So what are your options then? I am not a PC gamer but I'm pretty sure you're looking at download only for most PC games nowadays. Microsoft are likely to follow Sony's lead on this, rumours are...
So what are your options then?
I am not a PC gamer but I'm pretty sure you're looking at download only for most PC games nowadays. Microsoft are likely to follow Sony's lead on this, rumours are that the next XBox won't have an optical drive at all. The Switch is great but it's not like I can get a huge range of games for it.
I don't think I've bought a single game on a disc in the entire time I've had my PS5.
At least for now as a PC gamer you have options to strip away the DRM from most Steam games, meaning you always have a chance to permanently backup your games wherever you want. There's also GOG,...
At least for now as a PC gamer you have options to strip away the DRM from most Steam games, meaning you always have a chance to permanently backup your games wherever you want. There's also GOG, itch.io and others that offer you games with no DRM.
With locked down consoles like Playstation, once they take away your physical games you are 100% at the mercy of the company and there is nothing you can do if they decide they don't want you to play anymore.
This is why movements like stop killing games are more crucial than ever. We need to ensure consumers get to keep and play the games they legally purchase and not be at the mercy of a remote kill switch or funny business like Sony discontinuing physical CDs.
Companies don't have to be forced to make physical media, but I should also not be forced to never own the games I buy.
I mean, I guess. Is that likely to happen? Has it ever happened? Seems like they could disable discs as well if they wanted, it wouldn't be too hard to make a software update that says "Tony Hawks...
I mean, I guess. Is that likely to happen? Has it ever happened? Seems like they could disable discs as well if they wanted, it wouldn't be too hard to make a software update that says "Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 discs no longer work"
Also that doesn't really change that there aren't many other options. I don't have the money or space for a gaming PC, nor do I want one.
Yes, with Nintendo and the very Sony that's the headline here. Along with announcing no more disc's after 2028, Sony has just announced they're shutting down ps3 and psvita store servers so you...
Has it ever happened?
Yes, with Nintendo and the very Sony that's the headline here.
That’s not true, you can still download Wii/3DS eShop games too this day (even the homebrew that rips games from the eShop directly still work). What you can’t do now is buy new games on either...
With Nintendo, if you only owned digital copies of Wii, Wii U, and 3DS games, you can no longer download them.
That’s not true, you can still download Wii/3DS eShop games too this day (even the homebrew that rips games from the eShop directly still work).
What you can’t do now is buy new games on either platform. If you already own the game, as of today you can still redownload them.
Did Sony remotely deactivate games post-purchase there, or did they close down a digital shop for a 20+ year old console? Like how physical stores also often don't stock physical games for ancient...
Did Sony remotely deactivate games post-purchase there, or did they close down a digital shop for a 20+ year old console? Like how physical stores also often don't stock physical games for ancient consoles.
While the store is going down, Sony says that any digital games you bought on either system will be downloadable “for the foreseeable future.”
"for the foreseeable future" is quite a forboding statement being made the same day they announce this will now be the only means of buying Playstation games.
"for the foreseeable future" is quite a forboding statement being made the same day they announce this will now be the only means of buying Playstation games.
Sure. That's not games though. Stupid, yes; annoying, also yes; games, no. One would assume (or at least hope!) Sony have better contracts for their game distribution deals than their movie ones
Sure. That's not games though. Stupid, yes; annoying, also yes; games, no. One would assume (or at least hope!) Sony have better contracts for their game distribution deals than their movie ones
GOG has apologized for a "Slavic adventure" newsletter sent out today that featured a number of very distinct Nazi runes in its subject line.
To be clear, this is not a misunderstanding, or images that look kind of alike, or a misinterpretation of an ambiguous situation: That's a Sonnenrad, a kolovrat, and the extremely unmistakable double Siegrune of the SS—quite possibly second only to the swastika as the most distinctive emblem of the Nazi regime.
On the contrary, I don't own a single PS5 or Switch game that isn't physical. Getting the physical games is one of the standout reasons that I will choose to get the console version over the PC...
On the contrary, I don't own a single PS5 or Switch game that isn't physical. Getting the physical games is one of the standout reasons that I will choose to get the console version over the PC version. And with regards to PC, this is also why I will always prefer a GOG release over other platforms if available, because I can download the installers at which point they share a lot of factors with physical media.
So what are your options when consoles are as digital only as PCs are today? Because that's what is going to happen and that was my question. Personally as long as the game doesn't vanish while...
So what are your options when consoles are as digital only as PCs are today? Because that's what is going to happen and that was my question.
Personally as long as the game doesn't vanish while I'm playing it, I don't really care. They're transient pieces of entertainment. I am not a museum who hoards piles of bits for future generations to marvel at, I'm just someone who wants a few hours of fun.
I thought I made my my "options" quite clear. If they take away one of the main things that PC's lacked, that being physical copies of games that could be lent/borrowed/given/sold and played in...
I thought I made my my "options" quite clear. If they take away one of the main things that PC's lacked, that being physical copies of games that could be lent/borrowed/given/sold and played in the future many years after a console has gone out of sale, then I simply won't buy or own them. I already have a machine that does that, my PC. It is superior at that function, and does many other things well that consoles cannot generally do. The value proposition of consoles keeps being siphoned off and many people will hop off that boat once it becomes not worth their time or money.
I think it's safe to say Sony are well aware of the proportion of their customers who do not care about physical media and that's exactly why they are doing this. If it was "many people"...
I think it's safe to say Sony are well aware of the proportion of their customers who do not care about physical media and that's exactly why they are doing this. If it was "many people" potentially hopping off the boat then they'd keep pressing discs because there is money to be made that way. But clearly there is not.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that having games in digital format mean they can't be played in future. Sony are shutting down the PS3 online store soon (after a mere 20+ years!) but they've explicitly said people can keep (re)downloading their purchases for "the foreseeable future", and obviously anything already downloaded should keep working indefinitely. Of course they could remote-kill the game if they wanted (not sure why they would want) but they can do that with a disc as well. If you keep your PS3 offline they can't do it in either case.
The value of consoles, at least for me, is a relatively cheap box that sits behind my TV and requires no fiddling about with and can play games with no hassle in the tiny amount of spare time I have to play games in. That proposition has, if anything, only got more appealing with digital game purchases because I don't have to go and get a disc from somewhere before I can play a game - either initially or just to boot the thing up.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I agree that Sony has certainly "done the math" and believes that it is worth their while to do this, but I believe it will affect more people...
We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I agree that Sony has certainly "done the math" and believes that it is worth their while to do this, but I believe it will affect more people than you do clearly. The gambit is probably that people will just be forced to accept it and won't actually leave. They could be right, but I will leave as will essentially all of my personal friends. We're just a hand full of few middle aged dudes that happen to love games though, perhaps getting rid of used gaming and the sin of borrowing games might be worth it to Sony. I do hope this bites them in the ass though, because it personally affects me and I can hold a grudge.
85% of all PS4 and PS5 game sales worldwide were digital in Q4 2025. If you take out the PS4s from that data I bet it's in the mid to high nineties. Out of the small percentage of people...
85% of all PS4 and PS5 game sales worldwide were digital in Q4 2025. If you take out the PS4s from that data I bet it's in the mid to high nineties. Out of the small percentage of people remaining, I doubt many of them are going to throw away their PS5 on principle. Will they buy a PS6? Perhaps some of them won't. But that's a tiny loss of custom for a LOT of money saved on production and distribution of a bit of plastic most people don't want.
I am also a middle aged dude who loves games. I just love games more than whatever principle it is you're standing for here. No judgement on your principles, of course, and props to you for holding firm to them - but for me I'm happy to just be able to play games when time allows.
That figure includes every game on the PlayStation Store, even titles that never had a physical release. Because of that, it does not tell us which format sells better for games that are available...
85% of all PS4 and PS5 game sales worldwide were digital in Q4 2025.
That figure includes every game on the PlayStation Store, even titles that never had a physical release. Because of that, it does not tell us which format sells better for games that are available both digitally and physically.
A more meaningful comparison comes from the leaked 2023 sales data. Those numbers show that, for most first-party titles, physical copies actually outsold digital versions.
Why would anyone throw away their working console that has physical games?!? No one ever said that, don't be ridiculous. If anything those would become more valuable after Sony pulls their...
Why would anyone throw away their working console that has physical games?!? No one ever said that, don't be ridiculous. If anything those would become more valuable after Sony pulls their bullshit. I simply won't buy any more of their games or consoles. I draw hard lines and believe that voting with your wallet is something that it is imperative for people to do if they want to have any influence on things in our current society. You are free to do as you want just as I am. You clearly don't care about physical games very much, so go right ahead.
I still have my PS4 and PS3 in my closet. I'd still have a PS2 as well, but that gave up the ghost a few years back. Even if I never put a disc in them again (and that's not true at all, since I...
I still have my PS4 and PS3 in my closet. I'd still have a PS2 as well, but that gave up the ghost a few years back.
Even if I never put a disc in them again (and that's not true at all, since I was playing Metal Gear Solid 4 last year), they are amazing for modding. I never knew until recently that the huge bump on the original PS2 was intended to let people install their own expanded storage. And with modern sizes, the possibilies for that are limitless.
Yeah, there was a hard drive accessory for the PS2, though admittedly it wasn't very useful. I had installed larger and/or faster drives in both my OG PS3 and PS4.
Yeah, there was a hard drive accessory for the PS2, though admittedly it wasn't very useful. I had installed larger and/or faster drives in both my OG PS3 and PS4.
It was plenty useful! It let you run much more complicated MMORPG alongside online patches, and more importantly there was an official Linux distribution that required it.
It was plenty useful! It let you run much more complicated MMORPG alongside online patches, and more importantly there was an official Linux distribution that required it.
Yeah, FF XI was essentially the only thing that used the HDD fully. Some games let you install some or all of it to the drive to decrease load times. And I think some first party games had some...
Yeah, FF XI was essentially the only thing that used the HDD fully. Some games let you install some or all of it to the drive to decrease load times. And I think some first party games had some early downloadable content which was fairly novel for the time.
There's also the fact that Sony essentially locked the PS5 disk drive behind a paywall, so if people ever thought about buying a physical game first they'd have to spend the equivalent of two to...
There's also the fact that Sony essentially locked the PS5 disk drive behind a paywall, so if people ever thought about buying a physical game first they'd have to spend the equivalent of two to three games in order to be able to even read that single disk. I have a large enough library of physical PS4 (and now PS5) games that there was no way I wasn't going to get a disk drive, but for regular Joe buying one or two games a year and who don't care about the advantage of a physical medium it doesn't make sense to do so
Financially incentivizing people definitely force market trends 🙂
I got a digital version at first because these were the times where getting anything was hard. 3 months later I was fortunate enough to get in thr queue for a disc version and immediately grabbed...
I got a digital version at first because these were the times where getting anything was hard.
3 months later I was fortunate enough to get in thr queue for a disc version and immediately grabbed that. Having some 50 physical discs meant I always wanted to grab one eventually. I sold the digital version to a coworker later that week at cost.
That's the gamble they are taking, yes. I wonder if that will be how reality fares. Or if suddenly they simply get 10-20% less sales next Gen (on top of however much they lose pricing the PS6 as...
If it was "many people" potentially hopping off the boat then they'd keep pressing discs because there is money to be made that way. But clearly there is not.
That's the gamble they are taking, yes. I wonder if that will be how reality fares. Or if suddenly they simply get 10-20% less sales next Gen (on top of however much they lose pricing the PS6 as people are speculating). Sustainable, but not making line go up.
All business decisions lie in "this will make us more money". Not all decisions do.
That proposition has, if anything, only got more appealing with digital game purchases because I don't have to go and get a disc from somewhere before I can play a game - either initially or just to boot the thing up.
For a PS6 potentially being over double the price of my PS5, I will put up for some inconvenience in exchange for at best saving costs with my current pc, and at worst spending money on a more powerful machine. I'm also a software engineer, so I can double or triple dip on a $3k workstation compared to a 1200 dollar PS6.
Feels like this is basically the equivalent of Apple removing the headphone jack. Lots of fussing from people who hate wireless headphones (I was/am one of them) but ultimately they're still going...
Feels like this is basically the equivalent of Apple removing the headphone jack. Lots of fussing from people who hate wireless headphones (I was/am one of them) but ultimately they're still going to be the best selling phone in the world. I don't know what the stats are but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of PS5 owners are getting most of their games digitally already.
Playstation knows they have no real competition in the console space. Nintendo is playing a different game and Xbox has been on life support for almost a decade. They're using this time to push for all the unpopular moves that they couldn't get away with previously. The thing I'm most sad about is not getting PS games on PC anymore :(
For some reason, your comment called me back to the heady days of installing programs off of dozens of floppy disks. Sony will now deliver their top titles this way. Each one (... checks notes)...
So what are your options then?
For some reason, your comment called me back to the heady days of installing programs off of dozens of floppy disks.
Sony will now deliver their top titles this way. Each one (... checks notes) comes in a box the size of a refrigerator weighing over 4000 lbs. It takes three weeks of non-stop disk swapping to install. The commemorative edition includes a game-themed decorative shed to store the disks in.
That's another reason for this that nobody's talking about: games are bigger than BluRays now. They're around 100GB for multilayer ones, and plenty of games are exceeding that now. I've got plenty...
That's another reason for this that nobody's talking about: games are bigger than BluRays now. They're around 100GB for multilayer ones, and plenty of games are exceeding that now. I've got plenty in the 120GB range and some closer to 200GB.
Final Fantasy XIV is warning PS4 players that their time is nearing an end because the hard drive size is too small.
