8 Ways Sony Must Improve the PS Store for Our All-Digital Future

I agree with all these! Not ps store per se but they also need to separate the ps extra games from the games I own. I make groups now and that is annoying when you own a lot and has been off and on with extra

The ability to store and manage data on common storage formats.

EDIT: Also, the functionality to torrent (download from other users) hard delisted games.

one important aspect is listing a time frame for how long games will last before its removed , also filters for games you've already bought or have via ps+

My worry is that PlayStation don’t intend on making any changes. But to add my two cents…..

It needs to be more accessible worldwide. This isn’t thinking about what I want, there are gamers out there in countries where PSN isn’t supported, and will have to risk Sony’s terms of service just to be able to continue to play games.

I’m sure that isn’t a large market, but those people have just as much rights to play the latest and greatest than somebody living in Europe or America.

@Dragon83 I’m not sure how doable that is due to how licensing works, but this is something that Sony and Xbox need to get on top of. Both companies internally develop huge games with licensed content. Microsoft can’t even keep their Forza games alive for six years.

PSN availability - it is still not available even across whole Europe.

Do developers get a cut if you sell a digital game yourself? I think game companies are secretly excited for the all digital, because I know I have borrowed or rented many a game, and I know they did not receive anything for it.

Personally I would like for some Steam like discounts now and then. Especially on older games.

@Snackfood I think you can safely remove the word “secretly” there

Honestly, all of this is nice, but secondary to updating the EULAs to reflect actual ownership.

Not even "pro-consumer" stores like GOG and Steam allows you to sell digital games. Do people really expect to see Sony doing it?

The store really does need a revamp, simple as that.
Most important things are:
Digital ownership
Refund policy
reasonable pricing on games

@Zuljaras Agreed on all fronts with both yourself and @get2sammyb.

My only pushback is on your pushback too, which is that at the moment no one in the console space offers selling and trading of digital games. (Which I think would be an amazing feature).

The closest I can think of is Nintendo, their Game Key Cards are a digital (cloud like) license that is stored on the cartridge. That then authorises (when inserted and kept inserted), the use of the software the license pertains to.

However, you can then take it out, trade, sell and store the license itself physically.

Now, that technically is what Xbox do with some titles on disc already, and many aren’t happy with that. However, it creates some friction and backlash (both for Nintendo and Microsoft).

I would actually like Nintendo to implement a blank cartridge, with the same encryption that I could store all my digital licenses for example.

Same if we could have a device much like a cryptocurrency hardware wallet for PS6/5 or Xbox and so on.

However, as you pointed out, a big benefit to digital only is the control a platform holder has and the lack of trading/second hand selling.

I’m not sure how this hurdle could be jumped over in a way that works for all. As a short period of time will teach you on Nintendo Life, people really want that data on a storage medium, and not so much the license.

However, one thing YouTubers, consumers and the like are missing, is that if “owning” the disc/cartridge meant “ownership” and the right to play the game without the internet … Xbox license only discs and Game Key Cards wouldn’t be legal.

I think both yourself and Sammy put forward some great thoughts and like I say, agreed with all.

I wouldn’t want to be the person that tries to tackle all this though, or the team, as to me a lot of this is simple to implement and change, but I fear I’d just be met with shareholders shaking their heads.

Headline should be 8 things Sony won't do to improve the PSN store.

@springer17 I don't agree with a mandatory price reduction strategy. I don't think games should be inherently worth less just because they're older. Games get cheaper over time because people don't want to buy them at full price, but that's due to market demand and should remain that way. Pricing should always be left as the seller's prerogative.

I would want two things from this list.
1, Being able to trade/sell digital games.
2, More frequent sales with deeper discounts.

@wildcat_kickz This is key, and circles back to a comment I made before this one. If discs and cartridges meant ownership, cartridges from Nintendo and discs from Xbox would have to put the game in its installable form on the medium.

Game Key Cards and discs with licenses only on them wouldn’t be legally a thing. So yes, the entire rights surrounding what is the medium of distribution and what it legally means to the IP owner and consumer needs a revamp.

Tapes, cartridges and discs, all used by Devs/Platforms/Publishers because they are an effective install medium. They were used back when the internet in most of the world wasn’t at a point to reliably provide an install file in a timely manner.

The way these businesses see it, is that for many of their demographic, that install medium as a method of installation is redundant in a day and age whereby people have ever more reliable and faster connections.

Do I think physical should have its rights changed and kept for those without reliable connections? Yes.

Does a business see it that way? No.

So yes, we need to be discussing rights and what exactly they are. As Sony’s refund policy shows, they speak money, their marketing team were paid for with said money to make consumers feel they care about their wants, needs and desires.

Needless to say Sony’s PR team seem to be on holiday chronically or chimps at this point. I’m not sure to be honest.

I agree with the vast majority of these, and I have been beating this drum here and elsewhere since the all digital announcement. I would prefer Sony to preserve the physical option, but that horse has left the barn forever. All we can do now is push Sony to make the all digital future that has been on its way for years more consumer friendly.

If Sony provides these things suggested here and guarantees access to our digital purchases as long as the company exists, that would go a long way to addressing the concerns of many.

I don’t think Sony has current plans for a lot of this, but they should. They should have had many of these improvements ready to go as part of their announcement.

Yeah whoever drafted this list sort of glossed over the absolute most important thing of all, true legitimate ownership. I’m talking ‘guaranteed by legal rights’ type ownership.

It’s sort of implied under the ‘sell/trade digital games’ bullet point, but this is far and away the most important thing that could be done to protect and benefit consumers in preparation for an (unfortunately) all digital future. Hands down. Nothing else on this list even comes close. If you don’t OWN your digital purchase, none of the rest of the above points in this list even matters.

One big thing missing is security, it’s by far the most vulnerable account of any modern platform as it can be easily hacked through social engineering and the platform provides zero security measures to prevent it as it can be done even if you have passkeys/2FA enabled in your account.

