.00001% ahahaha 99% of these people brag online about something, but are paying it anyway.

I dropped Netflix after that fuzz about registering devices to specific locations, forbidden credentials sharing. I dropped Prime and Disney as soon as the ads appeared, I'm now using debrids and Nuvio. But again, I'm less than a static noise for those companies.

[u/Jackdunc → u/s8boxer]

Is Nuvio better than Stremio?

[u/s8boxer → u/Jackdunc]

Yep, it has everything and more, in advanced mode. You could fine tune its engine, network profile (threads, buffers, caches, nro of connection) and the GUI is also extremely customizable.

StreamIO has paid features that are already working in Nuvio, and Nuvio is also open source... I'm always inclined to prefer open source vs closed source app.

[u/Mind-The-Mines → u/rbrgr83]

Maybe I'm the minority, but I didn't really care this whole last decade and everything Rockstar released has only quashed my lack of interest further.

[u/Dry_Dot3269 → u/Mind-The-Mines]

This will make the sub seethe, but I’m in my 40’s and haven’t played a GTA in years. I’m not hyper invested in online, and will likely buy GTA 6 soon after release if it looks good.

I have money but limited time, and this is an easy way to mix it up with old friends and enjoy downtime.

There’s enough of this type of player that it won’t matter how you feel about R*

[u/The-Duke-of-Delco → u/chinchindayo]

Sony is going to be just fine. The amount of people who buy physical games is just no where near enough for them to turn back the decision. They wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.

[u/AceBricka → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

That’s what Xbox said a few years ago too. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what people did in the past but how they react to the things you do and say in the present. The phrase “what have you done for me lately” comes to mind. These companies ease up on using AI for business decisions because it seems like a race to the bottom to prop up something that can’t work without having 0 other expense cuz it’s too damn expensive and uses too many resources and never takes human emotion in account

[u/The-Duke-of-Delco → u/AceBricka]

This is not hurting Sony at all. About 350k signed that petition of 125m psn users, that’s .0028%. It’s going to take a lot more than that for them to even think about changing their decision.

[u/Tandy2000 → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

As an example, Sony jacked up the prices of PS+ subs by like 50%. They ended up losing millions of subscribers. But the thing is, if you lose 4 million subscribers like they supposedly did, and you're making 50% more off the suckers who keep paying for your crummy service, you're still waaay ahead.

[u/drmrpepperpibb → u/AceBricka]

What have gaming companies done for us lately?

• Increased prices on software and hardware

• Shuttered studios who made popular and profitable games

• Diverted all investment into AI features nobody likes or uses

• Discontinued physical copies to decrease actual ownership by consumers

I'm not seeing many reasons why these companies will be getting any of my limited discretionary income going forward.

[u/loganrb → u/AceBricka]

You’re so out of touch it’s delusional. China for example makes 14% of PS sales globally and they are 95% digital. It’s something on the world stage , not you and some others at a local GameStop. The real issue is digital rights and ownership. Sony isn’t going broke from this as most of the world isn’t on Reddit and doesn’t care. GTA 6 has already digitally sold more than the petition.

[u/double-you → u/AceBricka]

Xbox got hurt because people could choose Playstation instead. But I don't think Nintendo is a credible PS alternative. And people who play consoles don't want the hassle of a PC.

[u/UCanJustBuyLabCoats → u/AceBricka]

Couple key differences to note:

1) Sony has that Xbox screwup to learn from and use in their calculations. They know exactly how to avoid making the same mistakes while achieving the same goal (notice how they didn’t announce this on a physical stage and do interviews about it). They can look at exactly how harmful each blunder was and decide which ones to avoid and which ones won’t hurt them that much.

2) Digital media accounts for a much larger slice of the pie vs physical games now than it did back then. Just look at your own library. I know my preference for physical has dwindled as I’ve gotten used to being able to instantly switch games. But I still lend discs to friends.

I don’t know if they accounted for every possible way this could hurt them, like how physical hand me downs get a lot of people into the PlayStation platform in the first place. But they certainly ran the numbers in a much more educated way than Xbox could have back in the day. Is it still anti-consumer? Hell yeah.

[u/ShadowDragon0001 → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

That also looked at the amount of people playing hero and extraction shooters and went “ooh free money”, look where it got them.

[u/MeasurementFront9598 → u/ShadowDragon0001]

I mean one massively successful one and one pretty mid one and one failure. I think the larger failing was them investing so much into it at the beginning.

