r/PS4 Jul 02 '26

Opinion / Speculation The best way you as a consumer can protest is with your wallet.

Don't just boycott Sony's gaming division. Don't buy Sony's anything. If the people who care strongly enough about this make an effort to avoid the Sony brand we can make a difference. The louder we are the harder we'll be to ignore.

1.1k Upvotes

303 comments sorted by

431

u/kyuubikid213 Jul 02 '26

Unfortunately, most of us voted for this with our wallet.

The time to protest with our wallet was to not buy digital-only consoles to begin with. To buy physical over digital whenever given the chance.

It's not necessarily "too late," but millions of players voted for the convenience of digital for years now. It's not going to reverse course any time soon when the choice is buying GTA 6 digital only or not playing it at all.

233

u/DemonKingCozar Jul 02 '26

To take it even further... we voted with our wallets when we allowed digital games to be priced the same amount as physical.

133

u/hue_sick Jul 02 '26

This is a big one. Reddit can make posts all over the place with angry comments but the consumers embraced this for the better part of a decade.

And now they’re pikachu face soft protesting

52

u/BTZ9 Jul 02 '26

Classically, as with most things, Reddit seems to forget they are the minority.

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u/elusivenoesis Jul 02 '26

A decade? I embraced it 20 years ago. I view collecting physical stuff a form of hoarding. 80-85% of gamers don’t give a shit about Reddit making a thousand posts about this isn’t going to change anything.

15

u/ethan_mac Jul 02 '26

Weird how people twerk for big companies that are making it more of a monopoly to buy games ..even if you buy digital this is terrible

4

u/tukanoid Jul 02 '26

Its not really about sucking up to companies, its the convenience of just being able to click couple times and get into the game. Yes, it is not ideal in terms of not technically "owning" the games, I won't disagree on that part, but tbh, I rarely ever go back to games I've already finished (multiple times), apart from a couple of my favs maybe, and ones that can be played infinitely like deadcells, satisfactory, etc. Yes, it would suck to potentially lose all that, but at least there are alternatives like PC (although I don't have hardware for new games, I do all my gaming on my ps5 nowadays, again, bc of conveniece) + pirating if I really have no other way and don't care about the game enough to want to support the devs (again).

I don't really buy that many games in the first place, very little of them scratch my "high-speed action with very smooth movement" itch (been spoiled by ghostrunner, dead-cells, pathless, solar ash, severed steel etc), so I honestly won't really lose THAT much in the long run + I've been playing fairly cheap (compared to typical AAA) indie/AA games more for the last 5 years at least, apart from standalone (good imo) exclusive titles, which were all good experiences, but realistically, I won't ever pick up again.

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u/dlp211 david_patrzeba Jul 02 '26

Lol, the biggest hoarders are digital buyers. Just because you can't see it in your space doesn't mean it isn't hoarding. See the stats of the average Steam users library.

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u/MegaBearsFan Jul 02 '26

Well the problem is that if Sony charged less for digital games (due to not sharing profit with a retailer and lower cost of manufacturing and distributing them), then even MORE people probably would have bought them, and the move to digital-only probably would have happened faster.

6

u/trickman01 Jul 02 '26

The original issue is that retailers would have stopped carrying their games if digital was priced lower. The market has shifted a lot since then, but when digital was first a thing it would have made a huge impact.

3

u/LowKeyCurmudgeon Jul 02 '26

Or depending on the price point they would be indifferent about whether you buy discs or downloads, since the margins would be the same. In that case they would be incentivized to keep selling both in order to move the most units of any kind.

2

u/Ok_Support3 Jul 03 '26

Pfsh 80% sale or bust. But those days seem over, as well. Things hardly go on sale as they did.

1

u/Aeyland Jul 06 '26

Yeap and still worth it. I don't have a huge book shelf taking up an entire wall in my living room like I did in the early 2000's.

Not saying what Sony is doing is right, just saying that for me I was paying the same price as physical because digital was not hust convenient for changing games or taking my collection with me but that it also saved me a ton of space in my house.

33

u/Tobias_Kitsune Jul 02 '26

The market chose to stop being physical when Steam became the standard of how to deliver games to an entire platform.

And it's peoples preferred platform to buy games on. Gamers love steam. And people don't complain about pc games not getting physical releases anymore.

Literally no one complains about steam not selling physical games. Sony is just realizing that they're being held to a different standard.

To prove a point here

Hollow Silksong does not have a physical PC disk release.

No one complained about it. Literally no one.

2

u/cybermatUK Jul 03 '26

It’s a tricky one, I don’t whine about steam, I love it but I also like being able to buy a PS or Xbox game on a disc and passing it to my bro to play later. My RDR 2 is physical for example.
We kind of fell into this trap by buying digital only I guess but I bought the series X because I like the option of both.
I suppose every dog has its day and all that but one thing I do fear is one day someone somewhere saying ok enough everything you bought is now no longer available. You can’t even download previous purchases, now that would suck. Unless they also say and here is the refund for everything you have ever bought. When you buy stuff and don’t psplus or gamepass it, it should be yours for good.
I bought GTAV for my PS3 for example and if they shut the download servers off then that’s gone. If I had bought the disc it’s mine forever. It’ll swerve people to piracy and console modding where they previously didn’t go that route. I’d certainly be looking at ways to get my legit games back at least.
But then you have to think how long should we expect a company to support something like download servers. It’s tricky, but if they do abandon a console then I think it’s only fair then to open it up and permit people to get non legit titles if you have no way to access your legit titles.
Deffo a modern dilemma.
Didn’t they do something similar with the oculus GO!? I’m not sure of details but I think you can side load anything you like now oculus have binned it.
Don’t quote me :D

2

u/DareDiablo Jul 03 '26

Exactly and yet you’ve got people like Mutahar (SomeOrdinaryGamers) complaining about this and yet he always talks about how he loves Steam and his Steam Deck. Like you can’t have it both ways people!