Also region flexibility, not only allow any account to switch regions with its due limits but it’s imperative they get rid of distributing Asian, European and American editions for all games separately and distribute one global version as every platform does.

@springer17 I agree with digital reductions overtime to keep it in line with how prices go down with physical.

Maybe they could also do a scheme where you can give your games to your friends?
Each download have a license code that could be transferred to someone else and that then becomes linked to their account and you no longer have access to it unless of course they transfer it back.
Can’t imagine they’d do that though otherwise they’d lose sales where groups of friends just buy one copy and lend it once they’ve finished with it.

If you could sell you digital copies back once you’ve finished would be good. The amount you get would also decrease overtime. However again they won’t want to lose a percentage of sales where people complete the game and sell it back effectively getting a cheaper game.

They definitely need a loyalty scheme. Stars was okay but from what I remember it was kind of separate and you had to sign up for it. All lot of people I know didn’t know it existed.
The way Xbox does it is good. Get points for spending in the store, using the app and playing on your console and game pass games.
Think I’ve earned about £30 this year.
It does encourage me to play Xbox more as I think I’ll just hop on for 20 minutes and keep my streak going.
Money can be spent on games or hardware.

It's time for PlayStation to step it up

Err, no.
We gonna get nothing, and we'll be ordered by Sony to love it 🤣🤣.
The majority of the points are borderline wishful thinking to expect from an increasingly stingy Sony.

Never in a million years will they allow the trade of digital games.

I find the PlayStation phone app the easiest and best to use for buying and wishlisting, XBOX has improved theirs so that it actually works now and Nintendo is dead last.

On console, the XBOX store is by far the best, Nintendo 2nd and PlayStation last.

Sony's refund policy is absolutely shocking compared to Nintendo/XBOX and needs to be drastically improved.

A digital trade in policy should absolutely be in place given how we'll all be forced into an all digital future.

Ultimately, it will either take one of the big three to do this first so that everyone else has to follow or some kind of government/independent intervention.

It's amazing. You were able to name every possible feature Sony will never implement.

Digital resale would only happen if the publisher itself received a percentage of the sale and if the prices of those games were also determined by them. No publisher in the world is going to allow a new release to be resold for $10 on PSN one week after the game launches.

One other thing hardly anyone remembers to mention in these articles is the lack of regional pricing on the PS Store—likely because it doesn't affect them now, nor has it ever affected them in the past.

Here in Brazil, for instance, it is common to see 95% of indie releases costing nearly twice as much as they do on eShop or Steam, simply because these titles don't support any form of regional pricing. To this day, we still don't have a definitive answer as to whether Sony fails to provide the necessary incentives or tools within the PS Store system, or if it is the studios themselves who simply choose not to implement it.

Then there’s also the price of first-party games over here, which saw a hike in 2024—with Sony citing the local currency's significant depreciation against the US dollar as the reason at the time. This resulted in first-party games costing R$399.90, nearly 25% of the monthly minimum wage... It looks even worse when converted to US dollars: almost $80!

The worst part is that the local currency has strengthened again—or the dollar has lost value—yet Sony hasn't moved to lower prices, meaning we end up paying more than people in top-tier markets.

Agree with a lot of your points. Yeah I was stunned (coming from Steam previously) the first time I tried to refund a new purchase that I had downloaded but hadn’t played yet… They were like you downloaded it, sorry it’s yours now.

Honestly due to Sony having essentially no refund policy, it has made me more choosey with what I’m willing to pull the trigger on. It’s probably helped to keep my backlog in check. So maybe it isn’t all bad. I got burned once or twice, then learned my lesson.

First and foremost, I want better protection of my account. It's unbelievable that you risk access to your entire library because of accidentally swearing into your mic.

The ability to resell or transfer digital games is never going to be a thing.

Although I think it would be cool for publishers to offer “trade-ins” in exchange for a discount on another game sold by the same publisher. For example: Ubisoft could offer 10% off a selection of new games in exchange for “trading-in” (ie. voluntarily revoking your own license to) a different Ubisoft game.

Also there must be some separation between your account where you “own” all your games and your social profile, meaning that if you get banned online justifiably or not on whatever game you won’t lose everything you’ve invested in that account.

None of this is important. Sony should be lobbying the US government for a change in copyright law so that customers can extract the files from defunct storefronts for personal enjoyment. There is absolutely zero economic arguements as to why this shouldnt be allowed.

@ButteredCrumpet they are chimps chronically on holiday.

I'd be happy for them to have a return policy that isn't garbage, because my younger cousin can only mistakenly purchase things on the PS Store so many times before they start to catch on.

@ElPenitente Now you’re almost making it sound like an appealing visual!

Sony Pictures Presents - Chimps on a Plane! … with Spider-Man.

I've never even heard of an issue with Wishlists. I keep nothing in them so games I actually want might see a discount. I don't see a need for a wishlist, I have a super computer in my pocket to take notes with.

What I really hate is the hoops or clicks I have to get through just to see the actual newest releases. Click for New Releases off of Best Selling and an extra click on the filter for just released.

They wont want to have any refund or trade in policy. They might be forced to eventually though.

@ButteredCrumpet I'm sick of these mother flippin' chimps on this Monday to Friday plane!

I suppose it is a category of “gifting”, but now that I have a family, I’m starting to worry about whether I’ll be able to pass on any of my accumulated digital stuff if anything were to happen to me. Under Sony’s current ToS, my account cannot be transferred, so all my purchases would be gone with me and my account.

Also, I think it’s baloney that games are tied to an account, rather than the actual purchaser. As a physical buyer, if I lost my account for any reason - get hacked or, less likely, get banned by Sony - I’d at least be able to still play the games off disc on a new account. In the all digital realm, they just get to keep my money and all my purchases are gone. Not good enough.