Bingo. Criminally overlooked in this thread. The sentiment among the 4K Blu-Ray folks is that this is the last generation of discs. Each time a new format was introduced, it was expensive to bring...
Bingo. Criminally overlooked in this thread. The sentiment among the 4K Blu-Ray folks is that this is the last generation of discs. Each time a new format was introduced, it was expensive to bring to market and user adoption took a long time. The UX of loading a disc is less accepted today. The path forward would either be flash storage (stupidly expensive), digital, or digital with a physical key for validation like the Switch 2.
That's a moot point though. There are countless PS1 and Xbox 360 games that came on multiple discs. If a game exceeds what can be put on a single disc, they merely need to ship a second disc. I...
That's a moot point though. There are countless PS1 and Xbox 360 games that came on multiple discs. If a game exceeds what can be put on a single disc, they merely need to ship a second disc.
I would also argue that AAA gaming is kind of in a downward spiral so the probability of any given game is over 100GB is likely going to go down. Forgetting the trend and just focusing on the now, there are precious few games that do that in terms of all games being sold.
I'm on PC. The situation is also dire. Steam seems to be user oriented, but it is still digital distribution and there will come a day when it will fuck up. It may be 30 years from now, but it...
I'm on PC. The situation is also dire. Steam seems to be user oriented, but it is still digital distribution and there will come a day when it will fuck up. It may be 30 years from now, but it will come. I'm not even going into other storefronts...
The best one would be GOG where you can download installers and keep your games that way.
And then there are CDs and DVDs some of which I still have.
But even if I stopped vuying games today, I have games to.play for next ten years, probably even more.
It's like movies for me - not many new ones are that good that I want to watch/play them, I'd rather watch/play something older that still has the quality - Godfather, Terninator 2, Home Alone, Abyss, Hunt for Red October, Spencer&Hill movies, Bond movies... Or Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Age of Empires 2... There are many great games from the past that I can easily play todays and enjoy them more than many modern titles.
There are also modern ones that are great - Dune, Ford vs. Ferrari, Hail Mary... Or Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk, ...
For me, disc ownership and cost was the main advantage of having a console. With how things are, Playstation surrendered both advantages. So all that's left is exclusives. Nintendo has a very...
For me, disc ownership and cost was the main advantage of having a console. With how things are, Playstation surrendered both advantages.
So all that's left is exclusives. Nintendo has a very solid portfolio of stuff I desire and a portable form factor. For me personally, Sony has a grand total of Ratchet and Astro Bot. All the other traditional Japanese series have decided to go full simultaneous release on everything this generation, with Square Enix being the last stronghold that recently embraced the idea.
So if things are already 1000+ and 99% of things being equal , why not just splurge a bit and fully invest in PC gaming? I'd rather have the ability to repair my device or upgrade components individually than rely on the "buy console every 4 years" style.
Thing is, it's not a bit. A reasonably capable gaming PC which is comparable in performance (both graphically and acoustically, the latter of which is particularly important to me) was always...
why not just splurge a bit and fully invest in PC gaming?
Thing is, it's not a bit. A reasonably capable gaming PC which is comparable in performance (both graphically and acoustically, the latter of which is particularly important to me) was always quite a lot more money and effort than a Playstation, even before hardware prices went insane. And sure, I am capable of spending a day assembling and setting up a PC from a pile of parts, but I don't want to.
I don't have the space or time for PC gaming. My PS5 sits quietly in a little nook behind my TV and keeps itself up to date until I'm ready to use it. Every few weeks or even months, sometimes, I sit on my sofa, pick up a controller and turn it on, I play a game for a bit. I turn it off again. PC gaming is not like that. I need to keep Windows up to date, which is a bloody nightmare if you leave it more than a few weeks between boots (also I need to have Windows in my house at all, eeugh). I need to keep drivers up to date, I need to keep Steam up to date, I need a keyboard and a mouse as well as a controller, the former two of which are not very usable from a sofa. I don't have room for a desk, nor does my back want me to sit at one if I did. PC controllers might have got better since I last had cause to use one, but my creaky old RSI-stricken hands actually like Sony's hardware. I guess I can use a DualSense with a PC these days though?
I don't care how my games arrive, I do care how easy they are to get, play and maintain and for me, that's why consoles are still the better choice. Perhaps the rumoured £1k price tag of the PS6 will tip the scales to make a PC more attractive.
I'll never deny that that it's much chiller to kick back and play a game on a console (though I will argue that you can absolutely make a PC function very close to that if you're willing to leave...
I'll never deny that that it's much chiller to kick back and play a game on a console (though I will argue that you can absolutely make a PC function very close to that if you're willing to leave Windows, but I understand it's not apples to apples). The problem is that accepting this change in particular means you are now 100% beholden to Sony's whims and if nothing is done to change current laws you will literally have no power if they ever decide to pull the plug and take your games away.
Yes, that might not happen in 10 years or even 20, but at some point it will happen to some degree. And I don't want to support a future where consumers' only option is to buy a digital game that is just an ethereal license that can be revoked at any time for any reason.
I think we should fight for the right to own the stuff we buy at the very least instead of blindly trusting any multi-million dollar's company's pinky promises.
I have plenty of machines that keep themselves happily up to date without my intervention but last I checked - admittedly some time ago - Steam on linux was not quite there, still. The thing is, I...
I have plenty of machines that keep themselves happily up to date without my intervention but last I checked - admittedly some time ago - Steam on linux was not quite there, still.
The thing is, I was already 100% beholden to Sony's whims. Obviously I didn't read the terms I agreed to when I set up my Sony account but there is almost no chance they don't own me entirely already. They could disable any disc from working just as easily as digital games, or even my entire console if they wanted, but there's no reason for them to do that. The backlash would be insane. They are a business, and they exist largely just to make money from me. Stopping printing discs makes them money. Deleting people's games does not.
It's worth noting that in most cases I don't legally own a disc game any more than I own a digital one - those EULAs are as restrictive for discs as they are for downloads.
There is, as far as I know, zero evidence that this particular segment of sky is in any danger of falling. I remember a certain segment of PC gamers saying the exact same thing when Steam came along over 20 years ago. And yet in all that time, has it ever happened?
This is where we fundamentally disagree. Backlash is worthless if you have no other options. That's the end goal of any company under capitalism, complete control over a monopoly and no...
The backlash would be insane.
This is where we fundamentally disagree. Backlash is worthless if you have no other options. That's the end goal of any company under capitalism, complete control over a monopoly and no competition.
Obviously they will not do it overnight. But they will slowly boil the frog alive, and without pushback they can get to a point where enough consumers will be receptive to it by then because that's all they've known their entire lives. You just need enough of a generational shift.
I mean let's not forget Sony did just pull 500+ movies from people's libraries because you own none of them and people are mostly already not gonna do much about it, so I feel like I'm not talking that crazy when I say such decisions can apply to games in the future.
I don't want to let them take this inch or that mile. And just because the situation is already dire today (CDs that are just licenses or downloads are just as much BS in my book) doesn't mean we should be cool with letting it get even worse with absolutely no pushback.
I remember a certain segment of PC gamers saying the exact same thing when Steam came along over 20 years ago. And yet in all that time, has it ever happened?
I will say Steam is a very unique edge case because they are still privately owned and have a mostly pro-consumer mindset (I mean they're pushing Linux and open source which is unheard of), but they should absolutely be included in this argument and not be let off the hook either if they ever do anything anti-consumer.
I imagine if Steam were an Epic Games or an EA or whatever things would look significantly different right now.
What, even Valve? :) Sony might be able to kill the Xbox. Very big might though. But they'll never be the only console (or console-like device - especially if Valve actually get their shit...
the end goal of any company under capitalism, complete control over a monopoly and no competition.
What, even Valve? :)
Sony might be able to kill the Xbox. Very big might though. But they'll never be the only console (or console-like device - especially if Valve actually get their shit together with Steam machines). Sony will likely never have a complete monopoly. Nintendo aren't going anywhere. Even less so PCs.
But even if they did - what would they do that's different to now? Other than put up prices, of course - but that wouldn't change with physical discs still in play either.
Backlash is worthless
letting it get even worse with absolutely no pushback.
Let's not pretend this isn't all worthless. Pushback, boycotts, consumer protests, etc - basically don't work. There are almost no documented instances of "consumer action" - especially for something niche like this - having an effect. Sony remote-deleting people's games might (might, depends on the game) cause a noticeable amount of fuss, but them making a change like this that most of their customers won't be affected by? Not a chance. In a couple of days most of the people making fuss now will move on to the next thing to be angry about and by the time the change actually happens in January, most people won't even remember it happened at all.
I feel like I'm not talking that crazy when I say such decisions can apply to games in the future.
I wouldn't say crazy, but I would say it's kinda hard to justify that position. The movie thing was a legal fumble by Sony, and a dick move by StudioCanal (I notice nobody is blaming them, when they are at least as much at fault, arguably more!). I don't think Sony decided to do that, to piss all those customers off, to get all this bad PR. They were forced into it. The upside is that their games distribution lawyers were likely already and definitely will be now, far more robustly on the case to make sure it doesn't happen with the much more profitable gaming market.
I imagine if Steam were an Epic Games or an EA or whatever things would look significantly different right now.
Genuine question - how do you imagine things would look in that case? I mean sure, Epic and EA are assholes, but they are still not remote-deleting people's games. Selling people stuff - even if it is generic micro-transaction, loot-box riddled crap - will always be more profitable than not doing that.
That implies unintentional, but Sony owned Funimation, owned Crunchyroll, then merged Funimation into Crunchyroll and removed purchased Funimation movies from users that had purchased them. They...
The movie thing was a legal fumble by Sony
That implies unintentional, but Sony owned Funimation, owned Crunchyroll, then merged Funimation into Crunchyroll and removed purchased Funimation movies from users that had purchased them. They don't get the presumption of innocence here. Sony is also a movie distributor, so they know better than most digital movie retailers how movie rights work. Apple doesn't have this problem. Vudu doesn't have this problem. One or two movies might disappear, but there's never been a report from Apple or Vudu that an entire studio's catalog just disappeared one day from a customer's library.
I didn't really want to learn to cook. Then eating out got really expensive, really quick. Turns out slow cooking was my true calling and air fryers are neat (a little overrated, but neat). I...
I am capable of spending a day assembling and setting up a PC from a pile of parts, but I don't want to.
I didn't really want to learn to cook. Then eating out got really expensive, really quick. Turns out slow cooking was my true calling and air fryers are neat (a little overrated, but neat). I apologize to my roommate from 12 years ago for not seeing the light.
Got less space on my kitchen counters, but it gave me some time to really look at and clean them off. I made room when push came to shove. I'd rather do that than go through the hassle or putting appliances away and taking them out a few days a week for a clean, minimalist look I prefer.
Life is all about compromises. And hey, in the end it probably gave me a healthier lifestyle. But I digress.
Ideally, I'd ideally grab everything and it'd be no problem picking and choosing. Maybe one day. But ideally, Microsoft wouldn't be planning a layoffpocalypse next week that will probably put quite a few of my friends and old colleagues out of a job, despite MSFT making record profits. Things will only get tighter on my end, and I'll need to adjust as needed as I'm still looking for full time work.
If nothing else, I'm never going to say I have no games to play, even if I stopped buying games forever today.
I guess I can use a DualSense with a PC these days though?
Yes, quite well actually. It somehow feels like it connects better than an Xbox controller. Even the Switch Joycons can connect to PC, but to much more mixed performance (even with steam there's quite a bit of fanagling for them to properly work IME).
The number of PCs I've built over the years probably approaches the number of hot dinners you've cooked (well no, but "I've done more x than you've had hot dinners" was right there..) I was...
The number of PCs I've built over the years probably approaches the number of hot dinners you've cooked (well no, but "I've done more x than you've had hot dinners" was right there..)
I was building systems before GPUs existed. I was there before maths co-processors! I even did it professionally for a while. I have built a LOT of computers - and have also released my fair share of magic smoke along the way. In the bad old days chip sockets weren't polarised and you could fry a Pentium in seconds if you put it in the wrong way round. Fun times.
I just don't have any interest in doing that right now, that's all. I have other things I want to do with my life than fiddle about with computing hardware. Doing that, which I still need to from time to time for home automation and other things, is annoying where it used to be fun. Maybe when Kid is older we can build them a gaming PC together and it'll be good. So the compromise - including other factors - is a console that I'm perfectly happy with being digital only. I don't want to play 20 or 30 year old games, I did that recently at a retro games fair and they were shit. I didn't think they were shit when I was a kid, because there wasn't anything better. But there is now, and there will be in 20 years time.
Anyway, good luck finding work! At least you've got some time for playing games in the meantime. :)
Hold on now. I'm in total agreement with you in this thread, but 20-30 year old games are definitely not shit. Dated maybe, but definitely not at all bad. I don't play then exclusively or...
Hold on now. I'm in total agreement with you in this thread, but 20-30 year old games are definitely not shit. Dated maybe, but definitely not at all bad.
I don't play then exclusively or anything, but they are part of my regular gaming diet. The original System Shock became one of my favorite games of all time and I only played it for the first time in 2020.
At any rate, I agree with you otherwise. Game preservation isn't my top priority either. I see a lot of myself in your posts here, even though it seems like I probably play games significantly more than you. My Steam library is 22 years old this year and if it were to go kaput, I certainly would be sad, frustrated and disappointed, but I have plenty of other stuff to play and the means to play it (lots of those old games, I mentioned), I wouldn't be hurting for entertainment.
That said, I get where you're coming from, because even though I game daily, there's so much more to life than just playing games and I have a wide array of hobbies and interests that I can find plenty of stuff to keep me busy.