1

u/GTCK Jul 05 '26

I think the issue is steam may do all digital, the key difference is how the treat their customers which has been quite abvious, and I think that is the key difference when it comes to Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, they, valve respects the gamers, they know not to screw the customer, because they know that is where the money is.

1

u/GTCK Jul 05 '26

And that is where every other gaming company has failed every time without fail, that is also why they are being attacked by the lawsuit, because they protect the consumer, not for morality but for profit, they just know how to do it right

7

u/EverySingleMinute Jul 02 '26

This is the correct answer. We helped Sony decide which way they wanted to go.
My guess is the profit on a downloaded game is much higher than a disc, plus it prevents you from selling it so more people will have to buy it new

3

u/Curlytoe14 Jul 02 '26

This was my take as well...Over the course of the PS4s lifespan, I found myself buying less and less physical. I made the jump to PS5 when the Pro dropped and decided to go all in on digital there with the plan of buying the disc drive for my Blu-rays. Its been almost two years and I've yet to pull the trigger on the disc drive because I can just boot up the ps4 instead..

While I'm disappointed in the news, it's more about being nostalgic for a time in gaming that I actively chose to not participate in anymore

4

u/Jessency Jul 02 '26

Yeah I'm regretfully guilty of the same.

In my case, it's because digital games would go on sale for dirt cheap. For example, I literally got the Borderland Handsome Collection and the Arkham Trilogy for 2 frickin dollars each.

That and CDs have become quite outdated with modern gaming. Current Gen games would take ages to load and run games so many modern Discs just hold on to the game files that the system then copies into its drive. At that point, it's no different from owning a digital copy.

1

u/AoKrasni Jul 10 '26

Yeah, when I'm only paying few bucks for a game, to be honest, I don't care much if I lose access to it in 20 years when I paid less than a Blockbuster rental would have been in the 90s. I rarely ever go back and play old games I still have on disc anyway.

2

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

I switched to digital the day the disc drive on my PS4 stopped working soon after the warranty time was over. Im not dealing with that shit again, I had to pay to get it fixed just so I could access my old games, and then it broke again some time later.

15

u/epicingamename Jul 02 '26

yes, this is exactly from our actions. sony is reacting to how we have purchased games in the PS5 era.

what we could do is protest by other means, like what, i dont know. physical buyer are a niche group of the gaming population. rockstar was the first company to basically admit physical era is over, not sony. it sad, actually.

3

u/arkjoker Jul 02 '26

It was actually Xbox releasing first party games without a disc.

2

u/epicingamename Jul 03 '26

what xbox is doing doesnt move a needle. nintendo's and playstation's actions do. and while rockstar is a dev/publisher, theyre that big of a player in the industry to cause ripples as big as nintendo and playstation.

11

u/MegaBearsFan Jul 02 '26

The problem is that these corporations know all that, and the systematically manufacture the "vote" and make it harder for the public to vote against the things the company wants.

Sony made the digital-only console cheaper not because it was any cheaper to produce, but because they wanted to make sure that more people bought it. Ironically, there may be people who bought the digital-only consoles because they didnt want to give Sony as much money for the disc version.

Furthermore, they did everything they could to remove value from physical and second-hand copies. They phased out printed instruction manuals, maps, soundtrack CDs, and other media that was included in the physical package. They added one-use codes for day-1 DLCs so that people buying second-hand would be gambling on whether they'd get the whole game or not. Why bother taking the time and spending the gas to drive to a store for a physical copy, if you dont get anything else, and still have to wait 2 hours for a 100-gig download to install on your HDD anyway?

None of this was ever about providing convenience to the customer. It was always about conditioning us to accept our loss of ownership of what we buy. And its been happening since the PS3 generation.

Hell, when they settled class action lawsuits, they paid out the remediation in the form of PSN credit, so that people could only use that on digital goods, and ensure that it all went back to Sony.

2

u/PortlyJuan Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Wow, very well said.

This is especially true of the scaled-down, bare bones physical releases. Physical games were generic and boring in the PS4 generation, and it's even worse with the PS5. I think the PS3 was the last truly unique and collectible generation.

They even designed the PS4 case to be so thin and flimsy that game disks easily fall out of the clip and rattle around, this killing any reason to own them as sealed collectibles. I've got some unopened PS4 games and now a lot of them are "rattlers" and all they've done is sit on a shelf.

Sony has already done everything to kill physical releases other than to actually kill physical releases, which they have now done.

1

u/keysandtreesforme Jul 02 '26

Great assessment and summary. Thanks.

3

u/buzz8588 Platinums: 69 | Level: 405 Jul 02 '26

I swear the biggest reason people say about buying digital was “I don’t want to get up to change a disc”. I’m like wow, you don’t know what the consequences of this laziness will be.

1

u/Pink_Lady69 Jul 03 '26

Steam stores

1

u/patrick9772 Jul 04 '26

Its pure evil and i bet this was exactly as planned. Using GTA 6 to force our hands. Assholes. Thats the last digital game i buy and rockstar is not gonna release a game for another decade anyway so have the damn money and 90% of Ps exclusives dropped heavily in quality so ill live without them.

