Realistically, with half-finished games on launch and mandatory day one patches, this won’t be a meaningful shift in how much you actually “own” your games, but dropping this 2 days after they deleted 550 movies that folks had bought and paid for and ostensibly “owned” from the ecosystem is a real bad look.
They’re dropping this news now so people forget about it in a few days when they all pick up their pitchforks and go after Microsoft for the upcoming layoffs.
The funny thing is the main people going after MS will be people that want Xbox to die anyway, leaving Sony free to do things like this.
The problem with discs vs. digital never was how much of the game you own or the fact that you can play the same disc 20 years down the road. It boils down to the fact that you can no longer sell the game you own after finishing it.
Or even just lend it to a friend. When I was a kid everyone in my group would get a different game and share them. We barely would have been able to play anything if we didn’t share
See, this is the real problem. Anybody with an MBA is going to look at your statement and think about all the money they didn’t get because they’re too fucking stupid to realize that you would not have bought more games if you had to buy multiple copies. It’s the same thing with like pirating music they used to talk about how much money they’ve lost, and I used to think no I just wouldn’t have bought that album. So they’ve spent all this time trying to figure out how to chase down dollars they never would’ve gotten to begin with.
I don’t think reselling is the big issue to me; just ownership. Some high-guarantee method of both retaining and controlling the product in question, which is often failed by our technical measures and server checks.
I’m fine with digital, even when it prevents reselling. I’m just less fine with it when license holders have the right to say “No, I’m done!” and pull their side of the contract.
yeah but the way they “release” games the disc is just a series of wget requests for patch files and if they take that endpoint down the disc is worthless.
Yes, it’s less than ideal, but still preferable to having NO way to sell or trade a license while the servers are still up. Games are becoming too big to fit on a single Bluray anyway.
I would rather a game that is supported for years with new content, updates, and fixes over one that isn’t. This thinking that “games were done back in the olden days, now they’re not” is dumb. They were just smaller, and they often had lots of bugs that could never be fixed.
Nah. I’ll take a finished game with a few bugs over a "weekly update ".
Also, game updates aren’t even bug fixes a lot of the time, its doing some idiotic menu reorganizing or adding a new loot box. Games dont need any of that. They just have to be good.
And also, your game that is "supported for years " with its weekly updates is dead in the water after 5 years often when its no longer "profitable " and with bugs still unfixed. So does it really make sense ?
Again, I can throw crash in my ps1 and play through it with 0 issue and 0 internet. Can The Crew do that? Can any game do that in 30 years? No.
So you are against updates just in principle lol. You’d rather games not get better because of a misguided idea that updates being a thing mean games aren’t “finished” at release.
You also seem to think that only online-only games get frequent updates. That’s not true. Take a game like vampire survivors for example. It must have had a hundred updates by now, and it’s a single player offline game (though they also recently added online multiplayer in a free update). That game will be playable in 30 years time too. Why wouldn’t it?
You are mistaking games that require a persistent online connection as “games that get updates”.
Basically yes, because many are unnecessary updates. I don’t care about them. Its actually cringe for me when I open a game and see “gahhh NOW what did they fricken change ??”. For many games, its usually not a good thing either, just from games I’ve played. Thats of course not always true. A bug fix here and there isnt the worst. But it rarely stops there.
"Constant updates " and "required online for single player " are often (usually) tied together. They can be separate yes, and those examples exist and are fine.
I still stand by the fact that there were millions of games made before constant internet and updates were a thing, and maaaaany of them are very good. I mean, I also hate when software devs think moving around all our menu buttons and shit (also introducing more bugs) and re releasing a product makes it “better” when it worked just fine for years. Its like they feel the need to change unnessesary shit, probably because the CEO told their boss it needs to be done so line go up. Who knows. Changing stuff for the sake of change does nothing.
Yes, but also no… For instance there were definitely bugs in Mario 64 that were corrected in later editions of Mario 64 like Mario 64DD and the one that came out on the DS. One very famous bug that’s been corrected is the ability to backwards long jump up the stairs in the upper section of the castle before having enough stars to climb the stairs.