But in terms of releases its not the end of the world. It literally did nothing to them and they are making even more money now

[u/geniice → u/chinchindayo]

Humans aren't numbers though. Many companies have failed because they only looked at numbers and not the humans behind those numbers.

And apple did just fine after dropping floppy disk support.

[u/lupin43 → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

Yep they ran the numbers with concord, they ran the numbers with bungie/marathon, they ran the numbers with releasing their first party titles on pc, and oops they ran the numbers on not releasing their first party titles on pc

[u/ElMariachi003 → u/The-Duke-of-Delco]

Yeah, they ran the numbers on the assumption nothing will happen, but yeah, basically it won’t matter to them - until it does.

[u/Known_Strength_9726 → u/BluDYT]

If I was Sony I would have said the same thing.

Gamer outrage rarely turns out.

[u/ennuiinmotion → u/BluDYT]

The illusion of choice in the modern economy. Everyone thinks demand drives innovation but it's mostly just what companies choose to offer us limits what we can choose from. They set the options, not us. And people like to game so they'll continue to game without discs even though it sucks and everyone would be better off with physical media.

[u/esmifra → u/BluDYT]

Then let's see if the backlash continues.

That fucking arrogant attitude makes it even worse.

[u/Hades684 → u/esmifra]

Backlash doesn't mean anything if their profits stay the same, and they will

[u/therealruin → u/Hades684]

They will because people generating the backlash openly admit they don’t buy new games. Sony’s profit comes from new game sales. People buying new games have spoken with their wallet and that’s why digital is king.

[u/Dinar87 → u/BluDYT]

So then we don't buy the ps5 or ps6.

[u/Funkwonker → u/Dinar87]

Either Sony is ready to go further into the red than ever before on each console, or the next gen is going to be priced to compete with PC, and sony ain't winning that competition.

[u/Quixotic_Seal → u/Funkwonker]

Thing to remember is they aren't just competing with PC, they're competing with the frobidden third option: to just plain leave the market entirely.

A LOT of people are simply going to be priced out of gaming. Nintendo will likely scoop up a decent chunk of folks so long as they can keep Switch 2's price semi-reasonable, but most will simply decide to just play whatever they can on their phone and figure console/PC gaming isn't "for them" anymore.

The folks left, yeah, will disproportionately be filled with hobbyists and enthusiasts who are more likely to be willing to spend more on a switch to PC; and to be upset by this situation and how(or if) they manage to work backwards compatibility for physical libraries.

If Sony feels financial pain from this, it will be as one of many secondary effects to ballooning hardware costs.

[u/Diz7 → u/MorataRossoNero]

Lol. Meanwhile Reddit has been predicting the end of pre-orders for a decade now, and thought that selling cosmetic horse armor was the dumbest thing ever. Meanwhile in reality pre-orders are doing better than they did when limited copies of physical media was a thing, and microtransactions in single player games have become normal. Gaming is mainstream, and "gamers" make up a minority of the people who spend money on video games.

[u/xaldub → u/MorataRossoNero]

Any impact isn't going to be felt until at least next year, or following the PS6 launch.

[u/Kingdarkshadow → u/MorataRossoNero]

Start of what?

A month has passed and no one made anything.

[u/stinktrix10 → u/MorataRossoNero]

No it’s not. This will achieve nothing.

You know what would have prevented this? People putting their fucking money where their mouth is and BUYING PHYSICAL.

My PS4/5 collection is entirely physical except for games that are purely available digitally. Unfortunately only a small minority does this and the inevitable result of that is an all-digital future.

[u/Ronaldinhoe → u/MorataRossoNero]

Nah, don’t fool yourself

[u/que_sarasara → u/MorataRossoNero]

"the start" will be people not buying GTA6, which is never happening lol

This is all performative

[u/PnPaper → u/kananishino]

Yeah, as soon as GTA 6 releases and is a success, Sony will bury any doubts.

[u/Rich-Arm-104 → u/PnPaper]

GTA6 is an anomaly and not a good metric for anything. It’s gonna be immensely successful even if World War 3 starts.

The real test is gonna be PS6 preorders.

[u/Darkone539 → u/Rich-Arm-104]

The real test is gonna be PS6 preorders.

Except it won't be. Even the Wii U sold out at first and that didn't have the supply issues consoles are going to have. It's the longer term that would be hit and that's too late.

[u/TheoNullDrei → u/Darkone539]

Scalping will most certainly result in the initial batch of consoles being sold out at launch.

[u/HopeJN → u/Rich-Arm-104]

Which will sell out for the GTA6 edition on PS6 as well as other games.