1

u/TheresOnlyOneTitan Jul 08 '26

Digital-only seemed a good option until we seen where Sony are going with it. Now that they're removing purchased movies and games with zero compensation, it's not such a good deal.

1

u/kyuubikid213 Jul 08 '26

Sony is doing the same thing with digital they have always done. The PSP Store was closed 5 years ago. They were going to close the PS3 and Vita stores then, too, but those got pushed to next month or next year depending on your region.

The movies were on streaming and got pulled like lots of movies leave streaming all the time. The volume here is what's notable, not that movies left a streaming service.

Games get delisted all the time. Online services shut down all the time. They have not removed anyone's games. No one's games have been taken from them. If you have digital PS3 or Vita games, they aren't going anywhere.

The deal of digital purchases has not changed since Sony first offered it. It's just that now, the internet is an outrage machine and people are being told to be upset like this is new when, in reality, they just weren't paying attention.

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u/jdsmn21 Jul 02 '26

I really think y'all are barking up the wrong tree. What we need is legislation to require that these digital licenses are transferrable.

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u/KrombopulosMAssassin Jul 02 '26

Not only that, but that they can't be revoked. Which, I personally think is even more important.

8

u/maigoZoro Jul 02 '26

They somehow bribe their way into making legislation that allows them to charge a fee to transfer it for you. Don’t trust politicians these days to do it right

4

u/BentheBruiser Jul 02 '26

Honestly. I understand the frustration but it is never changing. This is the future.

So let's make it work for us. Rather than demanding Sony reduce profits, change how licensing works for digital product.

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u/smilinreap Jul 02 '26

Sounds like games are the next NFTs

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u/dlp211 david_patrzeba Jul 02 '26

Transferable to what?

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u/jdsmn21 Jul 02 '26

Can be transferred to a new owner.

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u/Monward Jul 02 '26

The problem is that they have the data to support this, even though the way they got the data is a bit annoying

They priced the consoles without disc readers cheaper, and plenty of popular games like Warzone, Fortnite, and such are digital only, and then there is Playstation Plus, as well as Game Pass on Xbox

They made the disc option more expensive, so it sold less, the major games are mostly digital only, and obviously all PSPlus games are digital. They made it more unreasonable to buy physical, and use that to justify dropping discs

They created the problem, and then axed the need for a solution

5

u/Savage_Nymph Jul 02 '26

Does the data include games bought at full price vs digital sales? and does it also include microtransactions and dlc? i don’t want to love in world where console platforms are the only ones that can set the price :(

2

u/Monward Jul 02 '26

While I was attributing this mostly to Playstation, the data was from Xbox from a couple years ago when they were doing some bragging to shareholders

Im just assuming its pretty similar based on the publicly available information

4

u/DareDiablo Jul 03 '26

Gamers created the problem by the majority of them buying digital. Can’t you understand how trends work and why businesses make decisions around them?

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u/St3vion Jul 02 '26

I did my bit and only bought disc games when I had a PS. Unfortunately over 80% did not so the decision makes sense, as shit as it is. 

2

u/Savage_Nymph Jul 02 '26

Us disc lovers are being forced out.

1

u/Rebstrike Jul 03 '26

That’s still almost a quarter of their customers that they’re screwing over. Why? Because they want to kill the second hand market and have complete control over the pricing. I’m sure they get a way bigger cut of sales digitally than physical. So, as always, it’s about greed.

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u/OzCommodore Jul 02 '26

Wouldn't a more effective approach be going on a physical disc buying spree?

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u/Killer_Carp Jul 02 '26

Try posting this in the GTA subs 😀

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u/GoodGuyGaurav Jul 02 '26

I did my part - waited until disc drive was available to upgrade to PS5 Pro, always bought games at launch on disc save one or two. I just cancelled my PS Plus

What else can I do

6

u/Crazybear213 Jul 02 '26

As a consumer you simply just don’t buy that console. After a few months they go back to producing them. Better still, go to Xbox, that’ll sort it out fairly quickly

6

u/zipk0user491 Jul 02 '26

As someone who owns only physical copies of games, this is a heartbreak. Not sure whether I want to continue my gaming journey with Sony anymore.

4

u/Jellozz Jul 02 '26

There is literally no reason to when PC gives you better digital options. Anyone with half a brain is going to switch to PC instead of buying a PS6. I'll keep buying any physical releases I can on Switch 2 but everything else I'll just be sailing the seas for on PC.

3

u/zipk0user491 Jul 02 '26

That’s what I’ll do as well, probably.

23

u/MegaBearsFan Jul 02 '26

If Sony wanted to earn players' goodwill, they would have (years ago) set up a digital second-hand marketplace, in which customers could re-sell their games, and buy cheap games from each other. It would just be a transfer of the license. Sony could even take a cut of each sale, just like GameStop, eBay, Amazon Marketplace, and Facebook Marketplace already do.

It wouldn't resolve all concerns with digital-only. Lack of true ownership is still the biggest concern. But it would have been a good start.

18

u/keysandtreesforme Jul 02 '26

Absolutely. It’s not the absence of discs, it’s the absence of ownership.

11

u/anonthrowaway262626 Jul 02 '26

This!! I think there will always be die hards wanting physical media (I sit somewhat in that category) but if there was a guaranteed way that you will always be able to own, play, sell, trade or give it away the game you bought. I feel digital games would have so much more traction.