@StrickenBiged That's my major sticking point too. My collection has 30 years behind it - if I die today, my wife and son could sell it and buy a car or pay the mortgage for most of a year. That's something tangible. My digital collection is just gone.

Refunds and deeper discounts more akin to Steam sales are the two for me personally, the ability to sell or trade digital games seems a way off.

Sony will "take into consideration" every point on this list... and not do a single one of them.

> The Ability to Trade and Sell Digital Games

Yeah that's never going to happen. BUT - the ability to basically permanently delete a game from your library and get some kind of credit for it would be welcome and potentially something they might actually consider. Like, you're saying you're never going to download this game again, that theoretically removes some potential future overhead from their servers, they could kick you back, oh let's say, 10% of what you originally paid as PSN store credit. Is that crap compared to trade in value, sure, but it's better than nothing and expecting more than that for a game you played, hopefully got your money's worth out of and are simply done with, is not realistic.

That said, I just want the ability to permanently delete games from my library, period. I have a bunch of demos and PSN games that I tried but didn't like and I just don't want them cluttering up my library. You can hide games, but it's not really the same.

@springer17 I understand the thought behind it, but the only reason the game reduced in price at a physical store is the same reason that it would reduce in price via a digital one: people aren't buying it enough at the current price, so they reduce it. It's determined by the seller as a reaction to consumer habits, but not because of some mandated policy.

The reason a game might drop in price sooner at a physical retailer is because it's taking up physical space that the retailer wants to free up for something else. The same can't be said for a digital storefront.

I'm all for being pro-consumer, but what price something is sold at should always remain with the seller (barring price fixing, of course).

A proper refund policy and gifting are the must haves. I haven't experienced any problems with my Wishlist, but there's not much on it so I can't comment on issues. I'd like ways to organize it though like Steam.

I feel like the ability to trade & sell games would just be abused by digital scalpers and make a different issue on top of an existing one. I'm not sure Sony can do anything about digital prices of games or DLCs that aren't their own.

If anything having cloud saves being free instead of tied to PS Plus seems like a way bigger thing than a lot of these if you're forcing all-digital.

"It’s been almost a month since Sony announced its decision to cease manufacturing physical games in 2028, and it hasn’t uttered a word since." No really?

Great points but I don't think they'd want to implement ability to resell, and that refunding would still be difficult for them because thieves would abuse it. They would love Gifting because it's still them taking money from you. The most realistic one I hope they do is - deeper discounts. Activision still selling Sekiro at £29.99 7 years later should be illegal and banned from the Store lol, when one of the GOATs RDR2 can be bought at £14.99 8 years later, like WTF!

They will probably just tell us all to get f*cked.

I recently moved to PS5 after 9 years of the Switch. I spent most of those years complaining about the Nintendo eShop but one thing that I always enjoyed (until it became overrun with slop) was to just go to the new releases section and browse through everything which had been released since I checked it last. It meant I was always on top of what was out there and never missed an unexpected gem.
Coming over to the Playstation store, everything is slicker but seemingly there is no such section. With apparently 5-10 titles being released per week (as opposed to 20x as many on Switch, 95% slop) keeping on top of them should be a joy just like the olden days. But it seems that there's only curated lists available.

FINALLY! Offering solutions instead of, well, you know...

Agree with most of the points, but my number one wish would be for them to remove all the shovelware.

Re the deeper discounts - does Sony subsidise discounts on other publishers' games?

Highly unlikely to happen, but something I’d love to see is some sort of price matching system. Would ease my concerns with buying a system that locks you into one storefront. Only way see that happening is if they launch and really have a hard time driving adoption.

Resell digital purchases? Good luck with that wish.

there WILL BE NO ALL-DIGITAL FUTURE. Either physical, or no Sony. Clowns

Certainly not 8 'musts'. A few nice to haves maybe. And the reselling digital sounds like a joke.
The ps store sales are pretty good. I always like to shop about and get a bargain and I usually find the ps store is cheaper than physical. Used to buy some games in CEX but not anymore. Games buy are typically cheaper on a ps store sale. I rarely buy the big AAA anywhere close to release date so im sure thats a factor (always have a big backlog so happy to wait and get the games on a sale and with all the bugs fixed)

The ability to pass your licenses on after you pass on would be nice.

Security of your account and access to your library is the biggest issue about an all digital future. Definitely something for Sony to work on and much more important than some tweaks to a storefront

For a lower price, They should add a system where you can rent a game (pay weekly and cancel anytime)

@Northern_munkey well the problem there is that because they decided to remain silent, the forfeited any opportunity to take control of the narrative. Even if they didn’t backpedal, they couldve at least made a vague statement about promising to improve the digital purchasing experience.

By going silent, others have written the narrative for Sony, pretty much all of the. Painting them in an antagonistic light. Maybe Sony was hoping for it to blow over, but heading into August, the anger is still loud and intense. There is zero chance that it’s going away. This narrative is staying for a long long time, and Sony staying quiet makes them look tone deaf. Not saying that it is the case, but it looks like the case.

How has the PS5 been out for 6 years and the wishlist feature is broken on the console? That's baffling to me.

Steam keeps improving their wishlist feature and it's fantastic nowadays.

Problem is when 63% of people only buy a maximum of 2 titles a YEAR, there's little incentive to spend time with huge overhauls for the store. Maybe you could try to argue that if the digital store was better it would lead to more sales. But I doubt it. The fact is this is once again another gaming issue that only the 1% crash out about and you're heavily outmatched by the average person who doesn't give a damn. It would be great to see all of those suggestions implemented. I will expect to see none actually happen though.

@ShadowRJ I was being heavily sarcastic as in we would never have guessed because there has been an article every day reminding us about physical discs being discontinued blah,blah,blah...its about time PS moved on..let it go..

@Zuljaras you can technically do that already by moving the games to an external hard drive. Unless I'm understanding what you're saying lol

Why on Earth would they ever allow you to sell or trade digital games? And why should they?

