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Sony is moving away from physical discs, will soon only release PlayStation games digitally

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Sony made a shocking announcement today, revealing that the company plans to move away from physical game releases in the future. Citing claims of how the industry is moving away from physical copies and disc-based games, and prefers digital media, PlayStation will follow suit, and will only release PlayStation games digitally. Starting January 2028, physical disc production will end, and you'll only be able to purchase video games through a digital format, either from retailers or PlayStation themselves.

According to the most recent financial report from Sony, only 3% of PlayStation's annual sales came from physical software releases, with projections for that already low number set to fall even further through the end of the PlayStation 5's lifecycle.

As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.

This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.
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ShintaiUS said:
Sony can go eat a bag of Ds. I lived the PS4 and Xbox One generation without any of those consoles, I'll be fine with no PS6 and beyond. Although I am usually an Xbox guy, I have little faith Xbox will take advantage of this moment, they just gonna shoot themselves in the foot again. This will be an stupidity test for Xbox.
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If anything, it made the Steam Machine look good as their games when they go on sale they're actually very affordable.
 
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All those that buy a lot of digital on PS4 and ps5 are to blame. it your own damn fault for buying so many digital games. Id be willing to bet 90% of those complainers bought more digital titles on PlayStation then physical.....
 
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codezer0 said:
My issue with the game key cards is that it allows Nintendo a loophole (read: weasel way out) of being forced to preserve the game in the event of server access being closed off.
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How?
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sheepwalker said:
good stuff hahahaha. reminds me of the mcdonald's ceo taste test earlier this year that all competitors went roasting their ahh
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That was fantastic.
 
Renos44 said:
Honestly after seeing the responses the past few days This will prob be another case of
Loud and vocal minority will complain the most about this while the vast majority of consumers will not care about this and keep buying as usual.


Every youtuber and social media influencer is shaming and mocking sony. But really its because its easy views and likes. Negativity and going along with the train breeds profit in this scenario. But they will be the first people buying the ps6 or still taking review copies.

You got the people who havent paid for anything from Sony for the last 10 years complaining. But they had no intention to spend money regardless. So its not like they mattered in the grand scheme.

Other companies will ride the hate train to score internet points. But reminder companies are not your friends and won't wait to screw you over in the future.

Meanwhile I go asks the casual consumers ya know the people who buy CoD Fifa and madden every year and their like "Eh whatever"

I give it 2-3 weeks time and things go back to normal and people will forget until its 2028 and this comes into effect.
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The majority being stupid isn't really news. I honestly don't care about their loss when they find that the stuff they shell out money for gets shittier with every iteration. Those people you describe know absolutely nothing about how royally fucked they would be if there weren't people who actually cared (which, of course, are not the majority, but don't have to be in order to be right).
 
Marc_LFD said:
As it is downloaded from a server it's downloadable for the foreseeable future, but eventually they'll terminate that support and nothing can be claimed.
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The cost of having such data stored on servers is not as costly as you may think. If it was, then Steam would have issues first.
 
DiscostewSM said:
The cost of having such data stored on servers is not as costly as you may think. If it was, then Steam would have issues first.
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Nintendo is a console maker so they don't have to keep those servers up forever. Key Cards / Key Discs / Always Online it comes with an expiry date, unfortunately.

I hate that I can't play The Crew 1 on my Xbox/PS4/PS5 though I read fans made the game playable again via PC so that's cool.
 
DiscostewSM said:
The cost of having such data stored on servers is not as costly as you may think. If it was, then Steam would have issues first.
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Especially when you consider essential files from yesteryear. for those that do retro pc builds, it's very much a pain in the ass when a company just purges bios update files and drivers for old products just because they're not actively sold anymore.
 
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