There's also the fact that everything in life is transitory. Nothing lasts forever. The idea that we should have access to all media at all times is really something that's new to us, probably having only arisen in the last 15 to 20 years.
The games I first played as a kid - Chuckie Egg (play online here), Revs 5 Tracks, Repton, Dizzy, Manic Mansion, Jet Set Willy, etc - are definitely pretty terrible to play today. (DO NOT point...
The games I first played as a kid - Chuckie Egg (play online here), Revs 5 Tracks, Repton, Dizzy, Manic Mansion, Jet Set Willy, etc - are definitely pretty terrible to play today. (DO NOT point out that those games are actually more like 40 years old please I am trying to ignore the relentless and terrifying passage of time).
Elite is the possible only exception from the BBC Micro days. Although that game was some kind of minor miracle, back in the day. I still play Elite Dangerous occasionally but it's not the same. Too many polygons..
System Shock is fantastic. I guess that is closer to being 20 years old. Fuck, Quake 2 is 30 next year. Man I am OLD.
Excuse me while I place my head back in the sand. And maybe have a little nap.
Not really :(. That statement and sentiment honestly explains the disconnect more than anything else you talked about. We're just in fundamentally different worlds formed from a massive...
Anyway, good luck finding work! At least you've got some time for playing games in the meantime. :)
Not really :(.
That statement and sentiment honestly explains the disconnect more than anything else you talked about. We're just in fundamentally different worlds formed from a massive generational gap on how we view labor, the economy, and the world as a whole.
Mate I wasn't being serious. I'm aware finding a job can be a job in itself, especially in tech these days. I've just... never really done it. Startups and self-employment are a different sort of...
Mate I wasn't being serious. I'm aware finding a job can be a job in itself, especially in tech these days. I've just... never really done it. Startups and self-employment are a different sort of a thing. I'm on at least my third career at this point, so yes, I probably do have a very different view of work than you - but probably not because of my age.
Fair. You just never really know. Things changed so fast and plenty of well meaning people have given advice that became outdated that I don't blame people personally for it. Also, my industry is...
Fair. You just never really know. Things changed so fast and plenty of well meaning people have given advice that became outdated that I don't blame people personally for it.
Also, my industry is games, so I suppose there's a bit of a guilt factor in trying to play games when I should be developing them.
Why not invest in a steam machine then? SteamOS is pretty easy to deal with updates - it's fairly seamless on the steam deck and updates pretty much the same way as the games do, which is...
Why not invest in a steam machine then? SteamOS is pretty easy to deal with updates - it's fairly seamless on the steam deck and updates pretty much the same way as the games do, which is automated. Updates will require a restart but it's lightning fast compared to Windows. These days Proton can play just about everything, the only exception being games that have kernel-level anti-cheat. But even then it seems like developers are looking into making those systems work on Linux, so that may end up being a temporary setback.
You don't even need to buy a steam machine; you can install SteamOS on any machine, so long as you use it's handful of unofficially supported hardware (in particular, not using an nVidia GPU).
A Radeon RX9060 GFX card is about the same price as an entire PS5 console. Add in RAM, an SSD, a motherboard, cooling, case, controller, PSU, etc, plus the time cost of getting it all assembled...
A Radeon RX9060 GFX card is about the same price as an entire PS5 console. Add in RAM, an SSD, a motherboard, cooling, case, controller, PSU, etc, plus the time cost of getting it all assembled and working and there's your answer.
Should ram and compute prices crater drastically and/or the PS6 be as expensive as it's rumoured to be then maybe the equation balances differently.
Right now for the difference in price I can buy at least one new bike and/or a lot of bike upgrades and bikes are more fun.
The only reasons I buy physical games sometimes is so different people in the same household can use them in their consoles without buying extra copies. Effectively, they're stupid beyond that....
The only reasons I buy physical games sometimes is so different people in the same household can use them in their consoles without buying extra copies. Effectively, they're stupid beyond that.
There has not been a console since the PS3 generation where they've made sense: Steam already destroyed physical sales for PC, years prior, and the first thing that would happen when inserting a disc into a console is you'd install it to the internal storage and download updates. Functionally no different from a download, but now you need to put a disc in whenever you play.
Online sales are also cheaper. Sony and Nintendo routinely have sales, and I often delay picking up games until one pops up on my wish list.
They have numbers. This isn't some crazy push against typical consumer behavior. Sony sees that the vast majority of game sales are online, and that a growing number of players opt for models that don't have optical drives. (I need it for BluRays, though!)
I don’t have much to add, except that I cancelled my PS Plus subscription in response to this. I hope enough people that are bothered by this also did the same.
I don’t have much to add, except that I cancelled my PS Plus subscription in response to this. I hope enough people that are bothered by this also did the same.
I assume they have the data and that physical sales are already abysmally low. Is what it is. Just happening to consoles slower than it happened on PC. I haven’t bought a physical game on PC or...
I assume they have the data and that physical sales are already abysmally low. Is what it is. Just happening to consoles slower than it happened on PC. I haven’t bought a physical game on PC or PS5 in a decade so it’s pretty whatever to me.
I can see Nintendo continuing to make game cartridges for another generation or two, though.
Sony (and Microsoft and Nintendo) have been doing their damnedest to make this happen for years. MS was more overt with it and it was one of the reasons they "lost" the previous console...
Sony (and Microsoft and Nintendo) have been doing their damnedest to make this happen for years. MS was more overt with it and it was one of the reasons they "lost" the previous console generation.
The real question is: are retailers going to bother having a console section at all anymore? If all the sales for games now skip the retailers, why should Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc give them the marketing and floor space. If Sony or any of the others fully commits to this, there will definitely be a backlash. They are likely fully aware and that is precisely why it has taken them so long to do it, but if all the consoles are online only then I'll probably never buy another console. Just this week I will be hosting the CGA for Lufia II on the SNES. A game I can still play on my SNES with my physical game. I still have most of my old consoles and hook them up and play with my kids sometimes. That is quite literally the draw to me, not to mention being able to lend and borrow games with friends. This is just further rent seeking by the game companies, and seeing how Sony has such a bad history with supporting digital purchases (it literally game up in the news again this week), no one should trust them.
Retailers barely sell games anymore. The last time I was in a GameStop probably at least 60% of the shelf space was dedicated to collectible junk like Funkopops. The rest is consoles, special...
Retailers barely sell games anymore. The last time I was in a GameStop probably at least 60% of the shelf space was dedicated to collectible junk like Funkopops. The rest is consoles, special collectors edition stuff, and third party accessories, cases, etc.
The physical games are mostly used titles and just like one standard sized bookshelf for each console. It’s pretty much dead.
When I ordered the Mass Effect legendary edition, it came with a steel case for the game disc, but NO GAME DISC! They shipped me a replica N7 helmet but couldn’t press a disc to put in the steel case. It was only digital. WTF am I supposed to do with the case? Who knows!? I guess it just sits there to remind me of the game entitlement I have.
They're for the vinyl crowd: more than half of vinyl buyers don't own a turntable. It's just an arbitrary collectable thing (with inferior audio quality if it were played)....
They're for the vinyl crowd: more than half of vinyl buyers don't own a turntable. It's just an arbitrary collectable thing (with inferior audio quality if it were played).
While vinyl album sales continue to gain each year in the U.S., only half of those fans buying records actually own a vinyl record player, according to a research survey commissioned by Luminate. Last September, the firm published the statistic as part of its U.S. Music 360 2022 – Wave 2 report. Of those respondents over the age of 13 who had purchased vinyl in the previous 12 months, there was a question asked about which devices they owned, and only 50% said they owned a record player. Total respondents for the Music 360 study: 3,992.
You are describing specifically Gamestop's abyssal situation and I avoid that place for a reason. I definitely still see people buying games at the big box stores and even Microcenter. The number...
You are describing specifically Gamestop's abyssal situation and I avoid that place for a reason. I definitely still see people buying games at the big box stores and even Microcenter. The number of people buying digitally is definitely higher than ever, and the console makers have been heavily pushing for that situation for over a decade. Every console maker that has tried to go digital only has "paid for it" in the past, but I believe that was mostly because their competition was ready to use that against them. As soon as Sony or Nintendo commit to it fully, every one of them will do it. It will be a situation like with Apple and getting rid of the headphone back. All of the console makers want this situation and when they do, I'm out.
As far as I know many Switch 2 cartridges already don't contain the game data, they just give you access to a digital download so really they've all gone down the same route.
As far as I know many Switch 2 cartridges already don't contain the game data, they just give you access to a digital download so really they've all gone down the same route.
That’s kind of a separate issue. Since the switch 2 actually loads data from cartridge, the cartridges are really expensive. The max size so far is also 64gb. It’s reported that it can cost up to...
That’s kind of a separate issue. Since the switch 2 actually loads data from cartridge, the cartridges are really expensive. The max size so far is also 64gb. It’s reported that it can cost up to $20 per cartridge just for the flash memory.
So far every first party Nintendo game has really been on a cartridges. But the game card key is an escape hatch that lets third party developers that can’t or can’t reasonable fit their game on cartridge can still release their game in a way that’s not online only.
It still lets you trade or sell the “physical” game. There were many switch 1 games from third parties that just had a download code in a box. Game keycards are way better than that, since you can still sell them or give them to someone else.
Basically, on switch 1 you had two options: online only, online + physical. On switch 2 there’s three options: online only, online + game key card, online + physical. It’s an addition.
Wait why is the max size only 64gb? Can't you get SD cards in the TB range now? I wonder why Nintendo would limit it to such a (relatively) small size, is it just that anything over 64gb is too...
Wait why is the max size only 64gb? Can't you get SD cards in the TB range now? I wonder why Nintendo would limit it to such a (relatively) small size, is it just that anything over 64gb is too expensive to be worth making? (Especially after the price increases)
SD isn't fast enough. Remember that a big selling point of both the PS5 and Xbox Series X was extra fast SSDs. The Switch 2 needs to at least be able to be in the same realm of read speeds for...
SD isn't fast enough. Remember that a big selling point of both the PS5 and Xbox Series X was extra fast SSDs. The Switch 2 needs to at least be able to be in the same realm of read speeds for third parties to be able to port current gen games to the system.
The Switch 2 requires SD Express for its expandable storage, and presumably the cartridges must be of similar spec. Now, >64gb SD Express cards exist, but the issue here is scalability and cost. A 128gb SD Express is over $60. Even with bulk discounting, that would be more than half of the cost of a AAA game. There are rumors Nintendo is working to get supply for higher capacity cartridges, but with the memory shortage I wouldn't hold my breath.
SD Express is a very new spec. Barely any devices use it currently, so supply is low and manufacturing costs are high.
MicroSD is a dead end. They're way too slow. The Switch 2 only supports MicroSD Express cards, which are more like tiny NVMe SSD packages. They have PCIe level speeds, and cost far more. And now...
MicroSD is a dead end. They're way too slow. The Switch 2 only supports MicroSD Express cards, which are more like tiny NVMe SSD packages. They have PCIe level speeds, and cost far more.
The weird thing, at least where I live, is that cartridges are cheaper — often substantially so — than digital downloads, despite being so much more expensive to produce and being resellable. I...
The weird thing, at least where I live, is that cartridges are cheaper — often substantially so — than digital downloads, despite being so much more expensive to produce and being resellable.
I prefer digital games due to the faster load times (particularly noticeable on the Switch 2), so it's a tough choice between that and buying the cheaper, slower physical copy.
For this reason, I'm a big fan of game key cards. They're the best of both worlds, and I preferentially buy them whenever they're available. Unfortunately, most of the games I'm interested in buying just come on regular cartridges, not game key cartridges, but I'm hoping this changes in the future.
Technically, some Switch 2 cards don't contain game data. Others do. It's down to the storage capacities available on them (upper bound and cost of the minimum size) and developer choice. They're...
Technically, some Switch 2 cards don't contain game data. Others do. It's down to the storage capacities available on them (upper bound and cost of the minimum size) and developer choice. They're only 64GB, and they're basically NVMe drives in a removable package, not MicroSD cards.
Switch 1 games were basically already this, with extra steps. You put the card in, it copies the stale files to the internal storage, and then you download 80% of the game as updates. It's not used for much other than proof of ownership...so why not skip the extra steps?
Yeah, I bought physical discs for my first few games on PS5, then I decided that it's just a worse experience, so I've been buying digital-only since then. I don't like having to go find the disc...
Yeah, I bought physical discs for my first few games on PS5, then I decided that it's just a worse experience, so I've been buying digital-only since then. I don't like having to go find the disc to start playing a game, it's slower to install and load disc-based games while you're playing, the drive makes extra noise that I don't appreciate, and most (all?) of the game is just downloaded anyway.
I was using it as a player for my physical Netflix subscription, but since they discontinued that I don't have much use for a DVD/Bluray player.
Yea they're not going to do something that would intentionally hurt their bottom line. Realistically if they offered physical discs for all first party games for the next console, how would that...
Yea they're not going to do something that would intentionally hurt their bottom line. Realistically if they offered physical discs for all first party games for the next console, how would that change their sales? Would it double or triple profits? If so, then that's what they would do.
These things can change though. I doubt it, but we'll see
The more the experience starts to feel like regular PC gaming and the more accessible PC gaming becomes, the harder it'll be for consoles to conceptually differentiate themselves. I see this...
The more the experience starts to feel like regular PC gaming and the more accessible PC gaming becomes, the harder it'll be for consoles to conceptually differentiate themselves. I see this hurting their sales in the long term.
Maybe you can explain the appeal of the yearly rigamarole of paying full price for a roster update for a middling (at best) sports game with no real innovations in 20 years.
