They also just announced that the PS3 and Vita Playstation Store will be shutting down, starting next month in certain regions and everywhere by July 2027. At some point in the future it will be impossible to buy games for your old PS6 because it doesn’t support discs and the Playstation Store dropped support.
End of an era?
Submitted 1 day ago by VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online to games@lemmy.world
https://discuss.online/pictrs/image/648f1ce9-5c52-446b-add1-a635341f6c40.jpeg
Comments
ryper@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Honestly, once cheap physical media wasn’t able to keep up with game sizes this became inevitable. Blurays can store 100GB, which isn’t enough for the bigger games of today, and they will only get bigger. It was still nice to have the disc as a sellable, tradeable license for the game as long as the servers were up, though.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Personally I bought a PS5 only to collect physical games and be able to play them. I’m not paying premium PS prices for temporary, digital access.
I think it’s safe to say this means PS6 will either be digital only, or heavily focused on digital. Which for me is a non-negotiable deal breaker.
PlayStation is pulling off the best marketing campaign Xbox could ever dream of.
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean, thats a pretty low bar. Xbox cant market for shit anymore.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
PS6 will 100% be digital only. It’s likely directly related, as it will probably release sometime in 2028.
This isn’t gonna help XBOX any, they’re even worse.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Sony only announced this now because of the upcoming Xbox layoff announcement. Typical “get all of your bad news out in front of the competitors worse news so yours is only in the news cycle for a few days” play.
Xbox’s “physical as digital” plans for the Xbox One were amazing. Bet the people who cried about it are now feeling pretty stupid.
nicpicname@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
So, nothing to look forward to. This is why you’re so behind in sales.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I seriously don’t understand the “disk” thing. I could see how you want your game to be on a physical media so you don’t have to download it when you want to play, but games are so big you couldn’t do it for decades already, and having a disk is barely saves you any time anyway. Meanwhile it’s a waste of materials, it get scratched all the time, and if you lose it it’s gone.
thatGuyWithGlasses@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I think its because you can borrow a game from a friend. That was always the reasoning behind higher pricing of console titles. I wonder if borrowing a game between friends or buying second hand will be still a thing now.
tmyakal@infosec.pub 10 hours ago
No, it won’t be. That’s literally the point. Publishers have viewed the second-hand market as craven scalpers for decades. Companies like GameStop make an absolute killing selling the same used disc 3 or 4 times at $65/ea than selling new for $70 once.
Every few years there’s a new and more aggressive push to limit what people can do or get with a trade-in. It’s why pre-order “bonuses” have gotten to be such a big deal, why live-service games got such a huge push, and now why Sony is eliminating physical media. They think cutting the resellers out means they’ll get more customers, not that less people will play their games.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Can you? With an age of always online shit, can you really give a friend your disk, and they will be able to play, or will it tell you that the game is already registered to an account?
If it’s still not the case for some games, it’s not the lack of disks that finishes it.
Chill_Dan@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
The benefit isn’t the physical disk, it’s the ownership of the game. They can and do take away digital purchases, they cannot take away your disk.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
But that’s the point, your game is not on your disk! Your game is downloaded after you insert your disk. You can’t do it without an account. When they decide to take away your digital renting agreement, or when they decide to not support your game anymore, your disk becomes a piece of plastic that you can’t do shit about. You don’t own a game, you own a piece of plastic that has some private downloader on it.
Y’all talking like we’re in 1998 and the game can fit on a disk leaving room for developer’s commentary.
Jaeger86@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Xbox and Nintendo are basically doing the same thing
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
And PC games have been digital for ages it feels. Still a loss, I usually wait half a year to two years before buying new games and can just pick up whatever I want for 20€ on disc without having to wait for the next PS Store sale, often even the version that includes all the DLCs and the remaster of the previous game.
garretble@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Steam kinda killed physical PC games 20 years ago.
And the Steam zealots will come and say, “Yeah, but but you can still buy games on other storefronts! So it’s not like this Sony thing at all!” OK, sure.
But Steam still helped kill physical games on PC.
LemmyTellYou@lemmy.cafe 1 day ago
This
Whilst I don’t agree with it, it’s hardly something new.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
How are Microsoft doing it?