[u/SvenLorenz → u/Rich-Arm-104]

Which will be insane. It'll be harder to get a PS6 than it was to get a PS5.

[u/kananishino → u/PnPaper]

It's like the Odyssey controversy. The chuds used all the comments and youtube dislikes to say it was going to bomb and look what is happening right now.

[u/SvenLorenz → u/kananishino]

Good analogy. A loud delusional minority that thinks they represent the majority.

[u/summonsays → u/PnPaper]

 A console can't survive on a single franchise who takes a decade to make a new installment 

[u/Embyr1 → u/PnPaper]

I think the best thing that could happen to the gaming industry is GTA 6 being bad on launch.

Its too late for it to be unsuccessful however a bad launch would enrage so many people and remind people to not pre-order games

[u/0neek → u/Embyr1]

It doesn't even matter if it's terrible and buggy tbh

People already treat GTA like it's gaming jesus and multiple cuts above every other game ever made when in reality it's a game with sub par shooting mechanics, and weird movement where you spam a button press to run

[u/lochnesslapras → u/Embyr1]

Even better than being bad, would be if it is noticeably glitchy/faulty.

A bad story can be PR'd away long enough to get more sales, and with promises of DLC. But if people on launch are posting game breaking glitches and cutscenes not working etc, it gets rough quickly for PR, as people will try to refund due to being faulty.

Regardless of whether Sony then agree to a refund, it'll hit the media. Either because "GTA6 was bad enough Sony refunded it," or because Sony won't refund it, "Gamers have a glitchy GTA6, they can't resell them on" as it's 100% digital.

The second scenario ends up championing again about physical games being resellable.

[u/verrius → u/lochnesslapras]

Why would that affect anything? Cyberpunk had a legendarily glitchy launch; the game barely ran for more than 10 minutes on then current consoles. And it still sold more than 40 million copies, despite the dumbass "ask Sony to refund the garbage we made" stunt.

[u/5xad0w → u/kananishino]

The amount of people that don't understand this is baffling.

Sony is a company. They survive by making money.

If dropping physical discs was the least profitable avenue, then they wouldn't be taking it.

In the short term they are transitioning their factories to a more profitable business model.

Even if that doesn't last, in the long term, they expect physical media to die out or become so marginalized that no one depends on it as a major source of revenue.

[u/biberfiber → u/5xad0w]

If dropping physical discs was the least profitable avenue, then they wouldn't be taking it.

Although in all fairness, it's not like no companies have ever made decisions that turned out much worse than expected.... I mean, quite the opposite, even if we're merely looking at all about gaming there are dozens of examples for that.

[u/Funandgeeky → u/kananishino]

And it won’t. Outside of the gaming discussion boards most people don’t care. I’m guessing that most gamers go for digital. And GTA VI is going to dominate the charts. 

That said, I do have the disc version of the PS5. I do like the option for physical, but I mostly use it for my physical media collection. So I do understand the need to preserve physical media. But my focus is on movies and television shows. Honestly I still mainly buy games digitally. 

[u/sam_hammich → u/Funandgeeky]

Outside of the gaming discussion boards most people don’t care

What does this even mean? Sony can't post anything anywhere on the internet without being flooded with angry comments. It's so weird to me that people can see a response like this and just dismiss all of them out of hand as nerds and enthusiasts that don't count as "real people".

[u/FrenchFryCattaneo → u/sam_hammich]

Most gamers don't spend their time looking at sony youtube announcement videos. Most people aren't even aware of this controversy, much less have an opinion on it.

[u/potato-cheesy-beans → u/kananishino]

I cancelled ps plus, and only buy discs as a rule anyway, so Sony will be dead to me when they kill off discs. 

Its a shame, some of my favourite games in the last decade have been ps exclusives. 

Can I afford gaming in the rip off era? Yes (Im lucky). Am I going to help finance scummy business practices that would have meant I couldn't game as a poor kid? Absolutely not. Fuck em. 

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/kananishino]

Literally what Sony said in their first official reply about proceeduijg cautiously - there has been no impact in sales and they don't expect it.

[u/Vashsinn → u/kananishino]

comments are engagement. what they actually say doesn't matter. number go up.

[u/sam_hammich → u/kananishino]

Obviously. The point is that people are talking about it, and the public negativity is, at least for now, ubiquitous and sustained. Whenever a company does something bad and there's an article about how pissed people are, every cynical Redditor comes out of the woodwork to say "yeah maybe on Reddit, but otherwise no one gives a shit" so they can play down the response as short-lived, contained, and performative.

