Sony’s Disc Exit Bets Gamers Are Too Invested in PlayStation to Leave
The biggest gaming news of the week is undoubtedly the announcement by Sony that they’re ceasing production of new games on discs in January 2028.
It’s so big that even days later, people are still talking about it, and most of the talk has been very negative. This is one of those times when, almost everywhere you go (forums, Reddit, social media), everyone is united in the belief that Sony is making a huge mistake.
Unlike the Helldivers 2 PlayStation Network requirement issue, this time around, it doesn’t seem like Sony is caving.
The big question here is: isn’t Sony scared that all this negativity will translate to lost sales? Maybe not now, but in the near future?
Perhaps Sony thinks they’re too big to fail, given how they obliterated Xbox out of the water this generation? And Nintendo is, well, doing Nintendo things.
PlayStation Lifetime Fans Is What Sony Is Banking On
If Sony only relied on third-party titles to thrive, this wouldn’t even be an issue. People can easily say that everyone should just jump to PC, since at least it’s not just Steam, but there are other online retailers that can make game prices competitive. Unlike the PS5 and upcoming Sony platforms, once physical discs are gone, we will be at the mercy of Sony’s PlayStation Store for all games—both new and old.
So why not just jump to PC? I mean, gamers can, but that would mean they wouldn’t be able to play Sony’s tremendous first-party offerings. If you want to play the next God of War, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Insomniac’s Marvel games, etc., you’ll have to play them on PlayStation platforms.
Sony Interactive Entertainment’s confirmation that first-party, single-player games can only be played on PlayStation platforms moving forward signals that they are banking on gamers wanting to play their first-party titles so badly that they’ll cave and just follow whatever Sony wants.
Not only that, but many gamers grew up with a PlayStation console, and chances are they don’t want to lose all those trophies they’ve earned or the online friends they’ve made. It’s not just the first-party games that Sony is counting on, but also player convenience in the ecosystem they’ve been part of for years or decades. For a lot of people, migrating your gaming library or uprooting your entire gaming collection and friends is simply too much work. The easier choice? Just accept whatever Sony wants to do.
The Argument of PC Gaming, Even If It’s a Digital Landscape
Gamers who aren’t fans of what Sony is about to do have choices: take it, focus on retro gaming in the foreseeable future, or let their voices be heard with their wallets and pockets by not supporting the PS6 or PlayStation.
Another avenue is gaming on PC. While the platform is all about buying games digitally, it’s vastly different from Sony’s. For one thing, there are multiple storefronts on PC such as Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, and more. For Sony’s consoles? You have the PlayStation Store, and that’s it.
You can hop online (in any country) and look for used games, and chances are, you’ll find AAA titles at a significantly lower price. Once the all-physical front is here, goodbye to that. Literally every game on your PS6 will need to be bought on the PlayStation Store, at the price of Sony’s choosing.
Waiting on new games to drop in price a few months after launch to save some dough? Good luck doing that when Sony’s controlling the prices and there’s literally no other alternative. When this happens, expect first-party games to stick to their launch retail prices even months or years after launch, since, well, there’s no other way to buy them unless you pay full price.
At the very least, on PC, Steam’s sales are usually better and much more frequent on newer titles than Sony’s PSN Store sales, and not to mention, there are more online retailers to choose from.
Sony’s latest move tells us they don’t care about the used games market, or even gamers in general. For the company, it’s all about maximizing profits when they can, and they’re counting on your blind fanaticism to do so.
Of course, this goes without mentioning game preservation. Yes, it’s all digital on PC, but digital on PC is not the same as digital on consoles. Unless you hack your own system (which most people don’t), there’s no real ownership of a digital product on consoles. You can debate the same for PC, but at least storefronts like GOG are DRM-free, allowing you to back up your purchased titles and store them somewhere safe. Heck, you could even burn them to discs if you really wanted to. Steam also has some DRM-free titles. Not quite as many as GOG, but it has some.
There are plenty of avenues on PC where players aren’t entirely at the mercy of a platform holder. Yes, it shares many of the issues of being a digital-only console, but there are plenty of options to work around them. Of course, not so much when it comes to selling a game. The used game market has been dead on PC for a very long time now, but again, at least there are options, and in general, much better sales where that isn’t to big of an issue.
For the sake of gamers everywhere, let’s hope the PlayStation ecosystem isn’t as entrenched in millions of people as Sony thinks it is.
(Views expressed in this article are solely of the author’s and do not represent the entirety of MP1st).
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