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

ppkantorski · 2026-07-05T06:17:24+0100

Captain_N said:
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.....

They actually cooked the statistics they used. They included all digital only games in their assessment (including cheap ~$2 indie games), as well as PlayStation plus. For actual games released on physical and digital, physical purchases greatly exceed digital purchases. Seems more like an excuse they used to justify their greed here on ownership, control, and cost savings. They will likely even raise the prices on these games in addition to being only digital.

Sony is also setting themselves to be competitors with Apple and Valve instead of a physical media monopoly. They may very well lose this fight over time.

genxor · 2026-07-05T06:44:56+0100

I would care if the discs meant anything now. Yeah, you get *a* game on it but it's just going to download gigs on gigs of patches to make it playable and not a buggy mess. Delete all the Cyberpunk updates, unplug your console from the internet and play the disc version. You only ever owned part of the game.

The situation sucks and we're watching video games change for the worse - again. Switching to PC is no longer an affordable option if you want to play anything from a big publisher AND now they'll be able to charge us RRP all the time. Great time to look at other hobbies!

ppkantorski · 2026-07-05T06:51:44+0100

genxor said:
I would care if the discs meant anything now. Yeah, you get *a* game on it but it's just going to download gigs on gigs of patches to make it playable and not a buggy mess. Delete all the Cyberpunk updates, unplug your console from the internet and play the disc version. You only ever owned part of the game.

The situation sucks and we're watching video games change for the worse - again. Switching to PC is no longer an affordable option if you want to play anything from a big publisher AND now they'll be able to charge us RRP all the time. Great time to look at other hobbies!

it does still mean something. It means that the used game market would be gone. Game stores would likely start closing. Games at places like Amazon or other retailers will never be on sale, forcing people to 100% rely on PSN store prices at all times just to play the game. Physical copies means you can transfer ownership, or resell the game if you ever choose to. Removing that check and balance from the equation will only hurt consumers, allowing them to even raise prices higher at any point down the road if they choose to (even for old games). Not to mention their little user agreement / terms and conditions state that they have the right to remove any digital content at any point in time with zero refunds if they want. And all your PS4 and PS5 discs would be essentially paper weights without a PS4 / PS5. Lots of people sell their last gen console to cover the price of buying the next gen. That won't be happening this time.

hiroakihsu · 2026-07-05T10:38:37+0100

Well that's it...I've decided that I'm no longer going to renew my PS Plus subscription again at the end of this year...Also this would pretty much make piracy the only viable way to really "own" any future games.

LeNoobio · 2026-07-05T12:56:22+0100

MysticStarlight said:
There's no way to sell your games or get them second hand. This is why I am glad GKC exists. Full digital is worse.

Well, I see no technical reason for us not to be able to resell our digital licenses that allow us to use the games on our always online devices - therefor, we should drag this to our politicans to rework the system so that it becomes mandatory for digital stores that "sell games" to provide a way for me to trade/sell these licenses to other users...
like Steam trading cards or CS weapons for example...

...surely, there won't be any resistance from Sony/the industry against that idea, right?
(guess I'm vastly underestimating the massive legal and financial resistance from the industry :rolleyes:

)

And don't you "Shut up, Mimsy!" me - we need to fight back, this is THE moment :nayps3:

retrospect · 2026-07-05T13:38:16+0100

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.

I'm asking what this "loophole" is?

deSSy2724 · 2026-07-05T14:03:51+0100

ppkantorski said:
They actually cooked the statistics they used. They included all digital only games in their assessment (including cheap ~$2 indie games), as well as PlayStation plus. For actual games released on physical and digital, physical purchases greatly exceed digital purchases. Seems more like an excuse they used to justify their greed here on ownership, control, and cost savings. They will likely even raise the prices on these games in addition to being only digital.

Sony is also setting themselves to be competitors with Apple and Valve instead of a physical media monopoly. They may very well lose this fight over time.

Can you provide the proof? Especially for this claim: "For actual games released on physical and digital, physical purchases greatly exceed digital purchases."

Couse on their official sites.... “Network Services is revenue recognized through PlayStation®Plus and advertising revenue. This does not include Game Software revenue.”

Also... on the financial reports, they clearly divide "Game Software" from Network Services and PS Plus which is part of Network Services.

Also “Full game software digital download ratio is calculated by dividing PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®5 full game software units sold via digital transactions by total full game software units.”

ppkantorski · 2026-07-05T14:13:49+0100

deSSy2724 said:
Can you provide the proof? Especially for this claim: "For actual games released on physical and digital, physical purchases greatly exceed digital purchases."

Couse on their official sites.... “Network Services is revenue recognized through PlayStation®Plus and advertising revenue. This does not include Game Software revenue.”

Also... on the financial reports, they clearly divide "Game Software" from Network Services and PS Plus which is part of Network Services.

Also “Full game software digital download ratio is calculated by dividing PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®5 full game software units sold via digital transactions by total full game software units.”

More data needed, you can look into this information too though.

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/25q4_supplement.pdf

https://www.resetera.com/threads/pl...any-games-still-sell-more-physically.1567690/

https://tech4gamers.com/playstation-physical-discs/

This is data for first party games. "Physical has 60%+ of the sales for Sony's own first party titles"

https://icon-era.com/threads/the-im...the-past-and-own-our-games.11217/#post-264582

In terms of other AAA games, more data is needed. And the words "greatly exceed" depend heavily on the titles, so my mistake.

As for the "total full game software unit" mentioned, this comparison isn't even fair because they are incorporating games that are not even given physical releases in their computations. A $2 indie game is given the same weight as a $80 physical game. Buy one $80+ dollar physical game, 2 indie digital only games, and then they can say "seems like your buying trends favor digital." It's very misleading.

jjack_jones · 2026-07-05T14:43:38+0100

This makes nintendo a angel ngl

Renos44 · 2026-07-05T14:45:48+0100

LeNoobio said:
Well, I see no technical reason for us not to be able to resell our digital licenses that allow us to use the games on our always online devices - therefor, we should drag this to our politicans to rework the system so that it becomes mandatory for digital stores that "sell games" to provide a way for me to trade/sell these licenses to other users...
like Steam trading cards or CS weapons for example...

...surely, there won't be any resistance from Sony/the industry against that idea, right?
(guess I'm vastly underestimating the massive legal and financial resistance from the industry )

And don't you "Shut up, Mimsy!" me - we need to fight back, this is THE moment

From a pure technical standpoint its possible. From a legal and security standpoint its an utter mess. Youy'd have to deal with
Money laundering
Fraud abuse
Stolen accounts shenanigans
Duping attempts
Botting
Regional pricing abuse(PSN does not do this but this was an issue when the idea was floated around to let steam users sell games)
Actual game devs abusing this
Using Game licenses for online gambling currency,
and more

Theres a reason officially CS skins are not allowed to be exchanged for real money only steam wallet credit. Though valve does a shit job at enforcing this

jjack_jones · 2026-07-05T14:52:25+0100

At this point the best console is nintendo because of the price and the games

Post automatically merged: 20 minutes ago

PlayStation and Xbox games are mostly on pc

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