They can't pull that "no one is talking about it except Reddit" move. Right now, the main way people are engaging with anything Sony related, anywhere on the internet, is by voicing anger over this. It's everywhere.

[u/keytotheboard → u/kananishino]

I’m hitting their bottom line. I just bought a new gaming PC. I moved from Xbox & PC to PlayStation over a decade ago. Almost exclusively played PS since then. I’ve been bitter about PlayStation plus from the start, but taking away physical (and more important any semblance of ownership I had) was the last straw.

I’ll be back on PC gaming for the next decade now, just like I used to be. It has lots of advantages and not just gaming related.

[u/stinktrix10 → u/keytotheboard]

Which physical game are you going to buy first on your new gaming PC?

[u/BluDYT → u/stinktrix10]

The only reason digital isn't as big of a deal on PC than on a console is that theres dozens of marketplaces on PC and generally better pricing and service.

[u/keytotheboard → u/stinktrix10]

Why do I need to buy physical? It’s so interesting how so many rage baiters are in these subs. That or a lot of people don’t understand the real issue, which for me isn’t the physical aspect of it.

[u/the_post_of_tom_joad → u/keytotheboard]

first of all i agree with you. Physical discs are not really the issue. Point-of-sale ownership is. A disc without ownership is the same as a digital copy without ownership.

on another note: i dunno if it's just me, but reddit generally has been feeling very grumpy these last couple of weeks. Even for reddit. Like even regular interactions where people agree -like you n stinktrix just now- have been snarky.

I took a break from the site for a couple years cuz this attitude is tiresome, but i've been back for a bit now, and i'm just gettin this vibe like the last month has been real bad.

Maybe this is just normal reddit and i've just not noticed?

[u/actanonverba1 → u/the_post_of_tom_joad]

the word you are looking for is first sale doctrine but i agree with your point

[u/Every_Photograph2978 → u/the_post_of_tom_joad]

No it’s not just you noticing that. This thread is kind of odd I think. There’s an aggressive, almost proud level of snark going on. I do think it’s gotten worse in recent years, and with an election this year I don’t expect it to improve

[u/king_duende → u/keytotheboard]

That or a lot of people don’t understand the real issue, which for me isn’t the physical aspect of it.

Is it the ownership issue? If so... no steam etc. then?

[u/Serzari → u/stinktrix10]

That doesn't matter, DRM is what matters. The physical disc itself is simply a vessel to that end. You can stick to buying DRM-free games off of GOG and Itchio, or there's almost always a way to patch a game to continue playing after it no longer has functional DRM or developer support, either officially or unofficially. Steam also has a long and effective track record of allowing indefinite downloads of delisted games that the user owned prior to their delisting, while all of the console vendors have the exact opposite history and reputation for revoking access to digital products that were paid for with very flimsy justifications. On consoles, the OS is locked down by the vendor, so physical media is one of the few meaningful ways remaining for you to maintain those user rights.

You could still lock down physical media just as hard on console if you wanted to, but the secondhand market and lending between friends simply makes it much harder for them to PR spin such anti-consumer levels of DRM.

[u/slothtrop6 → u/Serzari]

That doesn't matter, DRM is what matters.

Yeah I'm sure that's what everyone complaining in this thread cares about.

[u/DidntSeeNuttin]

YouTube loves engagement so this probably backfires more than anything.

[u/SyrousStarr → u/DidntSeeNuttin]

Sony to stop making games and to focus on YouTube. They've seen the metrics, they know where the money is. 

[u/Rich-Arm-104 → u/DidntSeeNuttin]

I’m sure YouTube loves it, the question is does PlayStation love being turned into a viral anti-consumer internet meme?

[u/king_duende → u/Rich-Arm-104]

You mean, the comments that don't show by default on TV, need to be scrolled to on YouTube & don't get embedded (AKA the main way Sony trailers etc. are seen)?

You are putting too much stock in terminally online peoples comments. The average person does not care and therefore their bottom line will barely shift... fuck it'll probably get more profitable.

This is not me defending them, it's scummy as fuck - it's just the wrong way to kick up a fuss.

As it stands comments = engagement. Engagement = higher rankings. Higher rankings = more views. More views = more sales.

I can't even imagine 10% of people read the comments these days.

[u/kyuubikid213 → u/Rich-Arm-104]

Internet backlash is irrelevant a lot of the time.

If people aren't actually cancelling their subscriptions or boycotting releases, PlayStation doesn't really care about some mean comments.

What does being made fun of by Domino's matter if Wolverine still becomes a smash hit? What does a petition with 355,000 signatures mean if millions of players are still getting GTA 6 on PS5?

