Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

One huge downside for this is allowing kids to understand how things work.

A digital delivery world does not teach the same way as children learning to put a DVD into a player, hitting play, and understanding how things get somewhere.

Physical game disks, were also about community, gathering.

This is surprising because Sony obsessed over the isolation it was creating when it released the walkman.

This is ridiculous, and not long after they've been updating their ToS to require you to sign in and phone home in order to continue to be allowed access to your digital library.

> In response to shifting trends in consumer preference.

I hate this corporate speak. If buying isn't ownership, then pirating isn't stealing.

I can't wait to see the impact this will have on game prices due to the monopoly Sony is creating on selling PlayStation games.

Thanks for the fish but enshittification is only getting started.

Didn't Sony get in trouble for deleting movies from devices ? I guess they want to do the same for their console too.

So people should just stop buying games that are not on phyical media. THat will get Sony to change fast.

Aaaand I'm not going to buy a PS6.

On pc there is some competition at least between Steam, epic, gog (the odd one out but I like it) and such. I have no interest in buying a vendor specific computer with only one storefront and no competition.

Now Sony can take away your entire game collection at any time. If you get flagged by some random AI system and your account gets flagged you can kiss goodbye to hundreds of dollars worth of games you have.

> As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital

_Goddamn citation needed!_

total capture of gaming by cloud streaming by 3030. You thought you owned that thing you paid for? pshaw.

Unsurprising. [0] This is even before 2030 and you will own nothing and be happy.

Get ready for your games to be delisted [1] as you never owned them in the first place (unless you have the disc)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33362792

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049626

> Sid Shuman (he/him)

Ironic to be excluding the same percent of the population as the population he is being inclusive for

I find this comment substantive in that it may spark introspection by the decision makers in his or similar positions

The sad thing is that the knee jerk reaction here is going to be “omg just vote with your wallet, don’t buy”

But the truth is it’s bullshit and this attitude that companies should be able to do whatever they want because it’s a free market is getting so tiresome

Clearly there is agreement that things can be taken too far - as soon as one single consumer protection/anti competitive/monopoly preventing law exists, you’ve admitted those types of laws are needed

So then you’re only arguing about degrees and companies shouldn’t be allowed to do shit that harms consumers this way

On the surface this seems reasonable - it’s inevitable - discs aren’t going to hang around forever

But this goes back to what it means to own something and we’re all being relegated to serfs who don’t own shit

You wanna get rid of discs? Fine, but give me an alternative so that I still own what I buy and can resell it at will

You'll own nothing and be happy

We use M-disc for archival. Fuck Sony.

"You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy."

Step by step...

Lol "shifting customer prefs" my ass. Will never buy another Sony product until this is reversed.

I used to think this was bad, but honestly? It’s just games. Some people buy tons of digital games they literally never even play. If they were physical games, imagine all the e-waste.

And what’s the point of physical games? So you can play the game in 30 years from now on some retro console you’ve diligently maintained?

Get over it, you’re not going to do any of that. There’s no mythical third act where you go through some library of physical CDs and reminisce about an old ass game. There’s constantly new games coming out all the time, you will just keep buying and buying games, you play them for a bit, and then you move on. It’s not “buy it for life”, it’s buy it for right now have fun and move on. Live in the present, don’t worry about the future.

Even people who have retro consoles and collect physical copies seem to mostly do it for collector purposes. When they die, their kids will send all that to a dump or pawn it off. Pointless.

i’m a console gamer from 10+ years, bear my stupid question

isn’t this the same with steam? can i buy a game on steam and copy and use it on another pc i own without downloading it from steam again?

I never understood why disc versions of current gent console exists at all. Don't @ me about internet speeds: even if game does come on a disc, day 1 patches got out of hand before this generation was launched or in works.