Obviously these weren’t game breaking bugs in the same way that day one patches are fixing things, but it’s also not exactly correct to say it didn’t happen in the before time.
I’m with you, this is an insanely ballsy move. One of the biggest pros of a console is that you could still buy physical games and trade it with friends or sell it used to someone else. If everything is going digital, what’s the point?
Here we even have a local chain that rents you physical games for a week at a time…
It’s not ballsy at all. They’ve basically got no competition in the high-end console space, and the overwhelming majority of console buyers only buy digital already.
An exorbitant entry level price for consoles has never been tested at current prices, because all of them had sane prices for years and so have install bases that got them at those prices. How will it go if the minimum buy-in is over $1000 with no way to mitigate the cost later on with used games? We’re gonna find out!
Again though - if you want a game console you’ll buy a PlayStation because it’s the only real option, and it’ll be cheaper than an Xbox.
Bu the time it comes out, people will be well accustomed to paying exorbitant prices for these things. It sucks but it’ll be the norm by then. Prices are never going back down, because history has shown us they never do.
It’s not a matter of them wanting it, the issue is whether a large number of people will be able to actually afford it at that price. Consoles thrive on accessibility.
On a side note, while I very much understand people’s general hate of DRM, I am curious if there’d be interest in a digital library service that lets people borrow video games to download with lite-DRM systems attached (something small, to make certain people don’t borrow the whole catalog, and then crack them on the spot)
I’m sure it’s easy for people to come up with gripes about such a system, or any use of DRM, and would express their preference for physical, but: Physical games prioritize/benefit consoles over PCs, and prioritize AAA games for which the costs of large disc printing runs make more sense. You’re not likely to find many copies of Mina the Hollower at libraries.
I’m out. I would never buy a console without physical media.
Realistically, with half-finished games on launch and mandatory day one patches, this won’t be a meaningful shift in how much you actually “own” your games, but dropping this 2 days after they deleted 550 movies that folks had bought and paid for and ostensibly “owned” from the ecosystem is a real bad look.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/sony-erases-digital-content-from-libraries-were-reminded-we-dont-own-what-we-buy/
They’re dropping this news now so people forget about it in a few days when they all pick up their pitchforks and go after Microsoft for the upcoming layoffs.
The funny thing is the main people going after MS will be people that want Xbox to die anyway, leaving Sony free to do things like this.
The problem with discs vs. digital never was how much of the game you own or the fact that you can play the same disc 20 years down the road. It boils down to the fact that you can no longer sell the game you own after finishing it.
Or even just lend it to a friend. When I was a kid everyone in my group would get a different game and share them. We barely would have been able to play anything if we didn’t share
See, this is the real problem. Anybody with an MBA is going to look at your statement and think about all the money they didn’t get because they’re too fucking stupid to realize that you would not have bought more games if you had to buy multiple copies. It’s the same thing with like pirating music they used to talk about how much money they’ve lost, and I used to think no I just wouldn’t have bought that album. So they’ve spent all this time trying to figure out how to chase down dollars they never would’ve gotten to begin with.
Yeah the reality is I would have just read (more) books from the library and played fewer video games
I don’t think reselling is the big issue to me; just ownership. Some high-guarantee method of both retaining and controlling the product in question, which is often failed by our technical measures and server checks.
I’m fine with digital, even when it prevents reselling. I’m just less fine with it when license holders have the right to say “No, I’m done!” and pull their side of the contract.
yeah but the way they “release” games the disc is just a series of wget requests for patch files and if they take that endpoint down the disc is worthless.
Yes, it’s less than ideal, but still preferable to having NO way to sell or trade a license while the servers are still up. Games are becoming too big to fit on a single Bluray anyway.
true indeed.
We used to finish games. No update bullshit. A game was done when it was done. Humans can do this shit. Capitalism erodes our skills and our brains.
Just look at crash on ps1. Amazing.
I would rather a game that is supported for years with new content, updates, and fixes over one that isn’t. This thinking that “games were done back in the olden days, now they’re not” is dumb. They were just smaller, and they often had lots of bugs that could never be fixed.