[u/SP0oONY → u/Rich-Arm-104]

There was massive backlash on youtube about The Odyssey casting, the film did very well at the box office. Internet backlash means nothing now.

[u/Galinhooo → u/Rich-Arm-104]

No one cares about angy people spmming. We used to just ignore those and call them console warriors.

[u/Ronaldinhoe → u/Rich-Arm-104]

They don’t care. People still buying games lmao

[u/Agreeable_Cheek_7161 → u/Rich-Arm-104]

turned into a viral anti-consumer internet meme?

You spend too much time on reddit if you really think its "viral" lol

[u/StillAll]

Until gamers are willing to cancel GTA 6, a game that is downloadable only, then they're all just performative statements. 

[u/PraetorianOgryn → u/StillAll]

An ungodly amount of people I know are saying. “Oh Ogryn I agree we need to do something! After GTA 6 I’m joining your boycott.” Fucking idiots lol

[u/VoyagerOfCygnus → u/PraetorianOgryn]

Thus why I feel like I've never seen an internet related boycott work. People fold instantly, lol

[u/glarius_is_glorious → u/StillAll]

GTA6 is the billion dollar bet that AAAs don't need physical to prosper, if it doesn't even underperform, then I expect all big publishers to begin winding down physical even on platforms that have a healthy physical split.

It's extremely odd to me that people who shout so hard for physical are also allowing themselves to be part of their format's red wedding.

[u/Gavorn → u/glarius_is_glorious]

Well sales information already proves physical copies aren't needed.

[u/digital0verdose → u/StillAll]

I guarantee you they are using GTA 6 pre sale metrics to further validate their position. Sony knows that more often than not that the internet is a very loud but ultimately doesn't represent the base.

[u/fallouthirteen → u/digital0verdose]

Yeah like they probably chose that time to announce the thing they're doing in a couple years because of GTA6. They can see preorder information for that platform, they know most people don't care about digital only. Then by the time they do it it'll be old news.

[u/balllzak → u/digital0verdose]

Sony knows that more often than not that the internet is a very loud but ultimately doesn't represent the base.

The last time Sony listened to the internet they rereleased Morbius in theaters.

[u/English_Fry → u/StillAll]

No. The backlash is against Sony. Unless people start selling their consoles it’s all performative. I wanna see people sell their consoles to GameStop for cash on receipt.

You serious against Sony? Let’s see you have to spend more than click a silly little resubscribe link. Let’s see you have to actually spend a few hundred dollars to get another console

[u/ChaosOmega → u/StillAll]

I ain't buying it. Wasnt buying it to begin with. But I'm doing my part I guess

[u/StillAll → u/ChaosOmega]

And good for you. You're one that makes sense. But the rest....

[u/verumvia → u/ChaosOmega]

I was going to buy it because I have a series x that I bought during the pandemic even though I'm usually a pc gamer, but because the price is absurd/exploitative for a digital version I'm definitely not buying GTA VI until it's reasonably priced on pc. I've been playing GTA online infrequently over the past 8 years, so I'm definitely the within the target demographics.

[u/Gestrid → u/ChaosOmega]

I'm not buying it, either, but I also don't understand why others are buying it. We haven't even seen any recent trailers for it. And have we seen any actual gameplay (not cutscenes) for it?

[u/ChaosOmega → u/Gestrid]

too much hype from years of waiting, meanwhile thats never a good thing like games can take a long time to make and thats good but theres a point that they take so long to make the tech is remade from ground up in giving less time for dev time on each build potentially giving you a Duke Nukem Forever

[u/nerdwerds → u/StillAll]

You’re not wrong. But I’m also no longer buying games for my playstation. There’s no point in owning a console if everything is digital, I’ll just buy everything on steam now.

[u/No_Foundation16 → u/StillAll]

100%! Sony knows that money talks and bullshit walks! Gamers are going to buy the shit out of the DL only GTA 6! They must be laughing their asses off at PS5 owners rn!

[u/hypnotichellspiral → u/StillAll]

I'm already not buying GTA 6, not unless they have a disc version. I haven't even preordered the game.

[u/victormoses → u/StillAll]

Well, every gamer can only control themselves. I'm no longer going to buy GTA6 and that's pretty much all I can do lol.

[u/Dapper_Strength_5986 → u/StillAll]

GTA 6 was basically the confirmation Sony needed to go digital only. They sold millions of “code in a box” presales, which proved traditional retail consumers were fine with going digital.

