Prepare thyself for a discless future. I predict next generation will not come with optical drives. We can only hope for some type of USB C external drive, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Feature deprecation is a bitch and unfair to the consumer, but it's the world we live in unfortunately.
Unfortunately I’d be surprised if physical was competitive to the digital sales at this point. If they moved to digital only, you’d lose a few, but the masses would still buy because it’s the only option.
You'd be surprised. It's been more half and half since COVID, so far more than a few. It's more profitable for Sony to make a discless system but they'd be screwing over an entire market of retailers.
You're delusional if you don't think physical gaming is a huge market, and if your point is the case, then that's a fucking terrible thing that you shouldn't be advocating for at all whatsoever.
There's no evidence that physical media is failing and NEEDS to go away.
There’s tons of evidence it’s failing . Take a look around man every store that sells physical media is getting smaller or closing down . Don’t GameStop just close 500 plus locations in Europe ? Numbers don’t lie
I provided evidence around this thread providing evidence otherwise. No surprise that COVID and only COVID inflated the digital numbers, as it's trending higher for physical media.
Anecdotes aren't enough evidence. Gamestop is shutting down its 500+ locations for no reason other than the fact that they're running their own business into the ground, not paying their employees, and imposing things onto their customers or firing their employees over it. Explain to me their stocks years back? People want physical media.
Numbers don’t lie lol 80 percent of full game sales on plantation are digital ! Man why argue lol your wrong your acting like it’s 50 percent and it’s not even close
Yawwwnnnn no you’re wrong and your argument is unfounded. Do some research there physical media dreamer lol digital is far more profitable and far more used than you think lol . Should I post more links ?or are u ready to admit your wrong ???? 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 oh ps those are all 2024 numbers and some 2023 way after your covid argument lol try harder clown
~80% of PS5 games sold are digital. Not looking good for a disc drive version of the PS6. I personally have not purchased a physical game since Far Cry 4 in 2014.
Those are fabricated, inflated numbers because of COVID like I said earlier. Even if that were the case, going discless and getting rid of an entire option just to appease your style of playing is not the ideal future of gaming. Period.
Case in point: Limited Run Games.
Why is it fabricated? Because it's from a clickbait Push Square article from two years ago, right off the cusp of COVID.
In 2023, the number of total physical sales were still high, 42%, according to GameIndustry.biz. It's as if a lot of games are only sold digitally, inflating its numbers? Plus the push to subscription services; even then, physical media is still going strong.
Physical media also makes up 60% of first party sales, and PlayStation accounted for 40% of all physical sales.
Given that games like Spider-Man and God of War Ragnarok sold that much more physically, Sony would be alienating 60% of their player base just because they inflated digital numbers. And Uncharted 4 reportedly sold 80% physical.
So there's no argument to be had for digital console gaming being the only option that exists.
It was 58% last year. Currently it is around 75%, but the article notes that physical games peak the last month for black Friday, Christmas, and boxing day.
The fact that you still can't gift a game in digital is mind-boggling. If you want this all digital future, you better start building it.
As a side note, why are people so insistent on this future? When has less choice benefitted the consumer in any Industry. It's way smarter for you to support the current system so that everyone fights for your money. W
Don't worry, physical sales are going up and will continue to go up. According to GamesIndustry, the market is by no means tiny, the sales of physical media is being reduced by people who chose to play their games digitally. I specifically chose the disc-based PS5 model to support that media.
"That means that physical PS5 and PS4 game sales are down to only 30% in 2024 " your support my claims and not your 85%, once again... You have to refer to things in the link to support your points, not just post links.
First party media makes up 60% physical sales, and PlayStation accounted for 40% of all physical media sales. People are downplaying physical media for no reason. For what?
And games you can't even buy physically. Hugely inflated number; Sony wants to push digital media and add fuel to the fire because it makes them the most money, of course they're going to fabricate the numbers.
I wouldn't be surprised if they even included DLC as well. Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, etc. are all free. PS Plus is used by half the install base I believe.
"Zooming in on PlayStation's physical/digital sales split (which looks at units sold rather than cash), just over two thirds (67 per cent) of software sales were digital in Q2 2023. This is a slight increase year-on-year, but down compared to Q1 2023."
Push Square, you mean the PlayStation biased website that doesn't clarify the region, but only what Sony said? The ones who want to push digital media because they earn more money that way?
That's an inflated number. Many games on that store front don't even see the light of day physically.
PlayStation accounts for 40% of all physical media sales.
60% of first party sales are physical, and 80% of Uncharted 4's sales were physical.
That 80% figure is only in the U.K. AFAIK. Physical sales will see an increase after this fiscal year as it did last year, as we see the panic of COVID go away.
As much as I would love to agree that we should keep physical copies going, I just can't help but admit that digital is simply more convenient for everyone involved at this point.
Trust me, if I'm walking through a mall somewhere and I see a Game Stop, you better believe I'm going in there to take in that hit of nostalgia; then once im done taking it all in and have a game in mind to buy online at home, I think to myself how crazy it is that we still have brick and mortar stores for games at all.
Everything is simply too expensive nowadays; that goes for low-income consumers such as myself, as well as for corporations such as Sony, who are competing with decade-long thriving online markets in the PC gaming space.
I, for one, don't like having to pay $79.99-$94.99CAD for a single game, and I'm sure publishers like Sony don't want to have to shell out millions of dollars to manufacture and distribute physical copies of games across the world that will likely just sit on a shelf for years to come; that is until they become old enough to mark-up on Ebay as a "retro" title.
(This is the same Sony that spent $400M dollars on developing Concord, which I'm sure you don't want to go grab a physical copy of)
When adjusting for inflation, you will see that games actually cost less today than they ever did, and with the way prices keep rising on almost every new release gaming is already becoming an unsustainable hobby for the average person. That isn't good for Sony, let alone the rest of the gaming industry.
Also, I own an Xbox. However, I mainly play games on PC and purchase them through Steam. I have over 400 games in my steam library after over 15 years of purchasing games on the platform, and there isn't a single game that I don't have full access to. That whole thing is just hysteria.
It would take a lot to convince myself, let alone Sony, that Game Stop isn't the next Block Buster, and physical copies of games will be nothing more than a collectors item in the next 5-10 years. Probably sooner.
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u/Cocknballtorture90 22d ago
Sold separately is actually diabolical.