More evidence I did the right thing by completely avoiding Sony this generation.
Due to licensing agreements expiring with publishers, 500 titles of your digital games will no longer be available. We are also shutting down our digital storefront for this generation’s console next year, after which you will no longer be able to download any other titles onto your puny price inflated ssd. TPlease consider upgrading to the PS7 to continue paying to play online, where you can pay to purchase your games again. Thank you for your business.
Oh no, I’ve just realised that this might mean the end of bluray too because most people use PlayStation’s for watching blu rays. I know I bought a PS5 earlier than I needed to specifically for 4k blurays
Fortunately, someone linked an article in here saying that Blu Ray sales are up a lot in the past few years, which is a metric I’ve been contributing to personally.
Yeah, this is probably the last gen for me. No reason to think Microslop wont do the same thing.
I have huge backlog of old games to play on my laptop anyway. This will keep me busy until the AI bubble pops and PCs get cheaper.
What?
What the fuck?
They are just going to let Nintendo be the last physical game producer?
Physical copies are about to cost so much, fuck them!
Nintendo: Game key cards don’t seem so bad now, huh??
There are still producers of optical media?
Hey you guys want this not to happen. Don’t buy GTA 6 and don’t play the game.
This is happening because GTA 6 is coming out. You’ll understand this right?
Is there any reason not to be on PC? Larger libraries, open source, better graphics, larger communities, no extra sub on top of your internet to play with friends.
If we can’t have discs, in my opinion, why have consoles? If you want a console-like experience you can even use distros like SteamOS or Bazzite.
But absolutely fuck Sony and Rockstar and everyone trying to remove our physical media and games. If it weren’t against IP laws and such, I’d love to work for a physical production company who re-makes discs, cartridges, etc to preserve games. I know there are some who do limited runs for indie titles, giving them physical releases they otherwise wouldn’t have.
We need a more chill, less capitalist world.
Also on pc we have DRM Free games on gog that include goodies like soundtracks, manuals , wallpapers and more. Gog is now my favorite store…
💯
Previously, the reason to not be on PC was a lower upfront cost, being able to sell and trade games, and not having to mess around to get games working. The first one still applies, but much less than in the past, and the second one is being killed outright. Consoles really don’t make much sense over PC any more. If price and not being tech-savvy are big enough issues, just game on a phone.
I’m more likely to bite the bullet on the cost of a Steam Machine then over a PS6.
Even without games on disc I use it for my movies on disc all the time. I will not be replacing my PS5 with something without a disc drive.
Isn’t a PS5 more powerful than the steam machine?
No more PlayStation for me then.
Consoles now cost nearly as much as a PCs, digital purchases are being revoked, and now discs are going away and you’re being locked into one storefront where Sony can charge whatever they want. I’ve enjoyed owning consoles for my entire life but they don’t make sense anymore. Somehow, Sony just made the the Steam Machine look like a smart purchase.
Maybe not the Steam Machine itself, but a dedicated PC plugged into the TV using SteamOS, certainly. That’s going to be my “console” going forward after this gen.
To be fair, i’d say the Steam Machine is relatively cost competitive with other PC pre-builds. DIY will save you money but you’ll never end up with a system that’s as small or quiet, and you have to really know what you’re doing.
The Steam Machine is not such a bad deal really, aside from the fact that every PC is a bad deal in 2026.
Right now it’s way too expensive for me, but that’s because I currently have a PS5, Steam Deck, Switch 2, and PC that was mid-range in late 2021 that were bought when prices were reasonable. Once games I want to play come out that I can’t play on my current hardware, we’ll see where the market’s at and what makes sense, price-wise. I might have to go without high-end games for a while or even for good if prices never become sane again. Hoping I can squeeze several more years out of what I have now.
If someone had no way to play games and wanted to start gaming on the TV now without having to build something, a Steam Machine still would be a hard recommendation when the Switch 2 exists at a decent price, with the added benefit of being portable. The Steam Machine’s only worth it at its current price for people who like to tinker.
Whelp, it was a nice run having Playstation consoles. I can get plenty of old games elsewhere.
natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends
yet all of the comments below their post prefer physical
So a grand total of 100 people out of 8 billion want physical, absolutely a reason for them to continue
Edit: I don’t support this btw but it was always going this way
yet all of the comments below their post prefer physical
Comment sections are not a representative sample. These are people who actively follow Sony news and care enough about physical media to leave angry comments.
I prefer physical media myself because I’m a middle-aged fogey, but if you want to see how PlayStation players as a whole are buying games, you have to look at Sony’s financials. Since Sony are a publicly traded company, those are publicly available
The relevant data is on page 12 of this supplemental document
In FY 2025, Sony made G¥121,159 on physical game sales and G¥949,799 on digital game sales. Those numbers exclude DLC, which is listed separately (and combined with lootboxes). In short, Sony make 7.8 times as much on sales of digital games (excluding DLC and microtransactions!) as they do on physical games. To put it another way, physical game sales make up just 11% of Sony’s revenue from game sales (again, excluding DLC and microtransactions). And that figure has been trending downward ever since the PS3.
The obvious caveat here is that lots of indie games never get physical releases, which skews the ratio toward digital. That’s true, but the same page of the document shows that of games that get physical releases, 76% of sales are still digital.
The fact of the matter is we’re a dying breed. Most people today either prefer the convenience of digital games or are just indifferent. Comment sections may say one thing, but actual data shows a massive trend toward digital games.
I used to buy the games I knew I’d want to play forever on disc for my PS4. Then the disc drive died, and while looking into repairing it I discovered they lock the drive to the mainboard by serial number and only “authorized repair centers” can flash the proper keys.
That’s when I gave up completely on consoles, bought most of those games at heavy discount on Steam, and walked from anything Sony bothers to fart out into the market.
This is kind of a big deal for other parts of Sony. This was partly propping up Sony’s disc manufacturing arm. All they have left is whatever DVD and CDs are still in production, assuming that’s still a thing.