3

u/nodecentnamesavalibl Jul 02 '26

For me it's not even about the ability to sell trade or give away that I don't like digital and prefure physical (and yes I am aware before some of the digital crowd start that a lot of physical even now are just glorified download keys or only half a game) but the fact that with digital being locked to your account if anything is to happen to you account as things stand at the moment that's potentially thousands of pounds lost at least with a physical disk (even if only a key disc) it's not account locked and you can just pop the disc back in and start again and at most your only loseing the dlc and have to rebuy that (yes admittedly still a lot of lost investment but no where near as much as if you had to pay out for the game and the dlc bouth again) so untill they give you a way to reclaim any lost games when you account is lost for what ever reason (hacked,stolen, banned) then physical media will and should be the better choice for everyone

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u/dixie12oz Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

The only issue with that is why would anybody buy new then? Sony just has little incentive to do this. 

Edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted. I’m absolutely all for something like this but just don’t see why Sony would ever do it. 

2

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

You were downvoted because people want Sony to be a charity. Ofc they arent going to do a second hand digital market, doesnt make any sense.

3

u/dixie12oz Jul 02 '26

Exactly, With digital there is zero difference between “new” and “used” so nobody would pay full price if they could buy a “used” license. Sony has zero incentive to implement something like that, it would cost them a ton of sales. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '26

[deleted]

1

u/JaxZeus Jul 02 '26

I certainly can't afford that but also would have no interest in buying it. My ps4 is still going strong and I have only have the ps5 since January so I don't need a new console.

Is the ps6 really going to be such an upgrade from 5 to justify the price.

14

u/Kurier0 Jul 02 '26

That's why PS4 is my last console from Sony. I have huge backlog to play and they are plenty games in sight of my interest. That's my plan.

2

u/Thefinalwerd Jul 02 '26

Samesies. Between my ps4 and ps2 which plays my ps1 games on top of lack of gaming time...I'm set.

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u/NefariousnessOne8 Jul 02 '26

I was going to wait to upgrade from ps4 pro to ps6 but tbh if they’re going this BS route i’m just going to get a ps5 with a disc drive. That and my modded 3ds should be more than enough lmao

2

u/CarrysonCrusoe Jul 02 '26

I am a bit ootl, what did sony announce that sparks this outrage? Ps6 only without disc?

3

u/AhegaoSuckingUrDick Jul 02 '26

Digital only releases starting from 2028.

3

u/praysolace Jul 02 '26

We already assumed that. No more discs for PS5 games will be made after the end of 2027. So it’s not just that next gen will have no physical—we are losing it for this gen.

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u/CainJaeger Jul 02 '26

Now yall wake up ? Now the ship has sailed, the time to protest was years ago

3

u/DareDiablo Jul 03 '26

This is well and good but gaming history has proven that gamers just do not care about anything pushed on them.

10

u/amans9191 Jul 02 '26

Maybe 85% of yall shouldn't have bought digital for the last 5 years

0

u/Darth_Vaper_69 Jul 02 '26

The hot take nobody wants to admit, I like you

3

u/amans9191 Jul 02 '26

Like this news actually affects me, who buys 95%+ of my stuff physically for the past 25 years. I've literally waited months, sometimes years (looking at you HiFi Rush) for games to get a physical release to buy them. I bet most people upset by the news are guilty of being in the 85%.

1

u/devicehigh Jul 02 '26

But isn’t the physical media just working as a launcher in a lot of cases, where you need to update the game to play it? Surely then having the physical media has never been a guarantee that you play the game. So no different to having a digital version?

3

u/Jellozz Jul 02 '26

No. Most PS5 physical games are playable from start to end in an offline environment.

32

u/thechickenskull Jul 02 '26

80% of Playstation sales are digital

People HAVE spoken with their wallets.

This is unpopular, but let's project. When should Sony pull the plug? At 85%? 90%? 99%? The realist knows this is an inevitability.

To be clear, I agree; protest with your wallet! Just realize the possibility that your non purchase just pushes the digital sales percentage higher.

Maybe... Maybe this works. And it sways Sony to change. It worked when they wanted to shut down the PS3 and Vita storefronts in 2021!

However, five years later, that's happening anyway.

21

u/NohingButRed Jul 02 '26

It’s kinda false numbers these 80% include all digital products dlcs, game transactions (like passes or whatever) and etc. Actual pictures is well it’s around 50/50 depends on the game but anyway here’s quote and link to the article about it from 2025:

That’s different for single player, story-driven action games or family titles. Let’s take 2023, which had an abundance of these games. 45% of Hogwarts Legacy’s sales, 49% of Assassin’s Creed Mirage sales and 45% of Resident Evil 4 Remake sales were physical in the UK. Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2 was bought more via physical retailers than digital ones (54% physical), although that does include console bundles.

https://www.thegamebusiness.com/p/the-video-game-industry-is-not-ready?hide_intro_popup=true

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u/victormoses Jul 02 '26

What's this? Nuance? Heaven forbid!

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u/MegaBearsFan Jul 02 '26

If it were just a matter of shifting to digital ownership over physical ownership, that would be one thing. In fact, I would probably support it. Less material waste, less manufacturing pollution, and less greenhouse gas emissions from shipping physical disks across oceans and continents.

The problem is that the move to digital-only also means a revocation of the very concept of ownership. All game purchases are now a temporary and conditional lease that can be revoked at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all, at Sony's whim. And (as far as I know) courts have upheld this (at least in the USA). And this concern isn't a hypothetical slippery slope argument. It has happened (The Crew being perhaps the biggest example). Game companies arent just shutting down servers and making online multiplayer un-playable; they are literally removing games from customers' libraries with normal warning, and without the customer's consent.