Honestly, I get that people are upset about all of this but some of you people are absurdly deluded.

More discount

@get2sammyb
I have a few problems with the PSN store support as it seems to be pretty bad at the moment and they struggle with technical issues. I can't access my grid DLC at present as although I bought the digital ultimate edition which included the 3 season passes the in store links are now broken so I can't access the DLC at present to download it. As the DLC has been delisted.

I also have an issue with GOAT 3 on the PS5 where the PS5 DLC I have won't work with the PS5 version of the game I bought from the PSN store. As it appears to think it's from a different sku of the game. (I have screenshots to prove both the above)

The Bug with the wishlist happens due to having more than 100 games on the wishlist. Nintendo and steam can do this fine without issues why can't Sony.

I really think the ability to trade or sell your digital game licenses would be a game-changing feature. I’d never thought of it before, but I think it could be done and would be popular.

Another suggestion I like is providing a proper kind of loyalty scheme. I do use Microsoft Rewards as it gives me points for doing all kinds of things, including playing games. I tend to cash my points in for store credit and it’s made the difference for me in which platform I might choose to buy my next game on - if I can get £10-20 off on Xbox, why would I buy that same game elsewhere? Sony could implement something similar and I’m sure it would go down pretty well.

It’s like Sony were forbidding tap water,

and PushSquare would ask for 24/7 opening hours for supermarkets so we can buy water bottles at every time.

They also need to fix the store with already purchased games. Like if I own it already and it says purchased… Don’t show it to me in the next sale. Not like I can buy it again

@nolifebr

Definitely not, but I wonder if the Xbox idea would have changed things.

The whole "No Used Games" had to do with the Devs getting a cut of any resales.

Maybe that taking hold could have kept the physical market healthy? Idk. Just a thought.

@Blackheart5815 Yeah, that grinds my gears a little 🤣.

Digital ownership is my biggest thing. Having a license isn't enough.
Unfortunately Blockchain would have/could have solved this, but we as a gaming community pushed back hard (largely because of gimmicky ideas) and this will never become a reality now

Also stop the dynamic pricing scheme. What a scumbag tactic.

Other: RENTALS
Remember Blockbuster and Hollywood video? I would rent a game for $5, beat it in a few days or extend the rental and beat it in a week then return it. A 2 hour demo is not enough. I would rent a few games a month if I had the option to rent for a week at a time. (even if there was a limit of 1-2 rentals allowed per month). I miss Goozex. I used to wheel and deal games constantly on there in the PS3 era.

It’s crazy they make so much money from the store but it’s in such a poor state, not available in many countries, still having outages, features not working etc.

They really have a lot to do before January 2028 but my feeling is they won’t do anything or very little. While the moneys flowing in they probably don’t think it needs changing.

For me, the most important thing is my game library. And I feel we are too restricted by the Terms of Service, which are stacked against us.
We need a stronger legal protection :

• Game licenses should belong to a license vault that is independent of the user account.
• The user account should only serve as a way to access those licenses, not as the owner of them.
• If an account is lost or compromised, the owner should be able to recover all purchased licenses after a secure identity verification process.
• An account ban should only restrict access to the services concerned (such as online multiplayer, the store, or social features), while preserving access to legally purchased games, except in cases of proven payment fraud or similar serious violations.

I have mentioned here, and on Pure XBOX that a digital second hand market would be an absolute game changer. Literally.

I absolutely need to be able to gift digital games around Christmas time.

Why all-digital only people didn't asked and pushed Sony to do all of these years ago?

But now when physical games will be dead in one and half year, suddenly you guys realized you're cooked with no buying options and feels the need to have better treatment from Sony? Lol.

It's too late for all of us. Sony would've done most of these especially better refund policy, resell/trade digital games, and gifting years ago IF all digital only people pushed them to do it.

But what we have right now are still the same "ownership" policy that put users at disadvantage, the same sh*tty refund policy, still the same utter garbage costumers support that aren't helpful, loyalty scheme keeps changing or even completely gone, games / movies got delisted from the store and even from users library like it's nothing, dynamic pricing, if your account get hacked and banned then say goodbye to all your digital games etc.

Enjoy your all-digital future while under the mercy of billions of dollar corpos 🍻

Digital.. meh ok. Monopoly without competition: no!! So while I could see some advantages of digital-only, the fact that you only have one store that can dictate the prices without competitors is what’s really frightening!

Several good points raised. My priorities are digital ownership rights, being able to sell/rent/gift digital games, a proper refund policy and better discounts. I don't think Sony would ever consider a system of being able to get cash for digital games, but being able to surrender (for lack of a better term) the title for wallet funds would be acceptable to me. Being able to rent games would be hugely beneficial as well, though I believe Sony would fight back on that as well, fearing cannibalization of sales, and rightfully so.

Imagine a world where I had bought a digital deluxe version of a game. Hated it. But was then able to offer it for less than retail to someone else via a 2nd hand digital marketplace.

This article's going to give Sony brilliant ideas, like doing the exact opposite

@ShadowRJ Sony has been silent because they have nothing more to say. They're not walking it back, and they don't need to explain it to any of us. Sony said what they had to say, just because you didn't like it doesn't mean they owe any further explanation. They're simply waiting for the people who are upset to tire themselves out, which they inevitably will.

We don't have to... we are Sony.

So basically match Steam and Xbox… i kid i kid !! Not really tho

I like most of this list. Biggest one they are behind in is refund. Steam and Xbox get this right. No reason Sony can’t as well. One of my issues that is on the smaller fish to fry list at the moment is search from the dashboard to the store just by pressing a button, i use this on Xbox a lot, and the other is the store is so ugly, messy and just not fun to use. It needs a complete overhaul in design in my opinion. Of all the consoles and PC the store looks like it was just slapped together with no thought of user ability taken in consideration. I do think Sony will need to upgrade the store a lot in the face of it being the only place to get games for PS6. But i at least expect they are working on that now, just wish they would have waited for this announcement to be able to show users some of what they have planned to help ease the minds some. Going radio silence after dropping this huge of news is very very poor respect for your player base. Overall in time i am excited to learn more about what they plan to do, cause if they roll out PS6 with very little upgrades to the store. I think they will have a lot of pushback, especially with Xbox likely to do a disc to digital program and let your friends borrow the discs and get the digital license. They have to have some answer for that in my opinion.

