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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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Marc_LFD said:
It looks like they eventually just want to rely on cloud. No console needed, no digital purchases, all via the cloud/streaming.

The internet just isn't that good yet.
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And that will be the end of console as we know it. Unless of course the average brainless console user falls for it.
 
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ShintaiUS said:
And that will be the end of console as we know it. Unless of course the average brainless console user falls for it.
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Sadly, most will go along with it as it's convenient and fast to access, but hey, I hope I'll be proven wrong and the "No Disc, No Buy" protest ends up working.

The problem is that companies can publish discs although there could be pretty much nothing, just like the Switch 2 Key Cards. We should be aiming for discs with full games than just "discs". AC4 Resynced for example doesn't include the full game and it uses a 100GB disc (the game is about 60GB).
 
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Never understood that for physical games why not just put multiple disc in a box with all the data on them? That used to happen with older systems. A play disc and the rest data disc to install the rest.
 
cvskid said:
Never understood that for physical games why not just put multiple disc in a box with all the data on them? That used to happen with older systems. A play disc and the rest data disc to install the rest.
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Greed and control? They want to squeeze every damn cent they can out of the consumer, why spend an extra .50 or $1 to produce a disc/case, when we can keep the money anyway and decide when you should have access to our game.
 
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cvskid said:
Never understood that for physical games why not just put multiple disc in a box with all the data on them? That used to happen with older systems. A play disc and the rest data disc to install the rest.
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It still is the same on PS5. I already had to explain this to two people on this forum who were arguing about it as if it was some kind of unbeknownst mystery.

Anyway, Ubisoft is just scummy as always. They could easily do it exactly that way and deliberately decided aginst it.
 
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K3Nv4 said:
Petition.org is a great example of how crying doesn't always get you your way.
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So is Digital Foundry, Gamers Nexus, IGN, GBATemp...
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ShintaiUS said:
Greed and control? They want to squeeze every damn cent they can out of the consumer, why spend an extra .50 or $1 to produce a disc/case, when we can keep the money anyway and decide when you should have access to our game.
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A game developer has to pay Sony about $10.50 per PS5 Bluray disc. You can look it up yourself.

A reminder: Those of us with a clue (members of the PC Master Race) gave up physical media decades ago. Did we incessantly 😭whine like toddlers👶🏼?
"No" is the correct answer.
 
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ChibiMofo said:
A reminder: Those of us with a clue (members of the PC Master Race) gave up physical media decades ago. Did we incessantly 😭whine like toddlers👶🏼?
"No" is the correct answer.
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PC trasnsitioned to digital at a time when it was a novelty and more convenient over the alternatives not only for the consumer but for developers, the greed and draconian consoles weren't there.

Hopefully this is not news to you but on modern consoles you don't have the same freedom to what you get with a PC even for digital games. The way I see it, if Steam shuts down tomorrow, it doesn't matter to me what the law says, I can assure you I will have ways to get the game I paid for and preserve it. I am very comfortable with that arrangement even if digital is the only choice. On a modern console you get an encrypted blob that means jack unless is within the console's closed ecosystem. No ability to modify your games in anyway, not even your save games! and preserve game assets or the game. If one of these days they are gone or out of bussiness, so are your games and your money.

Removing the only thing left on the console that give me control of my purchase is the last straw. No such thing as whining. It's actually not being a brainless sheep and in this case Sony not getting my money.
 

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