Nah. I’ll take a finished game with a few bugs over a "weekly update ".
Also, game updates aren’t even bug fixes a lot of the time, its doing some idiotic menu reorganizing or adding a new loot box. Games dont need any of that. They just have to be good.
And also, your game that is "supported for years " with its weekly updates is dead in the water after 5 years often when its no longer "profitable " and with bugs still unfixed. So does it really make sense ?
Again, I can throw crash in my ps1 and play through it with 0 issue and 0 internet. Can The Crew do that? Can any game do that in 30 years? No.
So you are against updates just in principle lol. You’d rather games not get better because of a misguided idea that updates being a thing mean games aren’t “finished” at release.
You also seem to think that only online-only games get frequent updates. That’s not true. Take a game like vampire survivors for example. It must have had a hundred updates by now, and it’s a single player offline game (though they also recently added online multiplayer in a free update). That game will be playable in 30 years time too. Why wouldn’t it?
You are mistaking games that require a persistent online connection as “games that get updates”.
Basically yes, because many are unnecessary updates. I don’t care about them. Its actually cringe for me when I open a game and see “gahhh NOW what did they fricken change ??”. For many games, its usually not a good thing either, just from games I’ve played. Thats of course not always true. A bug fix here and there isnt the worst. But it rarely stops there.
"Constant updates " and "required online for single player " are often (usually) tied together. They can be separate yes, and those examples exist and are fine.
I still stand by the fact that there were millions of games made before constant internet and updates were a thing, and maaaaany of them are very good. I mean, I also hate when software devs think moving around all our menu buttons and shit (also introducing more bugs) and re releasing a product makes it “better” when it worked just fine for years. Its like they feel the need to change unnessesary shit, probably because the CEO told their boss it needs to be done so line go up. Who knows. Changing stuff for the sake of change does nothing.
Yes, but also no… For instance there were definitely bugs in Mario 64 that were corrected in later editions of Mario 64 like Mario 64DD and the one that came out on the DS. One very famous bug that’s been corrected is the ability to backwards long jump up the stairs in the upper section of the castle before having enough stars to climb the stairs.
Obviously these weren’t game breaking bugs in the same way that day one patches are fixing things, but it’s also not exactly correct to say it didn’t happen in the before time.
Right, it happened, but Usually they were small bugs.
I’m referring more to unnessecary updating every week . i hate that shit
I’m with you, this is an insanely ballsy move. One of the biggest pros of a console is that you could still buy physical games and trade it with friends or sell it used to someone else. If everything is going digital, what’s the point?
Here we even have a local chain that rents you physical games for a week at a time…
It’s not ballsy at all. They’ve basically got no competition in the high-end console space, and the overwhelming majority of console buyers only buy digital already.
An exorbitant entry level price for consoles has never been tested at current prices, because all of them had sane prices for years and so have install bases that got them at those prices. How will it go if the minimum buy-in is over $1000 with no way to mitigate the cost later on with used games? We’re gonna find out!
Again though - if you want a game console you’ll buy a PlayStation because it’s the only real option, and it’ll be cheaper than an Xbox.
Bu the time it comes out, people will be well accustomed to paying exorbitant prices for these things. It sucks but it’ll be the norm by then. Prices are never going back down, because history has shown us they never do.
It’s not a matter of them wanting it, the issue is whether a large number of people will be able to actually afford it at that price. Consoles thrive on accessibility.
They will, because it’s the only option and is “the” gaming brand.
I’ll be watching the number of consoles sold a year after launch with interest. It will of course sell out at launch regardless of price.
For me it’s called a library.
On a side note, while I very much understand people’s general hate of DRM, I am curious if there’d be interest in a digital library service that lets people borrow video games to download with lite-DRM systems attached (something small, to make certain people don’t borrow the whole catalog, and then crack them on the spot)
I’m sure it’s easy for people to come up with gripes about such a system, or any use of DRM, and would express their preference for physical, but: Physical games prioritize/benefit consoles over PCs, and prioritize AAA games for which the costs of large disc printing runs make more sense. You’re not likely to find many copies of Mina the Hollower at libraries.