I can see digital resales working by letting the original owner set the resale price. If I’m happy to let go of my digital copy of Arc Raiders for £5 then I’ll sell it before someone who’s offering it up for £6. The devs can get an x% cut and you also never have to worry about the condition of the game either.

Refund policy is the most important addition, and make it a store based offering, what I mean by that is it should be an automated process without needing to contact Sony via a call centre - a button in your purchase history, and as long as the title you want to refund still hasn’t exceeded play time requirements, 30 - 60 minutes the refund button is available - click it for a refund, no questions asked🤷‍♂️

@tangyzesty it’s not just a matter of walking things back. And you’re right, they’re no obligated to say anything,

The problem is that whenever a company doesn’t fill in all the details, people tend to fill in the blanks themselves. We see this all the time with console specs, and we’re seeing it here now with the PS store.

Considering that Sony has not communicated anything at all, I’m willing to bet that they have no plans at all to improve it, and the company has given me any assurances or good will to convince me otherwise.

"Personally, I think a 30 minute session should be enough, and it would be better than what we currently have, which is nothing at all."

I'm all for this in concept. The execution may be tricky though. 30 minutes for example might not work with games heavy with exposition upfront (although I guess people who don't like that, will in fact, make up their mind at that point).

Speaking from my experience, I have played A LOT of games, even ones not particularly plot-heavy that took a few hours to click for me. Sometimes it's getting that extra skill on the skill tree, sometimes it's getting a weapon that feels right, or seeing later gameplay mechanics be introduced. It's tough.

As for the discounts, 100% yes. As I've said before, as much as the end of physical discs does indeed suck, I can deal with it if meant Sony were more generous on their storefront discounts. But they usually aren't. Sometimes, yes, good deals pop up, but a lot of games never drop below certain thresholds--pricepoints that physical retailers underscore all the time.

Fix that problem Sony, and you'll keep me a happy customer.

It amazes me that people think one thing will change with digital sales, while Sony take away your only 2nd option. Sony will use the same argument it used with shutting down disc production - consumers are happy buying digital, and if the majotity didn't seem to mind the T&Cs before, why change them?

Hopefully when software and hardware sales falter over the next few years into the PS6 generation, Sony might consider these suggestions.

Other. Not tossing discs into the dustbin of history.

Only that will let me keep giving Sony any moneydollars after the disc cutoff.

Sure, these are consumer-friendly improvements, but if Sony actually releases a $1,000 USD console next generation, do we really think they care at this point?

You can bundle this in with Discoverability but I would dearly love just a page with a list of everything thats been uploaded in order of release. Just a nice long list of whats new please.

Great ideas, but far too optimistic.

What makes you think a company that is about to take away your actual ownership of the product you buy from them will give you these things?

Losing physical media means losing your right to ownership.

I discussed improvements to digital game ownership with Microsoft's Copilot AI here, including ideas about recovery keys, hardware license tokens, disc-to-digital conversion and other topics:
https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/SVZGnrdzyMgiiCABKNkJZ

1, Being able to trade/sell digital games.
2, More frequent sales with deeper discounts.

these are the most important ones and are the ones that will never happen, as they want you to pay full price for their games, it's probably the main reason they're killing physical, and once you get locked into digital only, man, those sales are going to start to be veeeery rare, you'll see.

Maybe, have another feature headline "8 Ways Sony Must Improve the PSN for Our All-Digital Future"
Starting with "Minimal Outages. And certainly not lasting hours on end, or God willing, an entire month, and not when a big title is launching." and "Improve security to prevent any hacking attacks.'

Reading this is genuinely the first time since the end of disks announcement that I could see myself buy into the next PlayStation generation. If one of the big selling points is an overhaul of the ps store with a focus on the customers,that could get me excited about future of PlayStation consoles.
Good article.

No problems at all with my wishlist. Displays what I have on it, along with prices and even discounts 🤷🏻‍♂️

Really great article and all are solid points. It confounds me that when I turn on my PS5 I am inundated by ads for gatcha games, Fortnite, FIFA, and COD releases which have never once downloaded or purchased anything remotely related to any of these and yet I have to search like a spelunker to find some of the games I actually want to buy or wishlist.

But yeah, for me the resell of a digital game would be such a fantastic idea. I also like the idea of better competitive pricing and sales, and the rewards loyalty program.

"The Ability to Trade and Sell Digital Games". What is this guy smoking?

Competitive pricing. That's the bare minimum for me. As it stands I save a tone of money going physical for most games, digital prices are just too much for most games.
If they check this box, I'll be satisfied. Other improvements would be nice, but I'd be fine.

"Proper reduns policy" from the list but also ending:

• removing purchased games or movies from library
• "dynamic" (surveillance) pricing
• constant PS+ subscriptions price increases and discounts not being offered to current subscribers

Agree with most of these and would also like a user review page on the store for each product. It needs to be better than the Xbox store though by only allowing reviews/ratings after a minimum play period, eg 2 hours.

You have no idea how trading, sharing, reselling, allocating and minimum play time will be exploited by scammers, hackers and account sellers. Simply use your imagination and you will see how all this turns into chaos.

Allow other retailers to sell digital games so there is real competition. That is the fundamental thing that needs to happen. Everything else is window dressing.
Of course ending physical sales and preventing retailers from selling digital PSN games was intended to remove precisely this competition. Hopefully Sony loses all their current court cases over this lack of competition and are forced to allow it, I can't see them doing it voluntarily.