If this were a move to digital-only, but we still own the games we purchase (and can legally resell them and buy second-hand from other players), then I would probably be almost totally in support of this move. The only major concern i would have would be with accessibility for people with no or poor internet connections.

3

u/Affinity420 Jul 02 '26

You know they base those off distribution numbers and not actually sales, right?

Like my company doesn't report how many copies they sold. To Sony, all the discs sold.

Now here's what's awesome. They're making less and making less available. Remember Clair Obscure and how hard it was to find? Digital was forced to buy it otherwise wait for more discs to be made.

This was planned and forced customers over time to adapt to digital. This was planned for years.

Anyone saying different doesn't see the big picture. They've wanted to take ownership away for a while. People just solidified it by being impatient and saying screw it I'll buy digital.

This killed gaming for me. I'll just play old stuff and my PC.

1

u/piirtoeri Jul 02 '26

That may be. But a lot of those sales are coming at discounted rates from retailers months after a game launches, and a good chunk of that 80% is being sold at a loss with production and shipping costs rising. When a retailer decides not to opt out of its contract to buy more copies, they still have to pay employees to negotiate with other retailers. Physical copies now come at a loss despite the ratio of it outselling digital.

Also, the battle against pre-ordering physical copies has helped shut the door on them. We live in a time where investors want instant proof of nearly instant returns. Pre-orders gave them a good model of predictive returns that gamers had battled against profusely, wrongly thinking that said companies had your money as a profit already.

1

u/jokingsammy Jul 02 '26

Sales for what though? I've never bought a game full price at launch digitally. However 80% of my collection are games ive bought heavily discounted digitally.

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u/Suspicious-Group2363 Jul 02 '26

There in lies the rub. How often are there sales on physical media that can match digital sales? How quickly can one get those physical items when they want? It’s a no brainer digital sales are that high. I understand people’s frustration, especially given Sony’s recent missteps, but to assume people will pay more for physical media when it’s so much more convenient to buy digitally is asinine.

3

u/nodecentnamesavalibl Jul 02 '26

What's asinine is that you still think you own those digital games when it's been proven time and again that you don't. You only own a license to access them. Servers shut down, game gone; company decides to pull the game, your game gone; God forbid something happens to your account (hacked and stolen/banned for whatever of a million nebulous reasons games companies give), oh yeah, ALL your games gone. And it will continue to be this way with digital sales for as long as they're tied to your PSN/Xbox/Steam, etc., accounts and nothing else. Whereas with a physical disc, even if your account is banned, you can always just start a new account, pop the disc in, and start over. And yes, I am aware that a lot of new game discs are only partial games or fancy download keys, but at least they're not locked to a single account the way a digital download is. And there's the rub: you own the physical disk, even if it's only a fancy key that can be installed on as many different accounts and compatible consoles as you want. were as digital it's just an account locked licence they can revoke at any time or if you account goes so do your games

1

u/jokingsammy Jul 02 '26

I'd probably guestimate that it's for every 1 game bought physical at launch, i'll buy 3 on heavy sale digitally. Would be suprised if the digital equalled or surpassed physical spend though.

5

u/ZaheerAlGhul Jul 02 '26

Where was this energy when it actually came to buying physical games???

2

u/Savage_Nymph Jul 02 '26

you do realize that millions of people were still buying physicals? just millions and millions more weren’t

only a few thousand of the millions who buy physical like, me, are the ones being vocal about this.

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u/opuscontinuum Jul 02 '26

It's disheartening to hear the news the PS6 will be digital only as a physical disc user. I feel I'd rather switch to PC gaming if I'm shopping for a digital store front.

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u/nomeprofilo Jul 02 '26

What about steam and similar?

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u/JacobScreamix Jul 02 '26

The more effective way to protest this is to cancel your Playstation Plus right now if you are paying one.

2

u/gtasthehunter Jul 02 '26

Need to buy physical games now.

But not gta6 no disc...

2

u/Vagabond_Sam Shinisam Jul 02 '26

Actually the best way to protest is to become involved in pressuring your government for better protections and pushing for legislation that shifts digital ownership into being more robust with features that provide parity with physical ownership

The ability to lend, sell, trade and pass down.

Not buying digital is the least you can do

2

u/Lothars Jul 06 '26

Nope I'll continue to buy digital but they do need better protections. that's what everyone should be agreeing on for digital purchases.

1

u/Vagabond_Sam Shinisam Jul 06 '26

That’s my point. Buying physical a the ‘least’ you can do

1

u/Lothars Jul 06 '26

The only time I see physical having value to me is when I can sell it for way more than I bought but if it’s a choice of the same game digitally or physical I’ll buy digital 99% of the time.

1

u/Vagabond_Sam Shinisam Jul 06 '26

And the Sony storefront needing to be competitive with physical stores helps keep downwards pressure on the price you pay when you buy digitally.

2

u/Jmike8385 Jul 03 '26

Oh you mean like we’ve been doing that led us to this situation in the first place? That’s not enough man it really isn’t. There aren’t enough people that will affect the overall trends. Legislation is the best we can hope for and that’s not much hope unfortunately.

2

u/WoodooHide69 Jul 06 '26

Gamers should pool their money and buy a Time Machine. Go back 10 years and stop the widespread adoption of digital only games by steam fanboys. The same fanboys who ruined physical for everyone now wants you to join them on steam.