Maybe you can explain the appeal of the yearly rigamarole of paying full price for a roster update for a middling (at best) sports game with no real innovations in 20 years.
Honestly I don't even really care about the roster updates. The thing with many of these sports games is that it's been so long that they've been unavailable on PC that you can't even play ones...
Honestly I don't even really care about the roster updates. The thing with many of these sports games is that it's been so long that they've been unavailable on PC that you can't even play ones with outdated rosters at this point. For example, you have to go all the way back to MLB 2k13 to even get an MLB game that was even released on PC, and at this point I bet you can't even launch it without some workarounds or hackery if at all. Similar scenario for NHL I assume. And it's worth noting that even if the gameplay of these games doesn't improve much year over year, you can generally expect that if you go back 10-15 years that the graphics if nothing else will be quite dated but also the gameplay may not be as good, even if they don't change much in gameplay year-over-year, in a 10-15 year time span there's more likely to be more noticeable differences.
And to be fair, most of the American sports simulator games are garbage because of a lack of competition. People still buy them and play them, but I'm not one of them. However if a good one actually came around on PC that wasn't a total cashgrab, then I'd be far more likely to be interested. Epic gave away an NBA 2K game for free once years ago, and that's when I found out 2K shuts down the online servers 2 years after the game launches. Never would I ever, ever, buy that shit.
For the longest time you couldn't play NFL games on PC either, eventually EA did bring Madden back to PC, but unfortunately it's EA and Madden is the prime example of sports games that don't improve due to lack of competition.
It’s fun. Having the actual players at the time is like 80% of the fun. It’s kind of like sports tomodachi life. $70 is like one dinner, it’s not much of an entry price for a few dozen hours of fun.
It’s fun. Having the actual players at the time is like 80% of the fun. It’s kind of like sports tomodachi life. $70 is like one dinner, it’s not much of an entry price for a few dozen hours of fun.
Can't disagree more, but I guess that's why I'm not a sports guy. I just like playing the sports, I don't need to specifically have a licensed Kobe or Payton or Pele to have that done. Tomodachi...
Can't disagree more, but I guess that's why I'm not a sports guy. I just like playing the sports, I don't need to specifically have a licensed Kobe or Payton or Pele to have that done. Tomodachi life doesn't need those licenses if you want to larp as those players.
Also, definitely can't afford 70 dollar dinners in this economy. I gotta think hard to remember the last game I bought. Surely I bought something after Silksong.
Man, I used to get rankled about this sort of thing but I just don’t anymore. The PS5’s internal SSD read speeds are literally 120x faster than those of its Blu-ray drive. This means discs are...
Man, I used to get rankled about this sort of thing but I just don’t anymore. The PS5’s internal SSD read speeds are literally 120x faster than those of its Blu-ray drive. This means discs are only actually used for game installation and license verification anyway, because there just isn’t the bandwidth to play from optical media directly. And discs are susceptible to physical damage over time; so a disc is in effect just a non-replaceable key to content that lives elsewhere, whereas your PlayStation Store purchase keys are safely backed up in the cloud.
Now it’s true that the disc contains the game data too, so I hear the local archivist argument, but let’s be honest: That really only matters if you’re trying to preserve the release version 1.0.0 of a particular game. Kinda sucks if that game is, say, No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk 2077. Even with a disc you’re going to be downloading updates after installation. It’s also worth pointing out that the disc format tops out at 100 GB capacity, which games are increasingly exceeding. So then you’ve got to either ship multiple discs in the case, or just ship a mostly empty disc that holds an installer that downloads from the web. So pointless and wasteful.
None of this changes the fact that physical media is ownership and digital downloads are revocable licenses. That remains a real problem. But what we should be pushing for is DRM-free downloads, self-hosted or local console data backups, and third-party game marketplaces… not the continuance of legacy formats that are growing more irrelevant every year.
Expect perfection and you'll end with nothing. As usual. You will own nothing and like it. That's always been the end goal. I don't see the value in daydreaming about what could be vs. Trying to...
But what we should be pushing for is DRM-free downloads, self-hosted or local console data backups, and third-party game marketplaces… not the continuance of legacy formats that are growing more irrelevant every year.
Expect perfection and you'll end with nothing. As usual. You will own nothing and like it. That's always been the end goal. I don't see the value in daydreaming about what could be vs. Trying to preserve what we know works.
Pretty bold move even given the current climate. If I'm a consumer, what's my incentive to buy into a system where Sony and Sony alone sets all prices and availability forever? The alternatives:...
Pretty bold move even given the current climate.
If I'm a consumer, what's my incentive to buy into a system where Sony and Sony alone sets all prices and availability forever?
The alternatives:
Nintendo: Broad range of retailers competing and regularly selling at significantly below Nintendo's set price, even for new releases. GKCs continue to enable used game market.
PC: You can buy from Steam, Epic, GOG, etc who all compete on price with regular sales and bundles. Broad range of key resellers. Games stretching back into antiquity remain available because deeply passionate people have saved them and kept them compatible with modern PCs. Making backups is trivial. Indies release here by default and third party AAA makers can no longer afford not to release here, so you have access to everything other than first party games.
Saw this shift coming as far back as the Wii Shop Channel in 2006, but I still can't say I'm looking forward to it. The move toward digital over physical didn't happen naturally; platform holders...
Saw this shift coming as far back as the Wii Shop Channel in 2006, but I still can't say I'm looking forward to it. The move toward digital over physical didn't happen naturally; platform holders pushed it because it's more profitable.
Over the past decade, console manufacturers have made digital purchases increasingly attractive. Higher margins, greater control over distribution, and access to detailed user data all work in their favor. To get there, they leaned on frequent discounts, preloads, early access, and subscription models that normalize not actually owning games.
At the same time, physical releases have become less appealing. Discs often still require large patches, special editions feel less meaningful, and retail space has shrunk. Add in the rise of digital-only consoles, and the direction is pretty clear.
If Sony really phases out physical media in the next couple of years, it will likely set a precedent that Xbox and Nintendo eventually follow. Most consumers probably won't mind, since convenience tends to win out over ownership. Personally, though, I think something important gets lost in that shift.
Back in the late 2000s, the idea of having a huge library of games accessible anytime, anywhere felt incredible. That's why I went almost fully digital during the 8th generation.
But over time, that same convenience became a downside. I've accumulated more games than I can reasonably play, and it's led to analysis paralysis. Finishing games feels harder now, not because they're more difficult, but because my attention is constantly split. Gaming has started to feel more like a commodity than the special hobby it once was.
It's funny in a way that we still don't have a great solution for all this. Digital is the way, full stop. There's 0 reason to waste energy and create waste when you can digitally distribute a...
It's funny in a way that we still don't have a great solution for all this.
Digital is the way, full stop. There's 0 reason to waste energy and create waste when you can digitally distribute a product.
The main issue though becomes that of ownership and sharing. I think the path has been there for over a decade, but no one is incentivized to take it.
The problems we already have? Star Citizen? Duke Nukem Forever? Bad faith creators will generally only get a one-off support at best. Creator is paid at time of creation by zero or members of the...
The problems we already have? Star Citizen? Duke Nukem Forever? Bad faith creators will generally only get a one-off support at best.
Creator is paid at time of creation by zero or members of the public. Ownership is public domain.
Distribution will sort itself out with time. Thousands of people already dedicate years of their time curating and distributing public domain works for free.
The easiest way to solve digital ownership is to dissolve the very concept of digital ownership. The work exists, it is free. We only need to pay creators to create in advance.
Patreon is still a subscription, the same model for profitability exists; people simply forget they subscribed. I just looked at a particular example of a very old school video creator. Older than...
Bad faith creators will generally only get a one-off support at best.
Patreon is still a subscription, the same model for profitability exists; people simply forget they subscribed. I just looked at a particular example of a very old school video creator. Older than YouTube and kinda burned out 15 years ago or so. Hasn't made a video in 4 years and he's only made 3 videos this decade.
He still makes 100 dollars a month. It's not much, but having a few bills paid per month over a career you stopped doing a decade ago is still something.
Distribution will sort itself out with time.
Yes, and Sony wants to make sure it sorts out in its favor. It will not be in favor of the consumers.
The easiest way to solve digital ownership is to dissolve the very concept of digital ownership. The work exists, it is free. We only need to pay creators to create in advance.
Easy is nowhere near most practical. That'd be a mess for a dozen different reasons. But I'll list a few.
Anyone who's run a tip jar knows you don't get tips without being a full time marketer. Your job is no longer to create, it's to maximize attention to your tip jar. Those do not necessarily run in tandem.
You're not going to support any large project on this system. Studio Trigger's Patreon is 2600 dollars a month. That wouldn't even sustain me by myself. Let alone a 100 artist studio. Even multiplying this by 100 wouldn't sustain this.
Most people fundamentally do not donate. Especially to luxury entertainment. Even if they could, they only have so much money per month. They cannot support every creator they enjoy. People are already tiring of subscriptions, adding another heap of them won't help matters.
None of these ideas will actually fix any issues in the industry. There's still no stability, no worker protections, and no way to bring down costs on the hardware side. It doesn't help with curating games among a sea of AI slop, it doesn't help against scams and imposters.
It doesn't even disrupt the greedy mobile industry becsuse the value of a mobile game is not about the file you run, but the server it connects to. It's already pretty much the dissolved digital utopia proposed. Turns out the answer this whole time was ads and gambling. I should have known.
Kickstarter is also a patronage system. Just one-off grants to make stuff. You are correct: The nature of what is available will naturally shift. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Kickstarter is also a patronage system. Just one-off grants to make stuff.
You are correct: The nature of what is available will naturally shift. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Not necessarily. But probably a very bad thing in this instance. Especially since I didn't even go into the career aspect of all of this. There's a discourse of the current "de-professionalization...
The nature of what is available will naturally shift. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Not necessarily. But probably a very bad thing in this instance.
Especially since I didn't even go into the career aspect of all of this. There's a discourse of the current "de-professionalization of games" and this would 100% kill off the concept. The idea of a full time game developer working on the kinds of console/pc games we know today is now only for the most well off and privrledged people who already have life paid for them. Everyone else is either hustling on the side for a slot machine or a "patreeon bait" game.
As much as it saddens me, the writing was on the wall given how large modern games are and just how much faster onboard SSDs are than loading from physical media. I'm an adamant physical media guy...
As much as it saddens me, the writing was on the wall given how large modern games are and just how much faster onboard SSDs are than loading from physical media. I'm an adamant physical media guy but the convenience of digital can't be understated. I'm not sure how much I trust Sony with this though.
I’ve been wondering how physical media will keep up with the growing sizes of games. I was shocked to see Baldur’s Gate required 150GB of disk space. I think I recall it being a 120GB download. As...
I’ve been wondering how physical media will keep up with the growing sizes of games. I was shocked to see Baldur’s Gate required 150GB of disk space. I think I recall it being a 120GB download.
As much as I prefer owning physical copies (I still buy CDs and try to always buy games on cartridge) I wonder if it’s sustainable this way. I didn’t particularly like the era where software came on 10 floppy discs that had to be swapped out all the time. What would be suitable media that can keep up with games’ demands for speed and size?
Baldur's Gate 3 being 150GB is likely the precise reason why it was only sold as a download and not on physical media. A triple layer BluRay (4K/UHD) tops out at 100GB. I have a lot of games that...
Baldur's Gate 3 being 150GB is likely the precise reason why it was only sold as a download and not on physical media. A triple layer BluRay (4K/UHD) tops out at 100GB. I have a lot of games that are 120GB plus now, and some that are around 200GB.
Games have outgrown the capacity of discs, and already must be installed to the fast NVMe because optical drives are too slow. So it's either follow PC gaming into online only sales (which are already a majority of sales) or maintain the same situation for another year or two...and then the PS6 would need to ship games on 256GB+ NVMe cartridges that cost a fortune.
It's true that games are bigger than the size of the current disk technology. But that problem has been solved in the past. PS6 could continue using disks. In the 80s, many games, such as Infocom...
It's true that games are bigger than the size of the current disk technology. But that problem has been solved in the past. PS6 could continue using disks.
In the 80s, many games, such as Infocom text games or Ultima games, didn't fit on one floppy disk so there would be two or three floppies in the box and you'd have to swap them during gameplay.
In the 90s, there were playstation games such as Final Fantasy 7 that needed 3 CDs. Again, you had to swap them as the game played.
Once PCs had hard drives, it was common to have an installation process which copied multiple disks to the HD. There's no reason why that can't happen again.
Sure it costs more to put more than one disk in a box. So charge more for it.
The issue is now twofold as redwall_hp points out: size is one part of the issue, speed the other. Many games already require faster drives to run properly. I don’t know what the throughput of a...
The issue is now twofold as redwall_hp points out: size is one part of the issue, speed the other. Many games already require faster drives to run properly. I don’t know what the throughput of a blu-ray drive is, but it would surprise if it would be fast enough.
All those games that need the fast storage already install themselves to hard drive. Whenever you buy a new physical copy of a PS5 game you have to wait 30 minutes or whatever while it's doing...
All those games that need the fast storage already install themselves to hard drive. Whenever you buy a new physical copy of a PS5 game you have to wait 30 minutes or whatever while it's doing that. They just make you put the physical disk in the drive as a key to prevent you from loaning it to a friend while you play the copy.
Since they're copying one disk, why not copy 2 or 3?
The problem for PS5 owners is that the hard disk only fits a few games so you have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling if you go back to previous games. This is a problem whether you have digital or physical, but the physical drive is slower than the cloud usually.