Refunds are the most important for me on this list. If I went to a shop and bought a kettle, took it home and went to use only to discover it didn't work then I'd take it back and get a refund. No problem in doing that whatsoever however the same doesn't apply to video games. The amount of games that launch in buggy broken states or have serious bugs that don't rear their ugly little heads until after a couple of hours is too high. Those games don't function as intended and are no different than the broken kettle. A consumer shouldn't have to extensively research what the game's performance is like before buying, if its on the store it should be a given that its been properly vetted and good for sale.

2 hours seems like a good grace period however when serious bugs pop up after that exceptions should be made on the condition that there are screenshots/recording as evidence. It would be a bit of a headache for Sony but they can take the opportunity to blacklist developers of such troublesome games.

A few others:

• Better language and metadata display
• Better and more narrowed filters
• Custom searches and be able to save those
• Better notifications/alerts
• More and better ways on discoveravility and recommendations (queue line like steam among other widgets such as 2x1, bundle, tinder like…etc)
• Improve overall UI/UX to improve said dicoversbility and engagement
• Improve navigation overall
• 1-Click purchase (opt-in)
• Redesigned PDP
• Loyalty program and redemption mechanism

Offering a trade in wallet credit when you digitally 'sell' a game would be a good option. Also making the PS5 Store work more like the PS4 Store app as the current one is a restricted mess.

My main complaint with this whole 'no physical' option is that if you want a game, you have to pay whatever price the Sony Store dictates it is.
Compare that with a pressed, packaged, distributed disc from a variety of stores where there is COMPETITION. Often the disc version is £10-20 LESS than the digital Store which makes no sense apart from Sony being able to fleece digital only users.

Sony are going to have to do something because otherwise they'll find themselves in the crosshairs of various competition watchdogs. See how profitable their 'no physical' decision is when various million dollar anti-competition lawsuits have to be paid.

I'm working as a Game Publisher.

All of these are extremely needed (well, the trade/sell won't happen). Steam is miles ahead of the PlayStation store. You can't even check who is the Developer of the game on PlayStation. Only Publisher is displayed. And what's even sillier, you cannot even click on the Publisher to find more of his games. The discoverability is non-existent.

Sony finally speak through their CFO Lin Tao and she confirmed they will not rethink their decision to kill physical games. There's no hint about PS6 will have optional disc drive to play PS4/5 too.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/were-going-to-cautiously-move-this-forward-sony-says-it-hears-playstation-disc-backlash-but-will-continue-its-plans/

If Sony didn't budge then i'm sticking with my plan that PS5 will be my last Sony console.

@Zuljaras, I second the backup option given that my download list on the Vita & PS3 is broken due to how many items are in it. Once the store goes on those I will have no access to anything that I ever bought on those systems.

Things like discounts and inability to resell digital games are controlled by the publishers. Sony cannot radically change that without their approval. Good luck telling Capcom that now their games can be freely resold digitally!

I also disagree with the point that it is bad that the store lacks social features. And, while PlayStation Stars was good to have, the way it was implemented wasn't any good. The reason is this: the store should be simple to navigate, simple to search, and, the most important one, simple to buy games in.

A real refund policy would be great for me...crimson dessert wasn't for me after I bought it I'd of loved to get my cash back for that one

Should change to article title to our forced digital future. Right now there is no incentive for them to change as consumers are okay with the current arrangement. Once physical media goes away people will want a better digital model. Until then I think most people will just accept the internet of everything model with no ownership.

They need to guarantee that single player, not online, games will be downloadable and playable for at least 10-15 years. Preferably forever in some form. I think free to play and online games would understandably not merit a long term guarantee, but at least should have some sort of minimum. 5 years maybe?

I think deeper and more consistent discounts are imperative for PS5 and PS6 to be honest. If you want people to pony up the cash and keep on supporting then this is a bare minimum.
I do understand they don't have to discount anything however but if they are wanting to win back consumers, its time to get back into the customer headspace and not the corporate one.
A returns policy should be fundamental and foundational too. PS5's refund policies are joke. Get with the times.
Loyalty would be nice but I wouldnt expect anything at this stage

Sammy, this is a good article and I agree with all your thoughts. One of my big problems is trying to find a new game some of them get buried beneath all of the other stuff and you can’t even find a new game. I think they need a dedicated new game area. Yes I know they have a new game area, but sometimes a new game does not show up there and I have to go search for it. I just think a dedicated area that just has ALL new games would be awesome.

I'd buy so many more games at full price if there was a 1 hour refund policy.

Even if they had a maximum of 1 refund per month it would help

At the moment, if there's any doubt that I'll like a game, it goes on my wishlist and I wait for a very aggressive discount as I hate that feeling you get when spending £60 on something you know you'll never play again.

@get2sammyb I'll be honest, and maybe I just didn't understand the technology, but I always thought things like block chain could really help to create a digital "used" market.

They could even do a typical corporate thing and say "hey, we get 5 dollars for every 'used" game transaction" and most people wouldn't bat an eye.

Sadly it seems that the disc advocates don't want to accept or hear the truth again. Unfortunately not hearing the truth doesn't stop the truth being the truth.

The truth being: there will be no sell/trading of digital games.

It's not going to happen, it will NEVER happen. You are wasting your time arguing for it.

You are wasting effort that should be spent on the good stuff that has been written - pushing for a refund policy, multi-decade download rights, better account security and recovery.

You can push Governments and regulators to change the law, or encourage Sony and other stores to adopt a voluntary code before Government steps in and does it for them.

They will absolutely love it if you do NOT do that. They will love it if you divert your attention to unachievable pipedreams like trading/selling game instead.

Suits them to a tee. As the saying goes, "don't interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake" and they will happily sit back in silence with a cigar, and let you crack on.

@PeteW Agree, although I actually think demos are more important than refunds in that regard. I think both should co-exist.