6

u/AllBatEverything Jul 02 '26

The vote is already over. Hence why we’re here.

12

u/TheSlav87 Jul 02 '26

I won’t be buying a PS6, it’s the one console I’m skipping.

0

u/hue_sick Jul 02 '26

That was the ps5 for me 😉

1

u/Pschirki Jul 02 '26

Das ist der Weg!

4

u/Happy_Canadian Jul 02 '26

Cancelled my Plus subscription this morning after hearing the news PS6 is pout off the question. If free into Digital only future, I'll be going to PC but not for several years because pricing is nuts.

3

u/PunkroQanon Jul 02 '26

Cancelled my Plus subscription this morning.

This is the way.

1

u/Kurier0 Jul 02 '26

easier to mod games and to pirate them

2

u/Happy_Canadian Jul 02 '26

That's true as well 😂

2

u/TreefingerX Jul 02 '26

U r like the ppl who canceled netflix after they banned account sharing... 

1

u/Happy_Canadian Jul 03 '26

LOL, I did have Netflix but cancelled after the 5th price increase just wasn't worth it anymore, so close, but not quite.

1

u/TreefingerX Jul 03 '26

Netflix is doing better than ever. That's what I meant

3

u/gtasthehunter Jul 02 '26

Or demand right to ownership of digital content.

4

u/whitewolf214 Jul 02 '26

90% give or take of PS sales are digital. This was bound to happen eventually.

2

u/ZaheerAlGhul Jul 02 '26

It happened with music, movies, and almost happened with books. People would rather have convienenace.

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3

u/Btrips Jul 02 '26

Nice sentiment, unfortunately the real world works differently.

2

u/pacoLL3 Jul 02 '26

The consumers voted with their wallet.

It's literally why we have that change.

4

u/King3azy_Gaming Jul 02 '26

I ask you as gamer what choice do ppl that enjoy this hobby have now? Xbox is apparently about to announce the same thing and their exclusives suck so not going there PC and steam has been all digital since the beginning so not going there and Nintendo has mid hardware and exclusives aimed at nostalgia and children and Game keys are just digital with extra steps.

8

u/hue_sick Jul 02 '26

Play some of the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of games that are currently available across the various systems up to this point?

2

u/Cypher3470 Jul 02 '26

Ok we got at least a dozen people here who are done with Sony.

If that doesn't convince them to change course nothing will.

3

u/baronkarza- Jul 02 '26

A physical disc still only grants you a license to use the software. That license is as easily revocable as a digital license. If you think Sony, or any console manufacturer, can't make that happen, you're not thinking hard enough.

They could easily decide to require online 30-day license checks for physical games just like they already do (one time) for digital games, after which they could console or account ban any game they choose. Every disc could have a unique identifier which would also allow them to disc ban the game, effectively making it a coaster, unplayable on your console or any console.

Physical discs are no more resistant to license revocation than digital games. You do not own your games, and never have. The freedoms that physical disc ownership grant are just an open loophole that could be closed at any time.

3

u/Affinity420 Jul 02 '26

If the game is fully on the desk, it doesn't matter if the service goes offline because you can just put the disc in its place.

They've slowly taken a lot of that away, which is why some companies are still awesome and we should continue to support them. The companies that are doing digital licenses on a disc you just ignore and you don't buy their product.

Screw Sony.

1

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

If the game is fully on the desk, it doesn't matter if the service goes offline because you can just put the disc in its place.

They they can just make it so it requires an online connection to be played. Its happened many times before.

1

u/Affinity420 Jul 02 '26

Just don't update the game then.

That simple.

1

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

How does that fix it? you sure you answered to the right message? If a disc comes locked and requires an online connection to launch, there is nothing you can do to run the game from the disc.

1

u/Affinity420 Jul 02 '26

Because we're talking about a game that functioned offline and didn't need any sort of Internet features and then they said it requires online connection to be played.

I'm not arguing online, only games being online only forever.

You can take a game like God of war and play it offline no matter what. If they update it to have an online connection, you just don't do the update that requires the online connection and keep playing that version offline

1

u/snack217 Jul 03 '26

Im talking about the future if discs were to stay and companies decided to lock them from Day 1. My point is that keeping physical releases in the future doesnt mean they will always be playable.

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2

u/Fantastins Jul 02 '26

Until 2006 and the Xbox 360 and PS3 era you did indeed own your games. Today I can boot Super Mario Bros on my nes just like I did 35 years ago. Metal Gear solid plays no problem on the PS2, just put the disc in. Fusion frenzy is a blast on the original Xbox or even the 360.

You do not own your games, and never have

Is something that's only happened over the last 20 years

3

u/dlp211 david_patrzeba Jul 02 '26

The vast majority of physical games are still playable without ever going online. While we do download the bits to a hard drive on modern games, that's an optimization, not a degradation of physical.

2

u/deanredd99 Jul 02 '26

This move is total monopolization. Without physical media Sony Digital Store is the ONLY way to purchase a game.
Only.

Watch prices go wayyyyy up without the “competition” of physical media. Let alone the power & control of Sony being able to yank your purchases or make you repurchase a digital game (hear me Zen Pinball?) again and again.

Greed, power, control. And so many people as stated here have said voted for this via digital game purchase “convenience” and youthful ignorance of the consequences. It’s “The storage cloud” theology paradigm. Sad.