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Depends on how long Nintendo plans to keep doing game key cards. They suck, but they’re better than having no way to transfer a game license at all. I suspect that the “Switch 3” won’t have any physical media at all, though.
master94ga@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Not really, as today Microsoft or Nintendo are not forcing anyone to drop disc in physical games, is up to the deloveper tondo as they wish.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because stopping disc production has worked so well for Microsoft…
Here’s the bit both are forgetting:
The hardware is still sold at retail.
So you go into a store, you see a console for sale but no games. Or, worse, a shelf of old games on the “Discontinued” rack (the Xbox section in most Targets and Walmarts now.) Do you feel inclined to buy that hardware?
How is that working out for Microsoft?
forbes.com/…/xbox-sales-are-its-lowest-ever-this-…
Valve can get away with it with the Steam products because they are sold in the same online store that sells the games.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
The games will still be sold at retailers as a code in a box. I don’t see the point, but apparently that’s the plan.
Valve can also get away with it because PCs are an open platform and you have options to have control over your digital games, whether legal or not. So the lack of physical media doesn’t really matter there.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Also steam is a storefront, if you want the hardware you go to PC store.
Saying that made me realised that they might actually want to make sure they (the Sony store) are the only one to be able to sell this, no more game store in the future.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
They’re actually planning for games to be sold at retail as a code in a box, so they still want game displays at retail, but also want to have complete control over the pricing of them. A “have their cake and eat it, too” kind of thing.
Graphiar@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Eh. I’m not surprised to see this. But I am happy I built my PC when I did.
Quite frankly I do not feel bad about pirating everything and storing it to my hard drive. If we don’t own it, it’s not stealing.
auzy1@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Sony have always been a sh** company though, even as far back as their proprietary mini disc format.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Of course, all corporations are shitty. But there are degrees of shitty.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Minidisc was licensed technology, companies like Sharp, Denon, Pioneer, JVC, Onkyo and Kenwood all made competitive minidisc players
Flamekebab@piefed.social 1 day ago
You’re allowed to swear here.
flamingleg@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
yeah i still remember when sony lawyered lik-sang.com out of existence for having the temerity to sell sony games outside their intended regional markets.
LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
The removal of physical games isn’t that big of a deal to me as someone who mostly plays on PC, and the only physical PC games I’ve bought in the last decade and a half were touhou games I imported off Yahoo auctions.
Honesty I wonder why that actually became so normalized on PC while it didn’t on consoles. I’m sure Steam has a big role in it.
007ace@lemmy.ca 16 hours ago
I think the main reason for this on PC has been the fact that there’s been piracy/licensing for so long. We used to have cd keys to prove you were using the legit disc. You bought a license, and there were cdchecks. Once you were able to prove ownership with a key instead of a disc, and create your own offline installers too? All the reasons to fight against it were gone. On consoles you can’t make offline backups. You can’t play without constant online license checks. And once the license date rolls over you can’t play anyway.
My gog backup, I can install offline tomorrow never touch the Internet and be fine.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I don’t understand why anyone cares.
I can’t think of a single game that didn’t require an install and then updates before playing anyways.
Vipsu@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Games on GOG come with offline installer that can be used to install the most reacent version.
But you’re right, many games do require day 1 patches or even game data to be dowloaded but that makes these worse / lower in quality for many.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
That’s gog, not consoles.
Aneorthisio@lemmy.ml 23 hours ago
That is only the case because your console is connected to the internet. For example, I can dust off my old PS3 today and play the version 1.0 release of GTA V after installing it from the disc because the console is offline, meaning there won’t be any prompt asking me to update the game to the latest version, and it simply works.
You might argue that this is a bad example and that GTA V runs better on modern hardware, so let us consider Bloodborne on the PS4 instead, a title you will not find anywhere else and for which current emulation remains, at best, sketchy. I can insert that disc into my PS4 unplugged from the internet and play it immediately without any mandatory update.
Killing physical support means the end of this possibility for further releases, not that Sony has many exclusives these days, but for the handful of PS6 games that won’t make it to PC.