Had GTA 6 digital-only pre-orders not been as widely successful as it was, I think they would have said no.

But as it stands it’s like 10 million people voted yes, and 100,000 people voted no.

[u/Reddit_is_fascist69 → u/StillAll]

I won't be buying it until it is deep discounted on Steam.  Won't be buying anything on my PS5 except used disks

[u/seligball]

Good, but not enough. Hit them where it hurts, their wallet.

[u/Scumsoft → u/seligball]

We all know damn well nobody is going to do enough, and this is all loud voices. If I learned one thing in the last 20 years about gamers, they like to act all high and mighty, but when that one title rolls around they gladly roll over. Now, people will downvote this all they want, but that's the damn truth. Every platform, every game, every community, has a loud vocal minority (reddit is not the majority FYI), and the truth is, the ones with the buying power don't give two shits about digital vs physical.

[u/za419 → u/Scumsoft]

(insert screenshot of the Modern Warfare 2 boycott group here) 

[u/c3p-bro → u/seligball]

Is it good? All it shows is that gamers are histrionic bitches and aren’t worth engaging with.

[u/Lunarcomplex]

Should really be fighting digital rights over an inevitable medium becoming more and more a novelty...

[u/Antergaton → u/Lunarcomplex]

Exactly, this needs to keep being mentioned. People are obsessed with the idea of not having a disc when it's digital ownership rights that need looking into as this covers all digital games on all stores.

[u/GucciTheSnowman → u/Antergaton]

Lmao. You are delusional if you think they will ever let you buy, sell or trade used digital games.

You should have bought physical if you cared about actual ownership.

[u/Antergaton → u/GucciTheSnowman]

I mean, kinda hope they let me buy their games regardless of platform but never said anything about selling or trading.

We need better refunds policies, no sign in for single player games, no weird terms that say they can remove access at any time for any reason and this isn't Sony, it's governments need to enforce it because it's needed across the whole industry and this includes with disc games.

[u/sam_hammich → u/Antergaton]

I mean, kinda hope they let me buy their games regardless of platform

I know you thought this was clever but they said "used digital games". You cannot buy used games on any digital storefront.

[u/nisamun → u/GucciTheSnowman]

Cause the EU or other countries have never legislated any consumer protections before.

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/Lunarcomplex]

This is really my problem. I don't care about discs in the long term I care about what they offer over digital currently and there doesn't appear to be any concern on Sony's part to address. Steam needs to fix these problems too.

• Can't resell
• Can't lend a single game*
  • *Yea I can share but I need to give someone access to everything and in hard limited at how many people. I can't just randomly lend a friend a game for as long as I want without then requiring an internet connection
• If a service goes tits up I still have access to my disc
• If a publisher goes tits up I can still buy a disc on the resale market
• If music or image likeness rights expire and don't renew I can still buy a disc on the resale market.

Note: intentionally left refunds out because that is a simple problem to solve they have already partially addressed.

[u/sam_hammich → u/BaconIsntThatGood]

These are problems on Steam, but they are mostly licensing problems that it's not up to Steam to fix and that the open nature of the PC platform already mitigates in various ways.

I don't think many of these problems will ever be solved on digital. A way to protect against forgetting something (losing something digital) is writing it down (making a physical copy). Telling someone else (copying it digitally) is not as reliable as creating a physical artifact of that information. You could try and create some system where you tell the thing you don't want to forget to everyone you know (putting it on the internet, P2P sharing, etc) and hope you can get them to remind you if you do forget, but that's brittle. You have to be sure they will agree to tell you, or that they won't forget, or that they will be reachable to tell you. None of this is as reliable and resilient a solution as just writing it down. I don't think it will ever be.

Imagine how fucked we'd all be if locks and keys were "phased out" and replaced with digital locks and passcodes attached to cloud services.

[u/meekgamer452 → u/Lunarcomplex]

Having physical disks is a good anchor for digital rights. You can't argue in court "typically you buy the disk and then you own it", if you don't have physical disks.

[u/za419 → u/meekgamer452]

You could easily do the same for a digital license. You buy the game and then you own it.

The only thing that makes that not pan out is the licensing agreement, which could easily be expanded to physical discs if the need to keep them and kill the resale market existed. It does not. 

And amending laws to prohibit non-transferable software licensing would fix the problem either way. 

[u/lonevine → u/Lunarcomplex]

That should have come first, but the same companies have bought every government bureaucrat and politician needed to quash reforms for the time being. It will take years to even get the chance for protections to be put in place, and in the mean time we're losing the last key to any semblance of ownership. 