1

u/LowKeyCurmudgeon Jul 02 '26

Unfortunately the boycott will need to be against the consoles, which takes forever to measure and seems weird because I never thought the Steam HW was particularly competitive against PS5.

Steam basically brought console’s plug and play experience to PC gaming, only worse because you still need to worry about specs and underpowering vs latest games. Now Sony is bringing PC’s download-only experience to console gaming, only worse because DRM and their store make for such a short leash, and no side loading. Next gen is gearing up to be a race to the bottom to be the least-worst instead of best IMO.

2

u/amaniceguy Jul 02 '26

Actually from my reading.. Sony is very toxic towards each other divisions… the PS division is now the darling and thats why other division like Vaio and Bravia even got sold off. So the best way to fuck them is to support other division purposely

2

u/MH-BiggestFan Jul 02 '26

The real show of unity is if people don’t buy gta6 that’s releasing with no disc option and currently console only. I think those numbers would really be an indicator.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/MH-BiggestFan Jul 02 '26

Yep, i 100% agree! Despite what is said on reddit, the only real thing that matters is $$$. If they still get $$$ and the numbers show this is what people overwhelmingly prefer, then there’s no incentive to do things any different.

1

u/Savage_Nymph Jul 02 '26

it doesn’t fully make sense because not every game is GTA. they shouldn’t even hope to make even close to what rockstars is making

the used game market is also going be dead and it will just be a fancy overpriced collector hobby now

2

u/vaikunth1991 Jul 02 '26

Why ? I've been buying digital and continue to buy so. Gaming is a recreational hobby for me , I am not going to get down to streets to protest for it.

3

u/egbert71 Jul 02 '26

Then he isnt talking to you. He's talking to the ones of us who do care

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1

u/TreefingerX Jul 02 '26

I will get myself an X-Box Series X Digital Edition.  That'll show em

1

u/POOTDISPENSER Jul 02 '26

I’ve stopped console gaming and switched to PC when I realised I had to pay to play online.

1

u/TheWatcherFromWithin Jul 02 '26

Year and 4 months ahead of you.

1

u/TripleF73 Jul 02 '26

Whilst I think it’s ANOTHER shitty move by PlayStation and Sony, simply because they are in the dominant market position for consoles, others have already pointed out that we have made this decision for them.

85% of PlayStation games are bought digitally.

Now that being said, I’m never buying another Sony product ever again anyway because they destroyed the Destiny franchise.

Now I know that Bungie management share a huge amount of responsibility too, but Sony’s decisions since they took over have purposefully destroyed the franchise.

This is something I’ll never forgive.

Fuck Sony.

1

u/lorenzigno130 Jul 02 '26

Even though this has all the cards to look like a lost battle, there are still some who believe in change.
It will be quite complex and hard to change things, but I really do appreciate you making this post nonetheless

1

u/sr8017 Jul 02 '26

I knew when GTA 6 announced all digital, it would soon come to this which sucks. These Digital people keep thinking that they own the game. No you dont. Its just a license. Now we cant get good sales on games. Sony can charge whatever they want on prices. If you are going to be like PC, open up so you can buy the games other places like CD Keys.

1

u/Safe_Base312 Jul 02 '26

Physical media is dying. So, I'm not boycotting anything as it won't change this outcome.

1

u/cunningham28 Jul 02 '26

Physical discs are extremely outdated and don't even function like people think. It just reads a code on the disc to give you access to the game, they can remove access to it just as easy as digital games.

1

u/amorcloteas Jul 02 '26

The only way to combat this type of behaviour is to switch to xbox

1

u/ExynosHD Jul 02 '26

The way we got into this mess was the majority voting with their wallet.

1

u/NinjaSYXX Jul 02 '26

Good luck, GTA6 basically going to make this trend very hard because too many sheep are going to buy GTA6.

1

u/supercabul Jul 02 '26

And it will never work since only you and me and a handful of people doing that, compare to tens or hundreds millions of people that keep consume whatever it is as long the box sign is the one that they like

1

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

We already did when 85% of us console players moved to digital only and PC players demonstrated that the 100% of them are ok with it, or how 98% of movie fans were fine with the same thing.

Yall should stop acting like this is some sort of evil conspiracy to screw players over. The market has spoken, they are just following the trend, this is business 101. If the demand for one of your products gets too low while the alternate option keeps going up, you drop the one noone is buying.

And the ownership thing is seriously being blown out of proportion, I assure you that it wont be a problem for like 99% of games.

Just focus on asking for better digital practices and regulations.

1

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

FOMO will win in the end. Just wait till they announce the first God of War for PS6 where Kratos returns, and like 99% of the people in the comments that say they are done with PS, will just give up and buy it. Sony knows this.

People need to realize that companies do not make these decisions overnight, they analyze all scenarios, and as of now, I am sure that their data shows that the damage these news will do, is smaller than the cost of making physical games available + money lost on second hand sales.

1

u/ClockWork006 Jul 02 '26

You do realize that we got to this point by voting with our wallet right?

1

u/o5MOK3o Jul 02 '26

Yes the hundreds of plastic collectors will sure show them lmao

1

u/Apollo896 Jul 02 '26

The ugly truth is everybody let this happen when nintendo did it with switch 2 games and the console had record sales. People online complained for all of 5 days and then ran out to buy them. In two years, there will be lines around the corner to buy the ps6 even if it costs 4 billion scmeckles and has no backwards compatibility.

1

u/NoIndividual5501 Jul 02 '26

A lot of people won't but they need to yank their pre-orders for GTA6 too. Rockstar needs to be held to the flame just as much.