ForgottenUsername@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
And there were ps5 discs that did this. I played Astrobot for a month with no downloads or updates.!
I agree it wasn’t the norm, but it was possible.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 22 hours ago
Were there any ps5 games that could play from the disc offline anymore?
I guess that was my point: that ps5 players already were used to having to deal with online content.
Zink@programming.dev 1 day ago
It won’t really affect me, but I understand the appeal of a physical artifact servicing as time game’s license for those who like to lend, sell, trade, library, etc.
And those same benefits are why the corporations can’t wait to do away with it. It’s been quite a while since Microsoft tried the same thing and people freaked out enough that they reversed course.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
It’s worth pointing out that Microsoft didn’t try the same thing. Microsoft tried to move to “physical as digital”, where they retained the benefits of physical copies such as resale and loaning.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Wow you’re young
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Or old enough to not care that much. What am I going to do with more plastic?
BUT, I should have been more clear that I was talking only about ps5 and ps5 owners. I would never own one. Their online account is annoying and I have never forgiven them for the rootkit.
I was surprised to find out that there are games that will play without the internet. Although every ps5 MUST be connected to the internet first to link the disc drive to the device.
I used Does It Play to look at the games, and a lot of them will not work without updates. I assumed all at this point, which is why I said what I said.
c64z86@piefed.world 1 day ago
Between this and most of the games coming out these days, apart from indies, being complete crap, I think the PS5 will be my last console.
einlander@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They better be switching to sd cards or something.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 day ago
They’ll do it if they can manage to make it impossible to use any adapter. PSVita used those tiny memory sticks because fuck you for wanting standardized storage solutions
Keilik@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t know if it’s relevant to you but you can buy vita to micro SD adapters now and I did purely out of spite
einlander@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I imagine they would put TPM chips in them.
Auth@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Oh no this is gonna drive the uncs wild. We’ll never hear the end of this.
87Six@lemmy.zip 23 hours ago
The end of that era happened in like 2015…
bless@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
You guys, they just want to reduce street day leaks
Surp@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m not really sure what any of these people want us to do?
Sektor@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Go along with the program like sheep. What else can you do, stop playing new games?
Oneiros@eviltoast.org 1 day ago
Yeah I’m completely done with Sony. They also killed Destiny as a franchise and are already getting ready to launch a PS6 despite them basically producing no games during the pandemic because most people didn’t own a ps5 due to shortages. Feels like we got half a life cycle for this console, then they release the pro for like twice the price, and now they expect you to get ready to upgrade. And of course they are stopping disc production while simultaneously proving they can and will just stop letting you use your digital purchases. I’m sticking to PC and switch 2 for the foreseeable future. I honestly may never buy another console.
thiscat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
you gotta really look at these CEOs and ask who hurt them
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Good thing I skipped a generation of console.
csolisr@hub.azkware.net 1 day ago
Amazing to see all four major players in the AAA gaming industry shooting themselves in the feet one way or another:
- Xbox trying to spread itself thin between consoles and PC, going into studio purchasing sprees that it was unable to maintain long-term and churning them out as we speak
- Steam getting bitten hard by the AI bubble, making their Steam Machine dead on arrival in price, power, and availability of games (although the latter is partly due to a lack of anti-cheat solutions that can be legally deployed on top of an open-source kernel)
- And Nintendo pushing for more expensive games than the competition, and deploying Game Cards for physical games as the worst of both worlds
dudeface@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I already buy everything digitally so don’t mind that much personally, would be nice if they committed to long term backwards compatibility though
VexLogic@feddit.online 1 day ago
The biggest problem with this isn’t really the lack of physical games. (Although this is really disappointing as I used to love having a huge collection of games to look at.) The real problem is where we are being pushed because of this.
Digital games are basically just license keys for us. These companies reserve the right to revoke those license keys from us or just completely remove said game/movie/show from the store and your library whenever they see fit.
Not to mention the end if the used game market but I don’t feel like getting into that right now
dudeface@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This has all been the case on PC for a long time and there isn’t much complaining over there
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
This only reinforces the reasons why I bought a PC for gaming instead of a console.