I just realized, at 100 mb/s internet speed, I can download a game twice as fast as a 50 mb/s BluRay drive can read it off a disc. (US median download speeds are faster than that, I believe.) I...
I just realized, at 100 mb/s internet speed, I can download a game twice as fast as a 50 mb/s BluRay drive can read it off a disc. (US median download speeds are faster than that, I believe.)
I already favor non-disc games because having to swap discs when changing game is an annoyance.
What’s interesting though is that consoles have always been constrained systems. They generally have been underpowered and restrictive. Game studios have aways found ways to get the very maximum...
What’s interesting though is that consoles have always been constrained systems. They generally have been underpowered and restrictive. Game studios have aways found ways to get the very maximum out of console’s hardware, to a point where you would wonder how it was even possible to get such good looking games out of hardware that simple. PC games have been much more wasteful. Gamers will upgrade hardware and the studio doesn’t seem to care much about requirements.
I wonder now if applying PC requirements logic to consoles is a good thing. Do these games really need 150GB of disc space? All the assets aren’t constantly required, why couldn’t the game/console be able to load smarter? Throwing a NVMe at it is a pretty lazy solution.
Spinning discs are worse than solid state drives. We've been through this before with HDDs vs SSDs. Discs are also more expensive to manufacture and distribute. Nintendo's game key cards are a...
Spinning discs are worse than solid state drives. We've been through this before with HDDs vs SSDs. Discs are also more expensive to manufacture and distribute. Nintendo's game key cards are a reasonable compromise.
Devs could optimize games tighter, but having all the assets easily available can help with performance.
But that is exactly the type of thing that is easily optimized. You will never need 150GB of assets on your fastest and most expensive storage. You only need a assets that will be used currently...
Devs could optimize games tighter, but having all the assets easily available can help with performance.
But that is exactly the type of thing that is easily optimized. You will never need 150GB of assets on your fastest and most expensive storage. You only need a assets that will be used currently or in the near future, and only when you are actually playing the game. This is exactly the type of thing you can develop for on a console where hardware specs are fixed.
BluRay drives have a throughput somewhere on the order of 50 megabits per second, plus nasty seek and spin-up latency. NVMe is on the order of tens of gigabits per second, thousands of times...
BluRay drives have a throughput somewhere on the order of 50 megabits per second, plus nasty seek and spin-up latency. NVMe is on the order of tens of gigabits per second, thousands of times faster. (SSD vendors usually list speeds in megabytes per second instead.) PS5 games won't even install to an external hard drive, because mechanical drives are too slow.
Back in the days of Skyrim on the Xbox 360 and PS3, extremely long loading times when changing zones were the norm. People were waiting 15-30 seconds to "fast travel" somewhere, and that was all moving the relatively tiny game assets from the hard drive to RAM. The whole game was a massive 6GB at the time.
The state of the art now is games like Ghost of Yōtei or Final Fantasy 16, which have to turn over close to 16GB of assets all the time, based on the memory of the console. There are staggering amounts of multi-megapixel megatextures (with several different maps, such as normals) for tons of high-polygon models. A single PBR (Physicality Based Rendering) material, of which an arbitrary mesh may have many, could be a dozen or two megabytes when you add up the map layers. Like a simple car could have painted metal, glass, tire rubber, wheel rim, license plate and plastic accent materials. Maybe more if it's not all a uniform, factory pristine vehicle.
They're already making determinations of what is and isn't needed and streaming it off the storage, in a constant firehose, because they're avoiding loading screens and need to move relatively huge chunks of data.
If I fast travel from one place to another in Ghost of Yōtei, and it needs to suddenly purge and load 10GB of data into RAM...that would take around 25 minutes from a BluRay drive. 5GB is probably more realistic, but that's still way too long...but something a modern SSD is capable of doing while the map animation closes and a quick fade out and in effect happens.
It's possible your home internet in many places is even faster to download a game to install it than it would be to install it from a disc, if it's in the 50-100 Mb/s range.
The “ownership” of physical media seems like a distraction. The real issue on that front is licensing. A downloadable game that you can back up is just as good, while a DVD game that requires...
The “ownership” of physical media seems like a distraction. The real issue on that front is licensing. A downloadable game that you can back up is just as good, while a DVD game that requires access to a license server is just as bad.
On the other hand, environmentally speaking this is an unqualified win. There’s something like 200 million physical media games produced annually— that’s a lot of unnecessary plastic, along with the packaging and shipping costs.
ORRVILLE, OH—Stressing that the change in the product line was a necessary adjustment to keep apace in the digital age, snack food manufacturer Hostess announced Monday that it would discontinue physical Twinkies. “While we know fans have been collecting Twinkies for years, we believe that online-only snack cakes will help reduce physical clutter and allow for faster cream consumption without all the lengthy installations and updates,” said Hostess general manager Judd Freitag, adding that only 3% of the brand’s current customer base still purchases tangible sponge cakes. “Now instead of driving all the way to the store and picking out a box from the shelf, Hostess fans can just do a brief 200-gigabyte download from the comfort of their home and start snack time whenever they want. While this decision may seem unpopular, I believe we are merely ahead of the curve, and the baking industry will be fully online by 2029.” Freitag added that the company reserved the right to revoke the license of any purchased Twinkies at any time
The other week this company removed hundreds of films and TV shows from users' libraries. Just to establish a realistic expectation of the level of trust you can place with them. I couldn't care...
The other week this company removed hundreds of films and TV shows from users' libraries. Just to establish a realistic expectation of the level of trust you can place with them.
I couldn't care less about discs, but I sometimes wish some court would reach the decision that when there's a "buy" button under an advertised piece of intellectual property, it is implied that what you're buying is a copy with a license for otherwise unrestricted personal use. That's how consumers understand the deal, and that's why they get pissed off when this happens; they're not realistically reading and understanding the extremely one-sided license "agreements" they're entering.
Studio Canal removed their films from PlayStation users' libraries. Sony had no legal right to continue to distribute them, as they failed to demand a contract that would enable users to retain...
The other week this company removed hundreds of films and TV shows from users' libraries. Just to establish a realistic expectation of the level of trust you can place with them.
Studio Canal removed their films from PlayStation users' libraries. Sony had no legal right to continue to distribute them, as they failed to demand a contract that would enable users to retain them if it was terminated. Presumably, things are more in Sony's favor when it comes to games. Blame the shitty film company, Sony has no benefit from the situation.
The solution isn't likely to come from courts, either. It would be best as a deliberate bill to extent first-sale doctrine to digital goods.
No, if you really want to get technical about it, of course Sony removed them since Sony manages distribution and availability on their own platform. The effect on trust should be the same either...
No, if you really want to get technical about it, of course Sony removed them since Sony manages distribution and availability on their own platform.
The effect on trust should be the same either way you put it. Sony saw no issue licensing these movies to users knowing that their contract with Studio Canal meant that they'd have to remove them from users' libraries in the event they couldn't renew their deal. There's no good reason for me to trust a company that does that.
The licenses they sell for games come with a clause that effectively allow them to arbitrarily rescind access (emphasis mine):
The Software is licenced to you on these Software Terms; it is not sold for you to own, and you understand and agree that we may end online and network features of a Software that uses online servers ("Online Services"). We will provide reasonable advance notice of any end of Online Services. If we discontinue any Online Services, you may still access any offline modes we provide for the Software; however, offline modes are not guaranteed and may change or end at our discretion.
As far as I'm concerned, there's neither trust nor contractual obligation not to screw me over. So what else is there? With a PC and GOG for example I need neither trust nor contractual obligation because the copies they license are distributed as installers which work regardless of what they do with their platform.
In the end the contract of those affected was with Sony. The company should forsee these kinds of problems and structure their contracts to prevent these issues. Failing that they should take...
In the end the contract of those affected was with Sony. The company should forsee these kinds of problems and structure their contracts to prevent these issues. Failing that they should take responsibility and offer full refunds to those affected.
The users bought the movies and the details of agreements between Sony and Studio Canal are irrelevant. And while in the TOS somewhere is that the license can be revoked for any reason the wording at purchase and the lopsided positions of the parties should mean that terms such as these are unenforceable. At least in society that respected consumer rights.
How to make me not consider your next console in one easy step!
So what are your options then?
I am not a PC gamer but I'm pretty sure you're looking at download only for most PC games nowadays. Microsoft are likely to follow Sony's lead on this, rumours are that the next XBox won't have an optical drive at all. The Switch is great but it's not like I can get a huge range of games for it.
I don't think I've bought a single game on a disc in the entire time I've had my PS5.
At least for now as a PC gamer you have options to strip away the DRM from most Steam games, meaning you always have a chance to permanently backup your games wherever you want. There's also GOG, itch.io and others that offer you games with no DRM.
With locked down consoles like Playstation, once they take away your physical games you are 100% at the mercy of the company and there is nothing you can do if they decide they don't want you to play anymore.
This is why movements like stop killing games are more crucial than ever. We need to ensure consumers get to keep and play the games they legally purchase and not be at the mercy of a remote kill switch or funny business like Sony discontinuing physical CDs.
Companies don't have to be forced to make physical media, but I should also not be forced to never own the games I buy.
I mean, I guess. Is that likely to happen? Has it ever happened? Seems like they could disable discs as well if they wanted, it wouldn't be too hard to make a software update that says "Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 discs no longer work"
Also that doesn't really change that there aren't many other options. I don't have the money or space for a gaming PC, nor do I want one.
Yes, with Nintendo and the very Sony that's the headline here.
Along with announcing no more disc's after 2028, Sony has just announced they're shutting down ps3 and psvita store servers so you will no longer be able to get your digital games there anymore. Didn't buy a physical disc? Too bad.
With Nintendo, if you only owned digital copies of Wii, Wii U, and 3DS games, you can no longer download them.
And this will only keep happening without guardrails.
That’s not true, you can still download Wii/3DS eShop games too this day (even the homebrew that rips games from the eShop directly still work).
What you can’t do now is buy new games on either platform. If you already own the game, as of today you can still redownload them.
Did Sony remotely deactivate games post-purchase there, or did they close down a digital shop for a 20+ year old console? Like how physical stores also often don't stock physical games for ancient consoles.
"for the foreseeable future" is quite a forboding statement being made the same day they announce this will now be the only means of buying Playstation games.
...with sony?..i don't know about games but this was literally last week's headline...
Sure. That's not games though. Stupid, yes; annoying, also yes; games, no. One would assume (or at least hope!) Sony have better contracts for their game distribution deals than their movie ones
I mean, technically true... but...
(The apology was quite bad.)
Tildes thread about this is here.
On the contrary, I don't own a single PS5 or Switch game that isn't physical. Getting the physical games is one of the standout reasons that I will choose to get the console version over the PC version. And with regards to PC, this is also why I will always prefer a GOG release over other platforms if available, because I can download the installers at which point they share a lot of factors with physical media.
So what are your options when consoles are as digital only as PCs are today? Because that's what is going to happen and that was my question.
Personally as long as the game doesn't vanish while I'm playing it, I don't really care. They're transient pieces of entertainment. I am not a museum who hoards piles of bits for future generations to marvel at, I'm just someone who wants a few hours of fun.
I thought I made my my "options" quite clear. If they take away one of the main things that PC's lacked, that being physical copies of games that could be lent/borrowed/given/sold and played in the future many years after a console has gone out of sale, then I simply won't buy or own them. I already have a machine that does that, my PC. It is superior at that function, and does many other things well that consoles cannot generally do. The value proposition of consoles keeps being siphoned off and many people will hop off that boat once it becomes not worth their time or money.
I think it's safe to say Sony are well aware of the proportion of their customers who do not care about physical media and that's exactly why they are doing this. If it was "many people" potentially hopping off the boat then they'd keep pressing discs because there is money to be made that way. But clearly there is not.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that having games in digital format mean they can't be played in future. Sony are shutting down the PS3 online store soon (after a mere 20+ years!) but they've explicitly said people can keep (re)downloading their purchases for "the foreseeable future", and obviously anything already downloaded should keep working indefinitely. Of course they could remote-kill the game if they wanted (not sure why they would want) but they can do that with a disc as well. If you keep your PS3 offline they can't do it in either case.
The value of consoles, at least for me, is a relatively cheap box that sits behind my TV and requires no fiddling about with and can play games with no hassle in the tiny amount of spare time I have to play games in. That proposition has, if anything, only got more appealing with digital game purchases because I don't have to go and get a disc from somewhere before I can play a game - either initially or just to boot the thing up.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I agree that Sony has certainly "done the math" and believes that it is worth their while to do this, but I believe it will affect more people than you do clearly. The gambit is probably that people will just be forced to accept it and won't actually leave. They could be right, but I will leave as will essentially all of my personal friends. We're just a hand full of few middle aged dudes that happen to love games though, perhaps getting rid of used gaming and the sin of borrowing games might be worth it to Sony. I do hope this bites them in the ass though, because it personally affects me and I can hold a grudge.
85% of all PS4 and PS5 game sales worldwide were digital in Q4 2025. If you take out the PS4s from that data I bet it's in the mid to high nineties. Out of the small percentage of people remaining, I doubt many of them are going to throw away their PS5 on principle. Will they buy a PS6? Perhaps some of them won't. But that's a tiny loss of custom for a LOT of money saved on production and distribution of a bit of plastic most people don't want.
I am also a middle aged dude who loves games. I just love games more than whatever principle it is you're standing for here. No judgement on your principles, of course, and props to you for holding firm to them - but for me I'm happy to just be able to play games when time allows.
That figure includes every game on the PlayStation Store, even titles that never had a physical release. Because of that, it does not tell us which format sells better for games that are available both digitally and physically.