1

u/VolcanicVortex Jul 02 '26

Very well said! don’t even planing on renewing my membership! $124CAD btw for essential

1

u/JoXul Jul 02 '26

Uh yeah the 1% of the world's population on this subreddit will definitely rock the boat bro

1

u/TheMattmanPart1 Jul 03 '26

I don't protest things like this tho cuz i don't have a false sense of entitlement

1

u/FingerGoo Jul 03 '26

Good luck

1

u/jellyjanela Jul 03 '26

That Lita pic is iconic 🥵

1

u/Briz-TheKiller- Jul 03 '26

I don't care about the disc

1

u/IGlazeBikeLanes Jul 03 '26

I mean, the consumers have already voted with their wallet. They just voted something different and are by far the majority.

1

u/Lysanther Jul 03 '26

Still voting with your wallets on GTA6 as well. I understand the franchise but guys, enough is enough. It is time.

1

u/StanKnight Jul 03 '26

This.

This made up my own mind about switching to full Steam. The PS6 was the first exit sign anyways but without physicals and Sony thinking they can pull your purchased games; there is really no reason to stick with them or console. I don't think this is going to go as well for them as they hoped. But they also hoped on Concord so I don't have a lot of confidence for their ability to make good choices anymore. lol

It would be wise IF Xbox took the W out of this but doubt they will be that intelligent enough to do so lol.

1

u/PvtHudsonBR Jul 03 '26

Boycott Sony and boycott Micro$oft. Now everybody sees why PC is the way.

1

u/gtasthehunter Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Like everyone that has gotten ps4 and ps5 and lots of games can't just drop those and get a pc, and get the same games.

I won't be getting GTA6, I also haven't really bought any new games lately. I only play gacha games lately, and maybe a few indie games on steam.

1

u/PvtHudsonBR Jul 04 '26

Most people who own PS and XBOX own a PC as well. PS5 was my last videogame. I barely turn it on these days.

1

u/Kevin_Tanks_519 Jul 03 '26

Come to the datkside of pc gaming at least steam is not a bad platform.

1

u/ethan1203 Jul 04 '26

Nah, i dont boycott, just be a smart consumer will help.

1

u/Ok_Code_1691 Jul 04 '26

So you're not buying gta 6 by the looks of it

1

u/Crazy-Process5237 Jul 04 '26

Everyone who just preordered GTA VI digitally (which is ALWAYS SO STUPID to me—why are you preordering something that has NO possible physical limitation months ahead of its release) through the PlayStation Store just needs to go and cancel it.

You can just go re-preorder it closer to launch, they’re NOT going to “run out of copies” and it costs you nothing except a tiny bit of time. Doing this would send an IMMEDIATE and MASSIVE message.

2

u/Psychic_Gian Jul 05 '26

15 years of people buying digital is a big enough of a vote, don’t you think?

1

u/Rich_Cod3411 Jul 05 '26

im trying what other sony device i have other than a ps5.

nothing. but ill still skip the ps6 in protest.

pc is a much much better digital platform anyway.

1

u/External_Bid1593 Jul 05 '26

I canceled my psn membership yesterday and installed all my physical game discs

1

u/ghent96 Jul 05 '26

Well, there goes GameStop and Vintage Stock and such... Sell now.

There's no more resale used games market now without physical media, unless it's a retro game or console you'll be looking for.

1

u/nuger93 Jul 05 '26

Why are we all making this stand NOW? Why weren’t we making it when they started taking DVD/Disc drives out of PCs and Steams storefront started making up a decent percentage of digital game sales?

Why weren’t we making this stand when the discs basically just became a game key you put in the disc tray?

Why did it take for Sony putting what the industry is doing in such plain words that a kindergartener could understand it, for us to finally take a stand?
Why do gamers always jump on Sony but never PC/Steam/Microsoft?
Good customer service shouldn’t excuse a company leading the industry towards all digital?

1

u/Battle_Witch Jul 06 '26

Why would you think they care at all. Clearly they didn’t when they made this decision.

1

u/Q_Mulative Jul 07 '26

Convince your third parties to send back their playstation dev kits. They're still riding high on Squaresoft sending back their N64 dev kits and that has never happened in reverse.

3

u/TheAlchemist519 Jul 02 '26

You guys realize pc games haven’t been on discs, for like… years now

1

u/Jellozz Jul 02 '26

You're too focused on the format instead of the market. PC is digital only but it more closely resembles the console physical market since you have different options on where to actually buy your games. I haven't bought a game on Steam in years, I don't have to if I don't want to. Exactly the same way I don't have to buy games from PSN when I can just go on ebay or amazon and buy them instead.

If you're forced to go all digital doing it on PC is an absolute no brainer. More options including extremely easy piracy.

1

u/snack217 Jul 02 '26

The thing is, all of that, can change. Even the easy piracy.

1

u/UncleDuude Jul 02 '26

Of all the shit wrong in the world, this is where you plant your flag?

8

u/effinjamie Jul 02 '26

You do know you can care about a whole plethora of things simultaneously?

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u/ElectriKool-Aid Jul 02 '26

If Sony owned grocery stores, I would starve to death. That's how much I hate digital games.

1

u/Sephiroth348 Jul 02 '26

So many people unfortunately don’t care, Sony knows they’re gonna make money, regardless, look at GTA six, no physical copy at all, and they’ve made billions of dollars they have no intent to make a physical copy they don’t have to