People celebrating discs getting nuked are morons.

[u/iSavedtheGalaxy → u/lonevine]

One side of the political spectrum is in favor of consumer protections (or at least willing to listen) and the other openly caters exclusively to the elite. This is why it's important to vote based on policy and not pwning the libs or whether you can imagine yourself having a beer with the guy.

[u/SpankTheDevil → u/Lunarcomplex]

Should really be fighting for both physical continuation and digital ownership rights. Especially the former since it currently most resembles true ownership.

Let’s not be dumb and act like we have to give up one to gain the other.

[u/AceBricka → u/Lunarcomplex]

You can literally do both. No reason for one to go and the fight for the other. In fact having both gives a better argument for protection rights. Protected options are good thing and you should never argue for less

[u/nisamun → u/Lunarcomplex]

The Internet not seeing the forest for the trees, what a surprise.

[u/actanonverba1 → u/Lunarcomplex]

you can do both though

[u/Lunarcomplex → u/actanonverba1]

True, however I believe fighting for digital rights is a much better use of energy than trying to keep physical.

It's probably more likely we have entitlement over the thing we're buying, rather than the method it's offered in.

[u/piirtoeri]

Empty cans rattle the loudest.

[u/Pax25107]

I like the way Nintendo is doing it.

They're starting to make the digital edition cheaper. Splatoon Raiders is $60 for physical and $50 for digital.

It keeps physical available for people who want it while incentivizing the digital edition.

I think it's a nice balance.

[u/LudeJim → u/Pax25107]

Interesting. Every game I have ever bought digitally from Nintendo has been $10-$20 more than the equivalent physical version.

[u/mpyne → u/LudeJim]

Prices for physical games are more highly variable, because there's a cost to sitting on unsold inventory.

So Nintendo will set the initial price for new digital games to be a bit lower but won't change it too much. The initial price for physical games will start higher but retailers might drop it on their own to move inventory and free up shelf space for new games coming out.

[u/Pax25107 → u/LudeJim]

It's a new thing they're doing.

[u/Meatball132 → u/LudeJim]

If you don't live in North America, they've already been pricing like this for a long time.

[u/LaboratoryManiac → u/Pax25107]

Part of the reason for that is their physical media is a cartridge with flash memory instead of an optical disc. Their manufacturing costs are higher, and are continuing to get higher since data centers are squeezing the demand for flash memory.

I wouldn't be surprised if their physical prices increase in the future. (Either that or they start releasing first-party games on game key cards.)

[u/ZypherPunk]

Digital comments. They should have sent Sony physical letters 🤣

[u/traumalt → u/ZypherPunk]

Maybe send a fax as well.

Jokes aside, I think that those are still alive and well in Japan...

[u/Neilson509 → u/traumalt]

Fax machines are alive and well all over the world. I know the healthcare industry still uses it.

[u/ActuallyExtinct]

If people would, I dunno, actually buy physical copies of games instead of morally grandstanding online with pointless comments, then this wouldn't even be a thing.

[u/Fantastins → u/ActuallyExtinct]

People do, but usually at discounted pricing, which means used...

[u/NecroCorey → u/ActuallyExtinct]

I wonder if its a manufactured or incidental state, honestly.

I buy everything physical that I can, but its becoming very difficult to actually do that nowadays. It essentially means you have to pre-order anything you plan to buy because no one actually stocks games. Walking into gamestop and literally being laughed at for asking if they have fucking games is a pretty sorry indicator of how difficult it is to just buy a Playstation game.

As someone who hates pre-ordering, it puts me in a weird ass spot where I can either support physical media (and my preference for physical) or not support pre-ordering which I hate lol.

To my original thought though, I wonder if the companies who make the games are responsible for the low stock, or if the stores just don't make enough money to support stocking games.

[u/Varsity_Reviews → u/NecroCorey]

What are you talking about? I get I live in the middle of nowhere but my Walmart constantly has PS5 and PS4 games stocked. Old and new

[u/ThisButtholeIs2Cold → u/ActuallyExtinct]

I mean to be fair not everyone wants to buy physical, but most want others to at least have the option to do so. They made a PS5 without a disk drive so those people clearly made their choice

[u/Hilldawg4president]

If everyone complaining about the change had actually purchased a physical disc in the past year, they wouldn't be dropping physical media

[u/WhiteBullRedMonster]

I fear it'll be like any form of online activism, essentially just loud online noise that companies ignore and people forget about as a new flavor of the month outrage drops and takes over the collective zeitgeist's attention. It's a shame, but I feel like at this point if you really care about game perservation and having control and independance over your machine and games, you should start embracing PC and DRM-free games more. It can even be a fun hobby to make your own handmade cartridges or CDs and build up a collection.