A more meaningful comparison comes from the leaked 2023 sales data. Those numbers show that, for most first-party titles, physical copies actually outsold digital versions.
Why would anyone throw away their working console that has physical games?!? No one ever said that, don't be ridiculous. If anything those would become more valuable after Sony pulls their bullshit. I simply won't buy any more of their games or consoles. I draw hard lines and believe that voting with your wallet is something that it is imperative for people to do if they want to have any influence on things in our current society. You are free to do as you want just as I am. You clearly don't care about physical games very much, so go right ahead.
I still have my PS4 and PS3 in my closet. I'd still have a PS2 as well, but that gave up the ghost a few years back.
Even if I never put a disc in them again (and that's not true at all, since I was playing Metal Gear Solid 4 last year), they are amazing for modding. I never knew until recently that the huge bump on the original PS2 was intended to let people install their own expanded storage. And with modern sizes, the possibilies for that are limitless.
Yeah, there was a hard drive accessory for the PS2, though admittedly it wasn't very useful. I had installed larger and/or faster drives in both my OG PS3 and PS4.
It was plenty useful! It let you run much more complicated MMORPG alongside online patches, and more importantly there was an official Linux distribution that required it.
Yeah, FF XI was essentially the only thing that used the HDD fully. Some games let you install some or all of it to the drive to decrease load times. And I think some first party games had some early downloadable content which was fairly novel for the time.
There's also the fact that Sony essentially locked the PS5 disk drive behind a paywall, so if people ever thought about buying a physical game first they'd have to spend the equivalent of two to three games in order to be able to even read that single disk. I have a large enough library of physical PS4 (and now PS5) games that there was no way I wasn't going to get a disk drive, but for regular Joe buying one or two games a year and who don't care about the advantage of a physical medium it doesn't make sense to do so
Financially incentivizing people definitely force market trends 🙂
I got a digital version at first because these were the times where getting anything was hard.
3 months later I was fortunate enough to get in thr queue for a disc version and immediately grabbed that. Having some 50 physical discs meant I always wanted to grab one eventually. I sold the digital version to a coworker later that week at cost.
That's the gamble they are taking, yes. I wonder if that will be how reality fares. Or if suddenly they simply get 10-20% less sales next Gen (on top of however much they lose pricing the PS6 as people are speculating). Sustainable, but not making line go up.
All business decisions lie in "this will make us more money". Not all decisions do.
For a PS6 potentially being over double the price of my PS5, I will put up for some inconvenience in exchange for at best saving costs with my current pc, and at worst spending money on a more powerful machine. I'm also a software engineer, so I can double or triple dip on a $3k workstation compared to a 1200 dollar PS6.
Feels like this is basically the equivalent of Apple removing the headphone jack. Lots of fussing from people who hate wireless headphones (I was/am one of them) but ultimately they're still going to be the best selling phone in the world. I don't know what the stats are but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of PS5 owners are getting most of their games digitally already.
Playstation knows they have no real competition in the console space. Nintendo is playing a different game and Xbox has been on life support for almost a decade. They're using this time to push for all the unpopular moves that they couldn't get away with previously. The thing I'm most sad about is not getting PS games on PC anymore :(
For some reason, your comment called me back to the heady days of installing programs off of dozens of floppy disks.
Sony will now deliver their top titles this way. Each one (... checks notes) comes in a box the size of a refrigerator weighing over 4000 lbs. It takes three weeks of non-stop disk swapping to install. The commemorative edition includes a game-themed decorative shed to store the disks in.
That's another reason for this that nobody's talking about: games are bigger than BluRays now. They're around 100GB for multilayer ones, and plenty of games are exceeding that now. I've got plenty in the 120GB range and some closer to 200GB.
Final Fantasy XIV is warning PS4 players that their time is nearing an end because the hard drive size is too small.
Bingo. Criminally overlooked in this thread. The sentiment among the 4K Blu-Ray folks is that this is the last generation of discs. Each time a new format was introduced, it was expensive to bring to market and user adoption took a long time. The UX of loading a disc is less accepted today. The path forward would either be flash storage (stupidly expensive), digital, or digital with a physical key for validation like the Switch 2.
That's a moot point though. There are countless PS1 and Xbox 360 games that came on multiple discs. If a game exceeds what can be put on a single disc, they merely need to ship a second disc.
I would also argue that AAA gaming is kind of in a downward spiral so the probability of any given game is over 100GB is likely going to go down. Forgetting the trend and just focusing on the now, there are precious few games that do that in terms of all games being sold.
I'm on PC. The situation is also dire. Steam seems to be user oriented, but it is still digital distribution and there will come a day when it will fuck up. It may be 30 years from now, but it will come. I'm not even going into other storefronts...
The best one would be GOG where you can download installers and keep your games that way.
And then there are CDs and DVDs some of which I still have.
But even if I stopped vuying games today, I have games to.play for next ten years, probably even more.
It's like movies for me - not many new ones are that good that I want to watch/play them, I'd rather watch/play something older that still has the quality - Godfather, Terninator 2, Home Alone, Abyss, Hunt for Red October, Spencer&Hill movies, Bond movies... Or Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Age of Empires 2... There are many great games from the past that I can easily play todays and enjoy them more than many modern titles.
There are also modern ones that are great - Dune, Ford vs. Ferrari, Hail Mary... Or Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk, ...
For me, disc ownership and cost was the main advantage of having a console. With how things are, Playstation surrendered both advantages.
So all that's left is exclusives. Nintendo has a very solid portfolio of stuff I desire and a portable form factor. For me personally, Sony has a grand total of Ratchet and Astro Bot. All the other traditional Japanese series have decided to go full simultaneous release on everything this generation, with Square Enix being the last stronghold that recently embraced the idea.
So if things are already 1000+ and 99% of things being equal , why not just splurge a bit and fully invest in PC gaming? I'd rather have the ability to repair my device or upgrade components individually than rely on the "buy console every 4 years" style.
Thing is, it's not a bit. A reasonably capable gaming PC which is comparable in performance (both graphically and acoustically, the latter of which is particularly important to me) was always quite a lot more money and effort than a Playstation, even before hardware prices went insane. And sure, I am capable of spending a day assembling and setting up a PC from a pile of parts, but I don't want to.
I don't have the space or time for PC gaming. My PS5 sits quietly in a little nook behind my TV and keeps itself up to date until I'm ready to use it. Every few weeks or even months, sometimes, I sit on my sofa, pick up a controller and turn it on, I play a game for a bit. I turn it off again. PC gaming is not like that. I need to keep Windows up to date, which is a bloody nightmare if you leave it more than a few weeks between boots (also I need to have Windows in my house at all, eeugh). I need to keep drivers up to date, I need to keep Steam up to date, I need a keyboard and a mouse as well as a controller, the former two of which are not very usable from a sofa. I don't have room for a desk, nor does my back want me to sit at one if I did. PC controllers might have got better since I last had cause to use one, but my creaky old RSI-stricken hands actually like Sony's hardware. I guess I can use a DualSense with a PC these days though?
I don't care how my games arrive, I do care how easy they are to get, play and maintain and for me, that's why consoles are still the better choice. Perhaps the rumoured £1k price tag of the PS6 will tip the scales to make a PC more attractive.
I'll never deny that that it's much chiller to kick back and play a game on a console (though I will argue that you can absolutely make a PC function very close to that if you're willing to leave Windows, but I understand it's not apples to apples). The problem is that accepting this change in particular means you are now 100% beholden to Sony's whims and if nothing is done to change current laws you will literally have no power if they ever decide to pull the plug and take your games away.
Yes, that might not happen in 10 years or even 20, but at some point it will happen to some degree. And I don't want to support a future where consumers' only option is to buy a digital game that is just an ethereal license that can be revoked at any time for any reason.
I think we should fight for the right to own the stuff we buy at the very least instead of blindly trusting any multi-million dollar's company's pinky promises.
I have plenty of machines that keep themselves happily up to date without my intervention but last I checked - admittedly some time ago - Steam on linux was not quite there, still.
The thing is, I was already 100% beholden to Sony's whims. Obviously I didn't read the terms I agreed to when I set up my Sony account but there is almost no chance they don't own me entirely already. They could disable any disc from working just as easily as digital games, or even my entire console if they wanted, but there's no reason for them to do that. The backlash would be insane. They are a business, and they exist largely just to make money from me. Stopping printing discs makes them money. Deleting people's games does not.
It's worth noting that in most cases I don't legally own a disc game any more than I own a digital one - those EULAs are as restrictive for discs as they are for downloads.
There is, as far as I know, zero evidence that this particular segment of sky is in any danger of falling. I remember a certain segment of PC gamers saying the exact same thing when Steam came along over 20 years ago. And yet in all that time, has it ever happened?
This is where we fundamentally disagree. Backlash is worthless if you have no other options. That's the end goal of any company under capitalism, complete control over a monopoly and no competition.
Obviously they will not do it overnight. But they will slowly boil the frog alive, and without pushback they can get to a point where enough consumers will be receptive to it by then because that's all they've known their entire lives. You just need enough of a generational shift.
I mean let's not forget Sony did just pull 500+ movies from people's libraries because you own none of them and people are mostly already not gonna do much about it, so I feel like I'm not talking that crazy when I say such decisions can apply to games in the future.
I don't want to let them take this inch or that mile. And just because the situation is already dire today (CDs that are just licenses or downloads are just as much BS in my book) doesn't mean we should be cool with letting it get even worse with absolutely no pushback.
I will say Steam is a very unique edge case because they are still privately owned and have a mostly pro-consumer mindset (I mean they're pushing Linux and open source which is unheard of), but they should absolutely be included in this argument and not be let off the hook either if they ever do anything anti-consumer.
I imagine if Steam were an Epic Games or an EA or whatever things would look significantly different right now.
What, even Valve? :)
Sony might be able to kill the Xbox. Very big might though. But they'll never be the only console (or console-like device - especially if Valve actually get their shit together with Steam machines). Sony will likely never have a complete monopoly. Nintendo aren't going anywhere. Even less so PCs.
But even if they did - what would they do that's different to now? Other than put up prices, of course - but that wouldn't change with physical discs still in play either.
Let's not pretend this isn't all worthless. Pushback, boycotts, consumer protests, etc - basically don't work. There are almost no documented instances of "consumer action" - especially for something niche like this - having an effect. Sony remote-deleting people's games might (might, depends on the game) cause a noticeable amount of fuss, but them making a change like this that most of their customers won't be affected by? Not a chance. In a couple of days most of the people making fuss now will move on to the next thing to be angry about and by the time the change actually happens in January, most people won't even remember it happened at all.
I wouldn't say crazy, but I would say it's kinda hard to justify that position. The movie thing was a legal fumble by Sony, and a dick move by StudioCanal (I notice nobody is blaming them, when they are at least as much at fault, arguably more!). I don't think Sony decided to do that, to piss all those customers off, to get all this bad PR. They were forced into it. The upside is that their games distribution lawyers were likely already and definitely will be now, far more robustly on the case to make sure it doesn't happen with the much more profitable gaming market.
Genuine question - how do you imagine things would look in that case? I mean sure, Epic and EA are assholes, but they are still not remote-deleting people's games. Selling people stuff - even if it is generic micro-transaction, loot-box riddled crap - will always be more profitable than not doing that.
That implies unintentional, but Sony owned Funimation, owned Crunchyroll, then merged Funimation into Crunchyroll and removed purchased Funimation movies from users that had purchased them. They don't get the presumption of innocence here. Sony is also a movie distributor, so they know better than most digital movie retailers how movie rights work. Apple doesn't have this problem. Vudu doesn't have this problem. One or two movies might disappear, but there's never been a report from Apple or Vudu that an entire studio's catalog just disappeared one day from a customer's library.
I didn't really want to learn to cook. Then eating out got really expensive, really quick. Turns out slow cooking was my true calling and air fryers are neat (a little overrated, but neat). I apologize to my roommate from 12 years ago for not seeing the light.
Got less space on my kitchen counters, but it gave me some time to really look at and clean them off. I made room when push came to shove. I'd rather do that than go through the hassle or putting appliances away and taking them out a few days a week for a clean, minimalist look I prefer.
Life is all about compromises. And hey, in the end it probably gave me a healthier lifestyle. But I digress.
Ideally, I'd ideally grab everything and it'd be no problem picking and choosing. Maybe one day. But ideally, Microsoft wouldn't be planning a layoffpocalypse next week that will probably put quite a few of my friends and old colleagues out of a job, despite MSFT making record profits. Things will only get tighter on my end, and I'll need to adjust as needed as I'm still looking for full time work.
If nothing else, I'm never going to say I have no games to play, even if I stopped buying games forever today.
Yes, quite well actually. It somehow feels like it connects better than an Xbox controller. Even the Switch Joycons can connect to PC, but to much more mixed performance (even with steam there's quite a bit of fanagling for them to properly work IME).
The number of PCs I've built over the years probably approaches the number of hot dinners you've cooked (well no, but "I've done more x than you've had hot dinners" was right there..)
I was building systems before GPUs existed. I was there before maths co-processors! I even did it professionally for a while. I have built a LOT of computers - and have also released my fair share of magic smoke along the way. In the bad old days chip sockets weren't polarised and you could fry a Pentium in seconds if you put it in the wrong way round. Fun times.
I just don't have any interest in doing that right now, that's all. I have other things I want to do with my life than fiddle about with computing hardware. Doing that, which I still need to from time to time for home automation and other things, is annoying where it used to be fun. Maybe when Kid is older we can build them a gaming PC together and it'll be good. So the compromise - including other factors - is a console that I'm perfectly happy with being digital only. I don't want to play 20 or 30 year old games, I did that recently at a retro games fair and they were shit. I didn't think they were shit when I was a kid, because there wasn't anything better. But there is now, and there will be in 20 years time.