Refunds are great for the glut of games with poor performance, given the outright dishonesty in reviews e.g. Crimson Desert where initial press and fan reviews outright lied about the performance issues at launch.

Demo's on the other hand are important when taking a £60 punt on something you aren't sure about and can't trade or resale. A one hour refund window doesn't help there.

E.g. I was fancying trying Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition on my Switch 2.

No chance am I going to drop £60 on it when I'm not sure it's for me and there is no resale value to get some money back.

With the Nintendo tax and refusal to discount, I will literally never buy that game. They are leaving money on the table.

This is the most important article since the announcement of the end of physical media on PlayStation.
Discs are not coming back. That decision is irrevocable. But the new all digital future must be more customer friendly than before. If Sony doesn't implement these standards willingly, regulation should require them to.
Or otherwise, allow other stores on PS6.

@kantaroo I agree, but try telling some of those posting on here that - even in the light of Sony confirming they're not changing their mind.

Said individuals will be threatening to start WWIII next (although in the real world most will be there playing GTA VI on day one and quietly buying a PS6 when the time comes if they can afford it.)

We've all seen this movie before.

They filed a patent years ago now for an ecosystem for players to sell their games on ps right?

I hate the way Transaction History works on playstation now. A QR code link to the website which 95% of the time doesn't work. It was perfectly fine the way it was!

CHANGE TRANSACTION HISTORY BACK to how it PREVIOUSLY WAS

They want to sell us on all digital, PS4 came out in 2013 and up until this day, Sony was not able to provide us with a half decent game library, where we can see which game we actually bought, with decent filters, there are some overlaps with PS+ free games and purchased games. The store is a freaking mess, often slow as a slug, crashes, takes forever to load prices, once you click into details of a game, I could go on for hours.

Another thing, open up the store to third parties, so we can get some decent discounts.
Sony these days are just arrogant pricks, I hope someone comes around and knocks them down to earth again.

Do you honestly believe, they are monopolizing games distribution in their ecosystem, to give players better discounts, better policies and regulations, refunds and possibilities to resell or exchange games..?

Oh.. man.. you will all realize how bad this change with physical to full digital is right AFTER they eliminate physical distribution: game prices will sooner or later be increased, discounts will remain the same or worse, no other improvements will be introduced.

Their discounts are ridiculous. Few years after release a game is sold at full release price to this day, with some discounts from time to time - and every single damn time the discount is exactly the same, being it 30% or at best 50% (but of course not a standard edition which you would buy at reasonable price now, but premium extra ultra edition so still expensive).

Their fans screamed “Microsoft will build monopoly buying Activision!”, yet now they create PS Store and distribution channels monopoly and I do not hear the same people screaming now, they are defending this damn change, because Sony must earn more, because.. it’s Sony.
Who will feel the consequences? You. Me. We.

@Zuljaras Trading digital titles is very possible if they build it out, but as you pointed out, publishers don't like the secondary market, so they wouldn't want Sony to implement this. But while it's possible, it also has risks. Think of the support headaches:

Person 1: Someone hacked my account and traded all my games to another account without my permission!

Person 2: No, I didn't hack anything, I paid him for all those games to be traded to me, and he's cheating me out of what I paid for!

How do you resolve that?

@Leinad7 The concerns about Sony monopolizing the store has a relatively simple solution, which is something not mentioned in this article that needs to be added - THIRD PARTIES SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SELL GAME CODES AGAIN. If you can pick up a valid code for a game from a vendor other than Sony, that can re-introduce the competition that's currently lacking from the PSN Store. Maybe that's a code on a physical card sold at a retailer, maybe it's a store (maybe even Steam or Epic) that can sell a PSN code - anything that lets them sell a code for a game at a price they set, not PSN credit.

That actually addresses the gifting idea, too - if you can buy a gift card at a local store that has a code for the game on it, there's your gift.

@Zuljaras Valve actively fought this through several courts when a French consumer group tried to push through this exact policy. Valve fought it all the way to the supreme court and won, so unfortunately this is basically a non starter in the EU.

At issue was a clause in Steam’s terms and conditions prohibiting the resale and transfer of digitally purchased games. UFC Que Choisir argued that this clause unlawfully restricted consumer rights and demanded its removal.

French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) docket no 23-13-738.

@Leinad7 I think you fundamentally do not understand how digital storefronts operate. Why will new game prices increase disproportionately on Sony’s platform if physical sales are eliminated?

Also Microsoft buying two of the largest publishers is not analogous to Sony ceasing physical sales on its own platform. That is why you are probably not hearing anything.

What drives me crazy is if I search for ‘arcade archives’ I just get an unsorted and unsortable incomplete list. Like, what’s that all about?

Can't wait until we can get black market game keys from nefarious sources. I kid, I kid

@Vertere You understand how 3rd party sales work, right? There is no going on eBay to buy a previously owned game.

Th lacking of proper refund policy and selling/trading digital games are probably the main reasons why they went fully digital so fast.

I still wish they have the integrity to implement them properly.

@Oram77 they should give refunds if you have only play 1 hr. I do think they could just have freaking trial for every game and then would not need refunds. I think the limit for refunds is 3 a year. That has just been my experience. I’ve played a game for few days and able to get refund. It’s hell though. Can request online but I call when I think a person from the US might answer lol. Not being rude but the people I’ve encountered from other countries go strictly by the book.i have gotten plenty of refunds over the last 16 years. People will say they don’t give them but I know they do. It needs to just be easier. I’ve gotten plenty refunds on Xbox too. There refund process is easy and fast. Usually have the refund within an hour. Next day is latest I’ve had to wait. So I just responded to you with a story just to say yeah refunds need to be easier lol. Or just have trials for every game that comes in store

@puddinggirl have you not been able to get refunds? I see people “not you”say they don’t give them if you play the game. I’ve gotten a lot of refunds going back 16 years. From my experience they will only do 3 within 12 months. I’ve noticed that over the years. But I’ve played games and got refunded. I would call and tell sad stories that son bought or something similar. I havnt had to ask for one in about 10 months. Looks like it’s changed some. Wish they just give every game that is on store an hour or 2 trial. Then wouldn’t have to do many refunds. Xbox had a an easy process and usually refunded within an hour or so without me even calling.