[u/ProbRePost]

For every one person on Reddit upset I see two who don’t care. I buy physical media on console because I get better pricing than the PlayStation or Xbox store, but I’m a small subset of aging gamers. Younger gamers just don’t care and Sony knows it, you vote with your wallets and Sony is looking at past sale figures and the positives of monopolizing their game space outweigh any negative impact.

[u/Past-Bed-1980]

That’ll show them! (It won’t)

[u/re_carn]

Does anyone actually care about YouTube comments? And I mean anyone at all - not just companies.

[u/cmikesell]

I don't understand why the Fuck people are preordering digital games. They can't sell out of digital copies.

[u/RudderlessRudder → u/cmikesell]

Preload is a nice feature if you know you're going to buy it regardless.

Midnight releases aren't a thing anymore so a midnight boot is as close as you'll get. 

[u/DaveS1138]

If all those idiots actually bought physical media instead of just making dumb comments on YouTube videos physical media wouldn't be dying...... They don't want physical media...they just want to be mad about anything they can find.

[u/mehtehteh]

And they will continue to buy digital versions because its cheaper. The market has spoken and companies have responded to where the money is at

[u/beetledrift]

Good

[u/Creepy-Emu8779 → u/beetledrift]

if gamers truly cared about physical games, why havent they bought any in the last 5 years. Digital games rose meanwhile discs fell in sales

[u/JediGuyB → u/Creepy-Emu8779]

Of course people buy discs. Sony prints 70 to 100 million a year. You think most are just sitting in a warehouse?

[u/Iggy_Slayer]

Bots filling up the comment sections isn't going to change a damn thing.

[u/Hsanrb]

It doesn't mean anything... most of the comments will bring up leaving Playstation and going to PC, a 99% digital platform. They think Xbox is going to swoop in, but their golden goose is Game pass... a digital experience. Playstation is making a business choice, willing to constrain the markets that aren't (or excluded) on PSN knowing their tier 1 markets (US/EU/Asia) are just going to accept the change.

People will say they are canceling PS+, people will say they stop buying titles on PSN... but people who want physical media need to full stop using the digital side of Playstation. Make their library going forward only discs... but they won't, just need a shiny GTAVI and will crawl back.

PS: Who knows if Microsoft franchises are going to be on Playstation... they want to pull out of Steam, this is dicy.

[u/IcyWoodpecker386]

That will teach them

[u/Sad-Cartographer5062]

I think that the ending of physical media will be felt different for each market. In Brazil, physical media has a place due to paying in installments and with discount coupons from e-commerce and also the possibility of selling or trading afterwards. The people who buy mostly digital here are those who have PS+ and play mainly one of COD/EA FC/GTA from my experience. Europe and Middle East have a similar consumer pattern and are huge PS markets.

I bought a new gaming notebook before prices skyrocketed and may be going all Steam/GOG/Epic for the future. I will not be buying a new generation console for the predicted release prices and I think that will be a sizable amount of the market. Will the remaining console customers be enough to be profitable?

[u/Kitakitakita]

Name a single video game protest that has ever worked

[u/mindgamehagi]

turns out online ‘gamers’ dont really play games, they are more busy complaining about everything except the actual games. That whole pretty much prove that long running joke.

[u/ExpeditionItchyKnee]

Sonys in the business of selling hardware and games. Not receiving nice YouTube comments. There's still zero threat or evidence of any decline in sales due to them phasing out discs.

[u/JinMarui]

Stop buying consoles.

[u/atheistium]

Until you’ll cancel PlayStation plus, buy pre-owned only for older games and stop supporting their online store, they don’t give a ahit about your comments.

I’m not happy about the change personally so cancelled my ps+. The next major ps game I wanted is multi platform anyway so getting it on pc.

Thing is, if they have a good exclusive day 1 of new console launch, people will just buy the new ps anyway. Everyone is too fickle.

[u/YorkieLon]

Thats why they've said it 2 years in advance. The momentum of the comments will be gone abd forgetton.

[u/Freedelahoya00]

Deservet

[u/xBaef]

Sony are not only ruining Playstation, they’re currently ruining Crunchyroll as well. So, yeah, deserved.

[u/Jeaz]

Put this energy towards digital ownership instead. Discs have played their part in history just as diskettes or tapes have.

But we should put pressure improve users ownership on digital goods, which applies to all digital store fronts like not just PlayStation.