Anyway, good luck finding work! At least you've got some time for playing games in the meantime. :)
Hold on now. I'm in total agreement with you in this thread, but 20-30 year old games are definitely not shit. Dated maybe, but definitely not at all bad.
I don't play then exclusively or anything, but they are part of my regular gaming diet. The original System Shock became one of my favorite games of all time and I only played it for the first time in 2020.
At any rate, I agree with you otherwise. Game preservation isn't my top priority either. I see a lot of myself in your posts here, even though it seems like I probably play games significantly more than you. My Steam library is 22 years old this year and if it were to go kaput, I certainly would be sad, frustrated and disappointed, but I have plenty of other stuff to play and the means to play it (lots of those old games, I mentioned), I wouldn't be hurting for entertainment.
That said, I get where you're coming from, because even though I game daily, there's so much more to life than just playing games and I have a wide array of hobbies and interests that I can find plenty of stuff to keep me busy.
There's also the fact that everything in life is transitory. Nothing lasts forever. The idea that we should have access to all media at all times is really something that's new to us, probably having only arisen in the last 15 to 20 years.
The games I first played as a kid - Chuckie Egg (play online here), Revs 5 Tracks, Repton, Dizzy, Manic Mansion, Jet Set Willy, etc - are definitely pretty terrible to play today. (DO NOT point out that those games are actually more like 40 years old please I am trying to ignore the relentless and terrifying passage of time).
Elite is the possible only exception from the BBC Micro days. Although that game was some kind of minor miracle, back in the day. I still play Elite Dangerous occasionally but it's not the same. Too many polygons..
System Shock is fantastic. I guess that is closer to being 20 years old. Fuck, Quake 2 is 30 next year. Man I am OLD.
Excuse me while I place my head back in the sand. And maybe have a little nap.
Not really :(.
That statement and sentiment honestly explains the disconnect more than anything else you talked about. We're just in fundamentally different worlds formed from a massive generational gap on how we view labor, the economy, and the world as a whole.
Mate I wasn't being serious. I'm aware finding a job can be a job in itself, especially in tech these days. I've just... never really done it. Startups and self-employment are a different sort of a thing. I'm on at least my third career at this point, so yes, I probably do have a very different view of work than you - but probably not because of my age.
Fair. You just never really know. Things changed so fast and plenty of well meaning people have given advice that became outdated that I don't blame people personally for it.
Also, my industry is games, so I suppose there's a bit of a guilt factor in trying to play games when I should be developing them.
Why not invest in a steam machine then? SteamOS is pretty easy to deal with updates - it's fairly seamless on the steam deck and updates pretty much the same way as the games do, which is automated. Updates will require a restart but it's lightning fast compared to Windows. These days Proton can play just about everything, the only exception being games that have kernel-level anti-cheat. But even then it seems like developers are looking into making those systems work on Linux, so that may end up being a temporary setback.
You don't even need to buy a steam machine; you can install SteamOS on any machine, so long as you use it's handful of unofficially supported hardware (in particular, not using an nVidia GPU).
A Radeon RX9060 GFX card is about the same price as an entire PS5 console. Add in RAM, an SSD, a motherboard, cooling, case, controller, PSU, etc, plus the time cost of getting it all assembled and working and there's your answer.
Should ram and compute prices crater drastically and/or the PS6 be as expensive as it's rumoured to be then maybe the equation balances differently.
Right now for the difference in price I can buy at least one new bike and/or a lot of bike upgrades and bikes are more fun.
The only reasons I buy physical games sometimes is so different people in the same household can use them in their consoles without buying extra copies. Effectively, they're stupid beyond that.
There has not been a console since the PS3 generation where they've made sense: Steam already destroyed physical sales for PC, years prior, and the first thing that would happen when inserting a disc into a console is you'd install it to the internal storage and download updates. Functionally no different from a download, but now you need to put a disc in whenever you play.
Online sales are also cheaper. Sony and Nintendo routinely have sales, and I often delay picking up games until one pops up on my wish list.
They have numbers. This isn't some crazy push against typical consumer behavior. Sony sees that the vast majority of game sales are online, and that a growing number of players opt for models that don't have optical drives. (I need it for BluRays, though!)
I don’t have much to add, except that I cancelled my PS Plus subscription in response to this. I hope enough people that are bothered by this also did the same.
I assume they have the data and that physical sales are already abysmally low. Is what it is. Just happening to consoles slower than it happened on PC. I haven’t bought a physical game on PC or PS5 in a decade so it’s pretty whatever to me.
I can see Nintendo continuing to make game cartridges for another generation or two, though.
Sony (and Microsoft and Nintendo) have been doing their damnedest to make this happen for years. MS was more overt with it and it was one of the reasons they "lost" the previous console generation.
The real question is: are retailers going to bother having a console section at all anymore? If all the sales for games now skip the retailers, why should Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc give them the marketing and floor space. If Sony or any of the others fully commits to this, there will definitely be a backlash. They are likely fully aware and that is precisely why it has taken them so long to do it, but if all the consoles are online only then I'll probably never buy another console. Just this week I will be hosting the CGA for Lufia II on the SNES. A game I can still play on my SNES with my physical game. I still have most of my old consoles and hook them up and play with my kids sometimes. That is quite literally the draw to me, not to mention being able to lend and borrow games with friends. This is just further rent seeking by the game companies, and seeing how Sony has such a bad history with supporting digital purchases (it literally game up in the news again this week), no one should trust them.
Retailers barely sell games anymore. The last time I was in a GameStop probably at least 60% of the shelf space was dedicated to collectible junk like Funkopops. The rest is consoles, special collectors edition stuff, and third party accessories, cases, etc.
The physical games are mostly used titles and just like one standard sized bookshelf for each console. It’s pretty much dead.
When I ordered the Mass Effect legendary edition, it came with a steel case for the game disc, but NO GAME DISC! They shipped me a replica N7 helmet but couldn’t press a disc to put in the steel case. It was only digital. WTF am I supposed to do with the case? Who knows!? I guess it just sits there to remind me of the game entitlement I have.
They're for the vinyl crowd: more than half of vinyl buyers don't own a turntable. It's just an arbitrary collectable thing (with inferior audio quality if it were played).
https://www.billboard.com/pro/vinyl-album-sales-rise-growth-slowing/
You are describing specifically Gamestop's abyssal situation and I avoid that place for a reason. I definitely still see people buying games at the big box stores and even Microcenter. The number of people buying digitally is definitely higher than ever, and the console makers have been heavily pushing for that situation for over a decade. Every console maker that has tried to go digital only has "paid for it" in the past, but I believe that was mostly because their competition was ready to use that against them. As soon as Sony or Nintendo commit to it fully, every one of them will do it. It will be a situation like with Apple and getting rid of the headphone back. All of the console makers want this situation and when they do, I'm out.
As far as I know many Switch 2 cartridges already don't contain the game data, they just give you access to a digital download so really they've all gone down the same route.
That’s kind of a separate issue. Since the switch 2 actually loads data from cartridge, the cartridges are really expensive. The max size so far is also 64gb. It’s reported that it can cost up to $20 per cartridge just for the flash memory.
So far every first party Nintendo game has really been on a cartridges. But the game card key is an escape hatch that lets third party developers that can’t or can’t reasonable fit their game on cartridge can still release their game in a way that’s not online only.
It still lets you trade or sell the “physical” game. There were many switch 1 games from third parties that just had a download code in a box. Game keycards are way better than that, since you can still sell them or give them to someone else.
Basically, on switch 1 you had two options: online only, online + physical. On switch 2 there’s three options: online only, online + game key card, online + physical. It’s an addition.
Wait why is the max size only 64gb? Can't you get SD cards in the TB range now? I wonder why Nintendo would limit it to such a (relatively) small size, is it just that anything over 64gb is too expensive to be worth making? (Especially after the price increases)
SD isn't fast enough. Remember that a big selling point of both the PS5 and Xbox Series X was extra fast SSDs. The Switch 2 needs to at least be able to be in the same realm of read speeds for third parties to be able to port current gen games to the system.
The Switch 2 requires SD Express for its expandable storage, and presumably the cartridges must be of similar spec. Now, >64gb SD Express cards exist, but the issue here is scalability and cost. A 128gb SD Express is over $60. Even with bulk discounting, that would be more than half of the cost of a AAA game. There are rumors Nintendo is working to get supply for higher capacity cartridges, but with the memory shortage I wouldn't hold my breath.
SD Express is a very new spec. Barely any devices use it currently, so supply is low and manufacturing costs are high.
The current 64gb limit was confirmed by CDPR: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cd-projekt-red-community-manager-confirms-that-64gb-is-the-max-available-switch-2-cartridge-capacity.1156503/
Despite that, they did manage to fit the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk into that 64gb - it's not a game key card.
Ahh that makes sense, I kinda didn't even think Switch was going for that level of speed
MicroSD is a dead end. They're way too slow. The Switch 2 only supports MicroSD Express cards, which are more like tiny NVMe SSD packages. They have PCIe level speeds, and cost far more.
And now NAND storage costs are insane.
The weird thing, at least where I live, is that cartridges are cheaper — often substantially so — than digital downloads, despite being so much more expensive to produce and being resellable.
I prefer digital games due to the faster load times (particularly noticeable on the Switch 2), so it's a tough choice between that and buying the cheaper, slower physical copy.
For this reason, I'm a big fan of game key cards. They're the best of both worlds, and I preferentially buy them whenever they're available. Unfortunately, most of the games I'm interested in buying just come on regular cartridges, not game key cartridges, but I'm hoping this changes in the future.
This was a big part of why I didn't, and will not, buy a Switch 2.
Technically, some Switch 2 cards don't contain game data. Others do. It's down to the storage capacities available on them (upper bound and cost of the minimum size) and developer choice. They're only 64GB, and they're basically NVMe drives in a removable package, not MicroSD cards.
Switch 1 games were basically already this, with extra steps. You put the card in, it copies the stale files to the internal storage, and then you download 80% of the game as updates. It's not used for much other than proof of ownership...so why not skip the extra steps?
Yeah, I bought physical discs for my first few games on PS5, then I decided that it's just a worse experience, so I've been buying digital-only since then. I don't like having to go find the disc to start playing a game, it's slower to install and load disc-based games while you're playing, the drive makes extra noise that I don't appreciate, and most (all?) of the game is just downloaded anyway.
I was using it as a player for my physical Netflix subscription, but since they discontinued that I don't have much use for a DVD/Bluray player.
Yea they're not going to do something that would intentionally hurt their bottom line. Realistically if they offered physical discs for all first party games for the next console, how would that change their sales? Would it double or triple profits? If so, then that's what they would do.
These things can change though. I doubt it, but we'll see
The more the experience starts to feel like regular PC gaming and the more accessible PC gaming becomes, the harder it'll be for consoles to conceptually differentiate themselves. I see this hurting their sales in the long term.
It doesn't matter because they are still banking on exclusives to differentiate. You still can't play MLB or NHL games on PC, among many other games.
Maybe you can explain the appeal of the yearly rigamarole of paying full price for a roster update for a middling (at best) sports game with no real innovations in 20 years.
Honestly I don't even really care about the roster updates. The thing with many of these sports games is that it's been so long that they've been unavailable on PC that you can't even play ones with outdated rosters at this point. For example, you have to go all the way back to MLB 2k13 to even get an MLB game that was even released on PC, and at this point I bet you can't even launch it without some workarounds or hackery if at all. Similar scenario for NHL I assume. And it's worth noting that even if the gameplay of these games doesn't improve much year over year, you can generally expect that if you go back 10-15 years that the graphics if nothing else will be quite dated but also the gameplay may not be as good, even if they don't change much in gameplay year-over-year, in a 10-15 year time span there's more likely to be more noticeable differences.
And to be fair, most of the American sports simulator games are garbage because of a lack of competition. People still buy them and play them, but I'm not one of them. However if a good one actually came around on PC that wasn't a total cashgrab, then I'd be far more likely to be interested. Epic gave away an NBA 2K game for free once years ago, and that's when I found out 2K shuts down the online servers 2 years after the game launches. Never would I ever, ever, buy that shit.
For the longest time you couldn't play NFL games on PC either, eventually EA did bring Madden back to PC, but unfortunately it's EA and Madden is the prime example of sports games that don't improve due to lack of competition.
It’s fun. Having the actual players at the time is like 80% of the fun. It’s kind of like sports tomodachi life. $70 is like one dinner, it’s not much of an entry price for a few dozen hours of fun.
Can't disagree more, but I guess that's why I'm not a sports guy. I just like playing the sports, I don't need to specifically have a licensed Kobe or Payton or Pele to have that done. Tomodachi life doesn't need those licenses if you want to larp as those players.
Also, definitely can't afford 70 dollar dinners in this economy. I gotta think hard to remember the last game I bought. Surely I bought something after Silksong.
Man, I used to get rankled about this sort of thing but I just don’t anymore. The PS5’s internal SSD read speeds are literally 120x faster than those of its Blu-ray drive. This means discs are only actually used for game installation and license verification anyway, because there just isn’t the bandwidth to play from optical media directly. And discs are susceptible to physical damage over time; so a disc is in effect just a non-replaceable key to content that lives elsewhere, whereas your PlayStation Store purchase keys are safely backed up in the cloud.
Now it’s true that the disc contains the game data too, so I hear the local archivist argument, but let’s be honest: That really only matters if you’re trying to preserve the release version 1.0.0 of a particular game. Kinda sucks if that game is, say, No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk 2077. Even with a disc you’re going to be downloading updates after installation. It’s also worth pointing out that the disc format tops out at 100 GB capacity, which games are increasingly exceeding. So then you’ve got to either ship multiple discs in the case, or just ship a mostly empty disc that holds an installer that downloads from the web. So pointless and wasteful.
None of this changes the fact that physical media is ownership and digital downloads are revocable licenses. That remains a real problem. But what we should be pushing for is DRM-free downloads, self-hosted or local console data backups, and third-party game marketplaces… not the continuance of legacy formats that are growing more irrelevant every year.
Expect perfection and you'll end with nothing. As usual. You will own nothing and like it. That's always been the end goal. I don't see the value in daydreaming about what could be vs. Trying to preserve what we know works.
Well, I guess I won't be getting a PS6...
Does the January 2028 date give us a hint of when the PS6 is planned to release?
Maybe? I can't imagine releasing a new console in the current environment of RAM prices, so 2028 seems like the earliest they could do it.
2028 is a good guess. They have contracts with AMD which they're almost certain to make good on.
Pretty bold move even given the current climate.
If I'm a consumer, what's my incentive to buy into a system where Sony and Sony alone sets all prices and availability forever?
The alternatives:
Nintendo: Broad range of retailers competing and regularly selling at significantly below Nintendo's set price, even for new releases. GKCs continue to enable used game market.
PC: You can buy from Steam, Epic, GOG, etc who all compete on price with regular sales and bundles. Broad range of key resellers. Games stretching back into antiquity remain available because deeply passionate people have saved them and kept them compatible with modern PCs. Making backups is trivial. Indies release here by default and third party AAA makers can no longer afford not to release here, so you have access to everything other than first party games.
Saw this shift coming as far back as the Wii Shop Channel in 2006, but I still can't say I'm looking forward to it. The move toward digital over physical didn't happen naturally; platform holders pushed it because it's more profitable.
Over the past decade, console manufacturers have made digital purchases increasingly attractive. Higher margins, greater control over distribution, and access to detailed user data all work in their favor. To get there, they leaned on frequent discounts, preloads, early access, and subscription models that normalize not actually owning games.
At the same time, physical releases have become less appealing. Discs often still require large patches, special editions feel less meaningful, and retail space has shrunk. Add in the rise of digital-only consoles, and the direction is pretty clear.
If Sony really phases out physical media in the next couple of years, it will likely set a precedent that Xbox and Nintendo eventually follow. Most consumers probably won't mind, since convenience tends to win out over ownership. Personally, though, I think something important gets lost in that shift.
Back in the late 2000s, the idea of having a huge library of games accessible anytime, anywhere felt incredible. That's why I went almost fully digital during the 8th generation.
But over time, that same convenience became a downside. I've accumulated more games than I can reasonably play, and it's led to analysis paralysis. Finishing games feels harder now, not because they're more difficult, but because my attention is constantly split. Gaming has started to feel more like a commodity than the special hobby it once was.
Kind of ironic, isn't it?
It's funny in a way that we still don't have a great solution for all this.
Digital is the way, full stop. There's 0 reason to waste energy and create waste when you can digitally distribute a product.
The main issue though becomes that of ownership and sharing. I think the path has been there for over a decade, but no one is incentivized to take it.
The path is patreon-like development: Pay in advance, end good is free.
Avoids all this nonsense entirely.
Doesn't really answer ownership, distribution, and introduces other problems like poor understanding, bad faith, and different incentive structures.
The problems we already have? Star Citizen? Duke Nukem Forever? Bad faith creators will generally only get a one-off support at best.
Creator is paid at time of creation by zero or members of the public. Ownership is public domain.
Distribution will sort itself out with time. Thousands of people already dedicate years of their time curating and distributing public domain works for free.
The easiest way to solve digital ownership is to dissolve the very concept of digital ownership. The work exists, it is free. We only need to pay creators to create in advance.
Patreon is still a subscription, the same model for profitability exists; people simply forget they subscribed. I just looked at a particular example of a very old school video creator. Older than YouTube and kinda burned out 15 years ago or so. Hasn't made a video in 4 years and he's only made 3 videos this decade.
He still makes 100 dollars a month. It's not much, but having a few bills paid per month over a career you stopped doing a decade ago is still something.
Yes, and Sony wants to make sure it sorts out in its favor. It will not be in favor of the consumers.
Easy is nowhere near most practical. That'd be a mess for a dozen different reasons. But I'll list a few.
Anyone who's run a tip jar knows you don't get tips without being a full time marketer. Your job is no longer to create, it's to maximize attention to your tip jar. Those do not necessarily run in tandem.
You're not going to support any large project on this system. Studio Trigger's Patreon is 2600 dollars a month. That wouldn't even sustain me by myself. Let alone a 100 artist studio. Even multiplying this by 100 wouldn't sustain this.
Most people fundamentally do not donate. Especially to luxury entertainment. Even if they could, they only have so much money per month. They cannot support every creator they enjoy. People are already tiring of subscriptions, adding another heap of them won't help matters.
None of these ideas will actually fix any issues in the industry. There's still no stability, no worker protections, and no way to bring down costs on the hardware side. It doesn't help with curating games among a sea of AI slop, it doesn't help against scams and imposters.
It doesn't even disrupt the greedy mobile industry becsuse the value of a mobile game is not about the file you run, but the server it connects to. It's already pretty much the dissolved digital utopia proposed. Turns out the answer this whole time was ads and gambling. I should have known.
Kickstarter is also a patronage system. Just one-off grants to make stuff.
You are correct: The nature of what is available will naturally shift. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Not necessarily. But probably a very bad thing in this instance.
Especially since I didn't even go into the career aspect of all of this. There's a discourse of the current "de-professionalization of games" and this would 100% kill off the concept. The idea of a full time game developer working on the kinds of console/pc games we know today is now only for the most well off and privrledged people who already have life paid for them. Everyone else is either hustling on the side for a slot machine or a "patreeon bait" game.
As much as it saddens me, the writing was on the wall given how large modern games are and just how much faster onboard SSDs are than loading from physical media. I'm an adamant physical media guy but the convenience of digital can't be understated. I'm not sure how much I trust Sony with this though.
I’ve been wondering how physical media will keep up with the growing sizes of games. I was shocked to see Baldur’s Gate required 150GB of disk space. I think I recall it being a 120GB download.
As much as I prefer owning physical copies (I still buy CDs and try to always buy games on cartridge) I wonder if it’s sustainable this way. I didn’t particularly like the era where software came on 10 floppy discs that had to be swapped out all the time. What would be suitable media that can keep up with games’ demands for speed and size?
Baldur's Gate 3 being 150GB is likely the precise reason why it was only sold as a download and not on physical media. A triple layer BluRay (4K/UHD) tops out at 100GB. I have a lot of games that are 120GB plus now, and some that are around 200GB.
Games have outgrown the capacity of discs, and already must be installed to the fast NVMe because optical drives are too slow. So it's either follow PC gaming into online only sales (which are already a majority of sales) or maintain the same situation for another year or two...and then the PS6 would need to ship games on 256GB+ NVMe cartridges that cost a fortune.
It's true that games are bigger than the size of the current disk technology. But that problem has been solved in the past. PS6 could continue using disks.
In the 80s, many games, such as Infocom text games or Ultima games, didn't fit on one floppy disk so there would be two or three floppies in the box and you'd have to swap them during gameplay.
In the 90s, there were playstation games such as Final Fantasy 7 that needed 3 CDs. Again, you had to swap them as the game played.
Once PCs had hard drives, it was common to have an installation process which copied multiple disks to the HD. There's no reason why that can't happen again.
Sure it costs more to put more than one disk in a box. So charge more for it.
The issue is now twofold as redwall_hp points out: size is one part of the issue, speed the other. Many games already require faster drives to run properly. I don’t know what the throughput of a blu-ray drive is, but it would surprise if it would be fast enough.
All those games that need the fast storage already install themselves to hard drive. Whenever you buy a new physical copy of a PS5 game you have to wait 30 minutes or whatever while it's doing that. They just make you put the physical disk in the drive as a key to prevent you from loaning it to a friend while you play the copy.
Since they're copying one disk, why not copy 2 or 3?
The problem for PS5 owners is that the hard disk only fits a few games so you have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling if you go back to previous games. This is a problem whether you have digital or physical, but the physical drive is slower than the cloud usually.
I just realized, at 100 mb/s internet speed, I can download a game twice as fast as a 50 mb/s BluRay drive can read it off a disc. (US median download speeds are faster than that, I believe.)
I already favor non-disc games because having to swap discs when changing game is an annoyance.
What’s interesting though is that consoles have always been constrained systems. They generally have been underpowered and restrictive. Game studios have aways found ways to get the very maximum out of console’s hardware, to a point where you would wonder how it was even possible to get such good looking games out of hardware that simple. PC games have been much more wasteful. Gamers will upgrade hardware and the studio doesn’t seem to care much about requirements.
I wonder now if applying PC requirements logic to consoles is a good thing. Do these games really need 150GB of disc space? All the assets aren’t constantly required, why couldn’t the game/console be able to load smarter? Throwing a NVMe at it is a pretty lazy solution.
Spinning discs are worse than solid state drives. We've been through this before with HDDs vs SSDs. Discs are also more expensive to manufacture and distribute. Nintendo's game key cards are a reasonable compromise.
Devs could optimize games tighter, but having all the assets easily available can help with performance.
But that is exactly the type of thing that is easily optimized. You will never need 150GB of assets on your fastest and most expensive storage. You only need a assets that will be used currently or in the near future, and only when you are actually playing the game. This is exactly the type of thing you can develop for on a console where hardware specs are fixed.
BluRay drives have a throughput somewhere on the order of 50 megabits per second, plus nasty seek and spin-up latency. NVMe is on the order of tens of gigabits per second, thousands of times faster. (SSD vendors usually list speeds in megabytes per second instead.) PS5 games won't even install to an external hard drive, because mechanical drives are too slow.
Back in the days of Skyrim on the Xbox 360 and PS3, extremely long loading times when changing zones were the norm. People were waiting 15-30 seconds to "fast travel" somewhere, and that was all moving the relatively tiny game assets from the hard drive to RAM. The whole game was a massive 6GB at the time.
The state of the art now is games like Ghost of Yōtei or Final Fantasy 16, which have to turn over close to 16GB of assets all the time, based on the memory of the console. There are staggering amounts of multi-megapixel megatextures (with several different maps, such as normals) for tons of high-polygon models. A single PBR (Physicality Based Rendering) material, of which an arbitrary mesh may have many, could be a dozen or two megabytes when you add up the map layers. Like a simple car could have painted metal, glass, tire rubber, wheel rim, license plate and plastic accent materials. Maybe more if it's not all a uniform, factory pristine vehicle.
They're already making determinations of what is and isn't needed and streaming it off the storage, in a constant firehose, because they're avoiding loading screens and need to move relatively huge chunks of data.
If I fast travel from one place to another in Ghost of Yōtei, and it needs to suddenly purge and load 10GB of data into RAM...that would take around 25 minutes from a BluRay drive. 5GB is probably more realistic, but that's still way too long...but something a modern SSD is capable of doing while the map animation closes and a quick fade out and in effect happens.
It's possible your home internet in many places is even faster to download a game to install it than it would be to install it from a disc, if it's in the 50-100 Mb/s range.
The “ownership” of physical media seems like a distraction. The real issue on that front is licensing. A downloadable game that you can back up is just as good, while a DVD game that requires access to a license server is just as bad.
On the other hand, environmentally speaking this is an unqualified win. There’s something like 200 million physical media games produced annually— that’s a lot of unnecessary plastic, along with the packaging and shipping costs.
Hostess Discontinues Physical Twinkies - The Onion
The other week this company removed hundreds of films and TV shows from users' libraries. Just to establish a realistic expectation of the level of trust you can place with them.
I couldn't care less about discs, but I sometimes wish some court would reach the decision that when there's a "buy" button under an advertised piece of intellectual property, it is implied that what you're buying is a copy with a license for otherwise unrestricted personal use. That's how consumers understand the deal, and that's why they get pissed off when this happens; they're not realistically reading and understanding the extremely one-sided license "agreements" they're entering.
Studio Canal removed their films from PlayStation users' libraries. Sony had no legal right to continue to distribute them, as they failed to demand a contract that would enable users to retain them if it was terminated. Presumably, things are more in Sony's favor when it comes to games. Blame the shitty film company, Sony has no benefit from the situation.
The solution isn't likely to come from courts, either. It would be best as a deliberate bill to extent first-sale doctrine to digital goods.
No, if you really want to get technical about it, of course Sony removed them since Sony manages distribution and availability on their own platform.
The effect on trust should be the same either way you put it. Sony saw no issue licensing these movies to users knowing that their contract with Studio Canal meant that they'd have to remove them from users' libraries in the event they couldn't renew their deal. There's no good reason for me to trust a company that does that.
The licenses they sell for games come with a clause that effectively allow them to arbitrarily rescind access (emphasis mine):
As far as I'm concerned, there's neither trust nor contractual obligation not to screw me over. So what else is there? With a PC and GOG for example I need neither trust nor contractual obligation because the copies they license are distributed as installers which work regardless of what they do with their platform.
In the end the contract of those affected was with Sony. The company should forsee these kinds of problems and structure their contracts to prevent these issues. Failing that they should take responsibility and offer full refunds to those affected.
The users bought the movies and the details of agreements between Sony and Studio Canal are irrelevant. And while in the TOS somewhere is that the license can be revoked for any reason the wording at purchase and the lopsided positions of the parties should mean that terms such as these are unenforceable. At least in society that respected consumer rights.