@Ninerguy1608 My experience with PSN refund is spotty at the best. I only tried to refund games twice over the years both were unsuccessful.

My worst experience was with Black Myth. It was crashing at launch. They rejected it on the basis that I've played the game. I called and told them ya, for 10 min and I won't know the issue until I played it. 😑 It also happened in 3 days after I bought the game. The rep just refused to process the refund on the spot and said if the game still crashed after a week, call them again. It was such a pain that I didn't even play that game much after. I still haven't now.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Glad to hear that it's at least working well for some people.

Sony needs to massively overhaul their entire PSN store to make it more user friendly. The search feature also needs massive improvements since it's very difficult to find games on the PSN. The above list would be great but very unlikely. My opinion is that unless Sony does the two things I mentioned the ps6 will be dead at launch.

@Snackfood
Rentals (at least when I worked for Blockbuster) they get a cut of the money they rentals make over a set period of time. But it would have been like 0.5-1% otherwise Blockbuster would make very little money.
Rentals on preowned games was different, however, and was pure profit for the renter as they had bought the disc themselves and the Dev/publisher can't ask for money on the preowned market.
I'm pretty sure Blockbuster always found a way around this though by very quickly putting the rental copies on sale as preowned to circumnavigate the devs.

@Leinad7
Both Sony and Microsoft are doing the same thing next gen. Neither will have disc drives.
Honestly, I can't blame them for trying it, digital sales are more popular than Physical right now and the number of factories making discs are far fewer than can meet the demand.

Plus this gives both companies a chance to back trake but offer a "disc drive" you have to buy seperate, like gaming companies have done before.

None of it is particularly right. But they are both companies looking to make money, no company cares ablut consumers, only what they can get away with until you stop buying their products.

I don't think I've seen people defend Sony on this, but most people can undrstand the decision, even if they don't agree with it and will still give Sony S**t for it.

@goose9
I'd trade in the licence of some games for credit towards a new game, especially if I knew I'd never play the game again.

All sound & reasonable upgrades to an all digital PS Store. But says all you need to know about the current Playstation leadership group that the first public acknowledgement of the elephant in the room came from the Sony group CFO to investors, NOT their customer player base!🙄

Lin Tao claims they have been considering going all digital for a "long time", just as she had previously stated prior to the firestorm they needed to look at ways to monetise players further in the face of dramatic hardware price increases & slowing of hardware sales as a result.

Despite having had weeks to respond to the many,many genuine feedback & questions on top of the preceding "long time" claimed, Playstation management are still firmly ghosting & ignoring their customers.

Given they've already decided on an all digital PS6,strange they didn't regard an obvious concern is backwards compatibility of PS4/PS5 physical games libraries.
Which suggests either a premium solution like an external drive or repurchase digitally of games or similar that they intentionally are staying silent.

Likewise, they've had all generation to improve the PS Store with any & all these features. To date all we've seen is (to their credit), an attempt to remove some of the slop trophy titles & knock offs....their continued silence all things related to improving the PS Store or PS Plus suggests the only plans are to maintain the status quo & price gouge further taking full advantage of a PSN Store monopoly!🙄😕😑

We've already seen minimal improvements to PS Plus despite numerous price hikes & in some regions a complete removal of discounts to resubscriptions or even access to a subscription sale!
I have severe doubts that beyond legal pressure from the likes of the EU,UK, or even the ACCC down under consumer authorities on unfair pricing monopolies will they change.

Just to note, Steam might be known as the supposed "good guys" of consumer friendly store policies BUT they too had to dragged kicking & screaming all the way up to the Australian High Court (think American Supreme Court),to exhaust their appeals & force them to implement a refund system in the first place! I fear the same for this arrogant & aloof Sony.

You better find and assemble seven dragon balls and ask shenron cause it's the only way even one of these things is going to ever happen.

My wishlist shows up just fine, but it’s pretty much useless. I just use DekuDeals. Until Sony allows wishlist gifting, it’s just pointless to have the feature in my opinion.

Ah I know a place where ALL that is happening and more…. STEAM 🤷‍♂️ sorry guys but I started jumping ship and the RESPECT steam gives it's customers is like heaven.

The suggestions mentioned are great but the resale option will never happen for digital as that would recreate a secondhand market which they are eliminating now. They are directly competing with Steam/GOG so my suggestion is make ps+ optional and not required for online play. They will be forced pricewise to compete with the sales the other storefronts have and they will have to justify why I should pay a fee to play online when no store on PC does that. The exclusives imo will not be enough on its own to justify the price of a new console when I already have a PS5 and a PC. They will have to step up their game considerably

@Vertere Sony as a corp needs to show income growth year on year. If PS6 sales drop, number of players they have drops. Means less games sell. Means they need to increase prices at some point.

Also because development costs will grow.

Sony is not building PS Store monopoly to not increase game prices at some point. That is the purpose. To control prices.

@Leinad7 I’m sorry, but you really have fundamentally misunderstood how digital storefronts operate. Sony already has full control over its digital store, its has since the beginning, this isn’t new or affected by physical sales.
PlayStation for the most part does not set prices on its store. It acts as the merchant of record but the prices for all games are set by the publisher. Outside of first party titles it has no control over pricing. It operates and manages sales but publishers opt into and agree discount rates. If prices increase for games it’s because publishers across the industry believe they can charge more, it has nothing to do with Sony unless they are publishing the game.
The reason publishers and platform holders prefer digital is because their sales are more profitable as there is no retailer.

Sony are dropping physical sales to make more money along with the publisher on every digital sale. Sales of the PS6 are irrelevant, as are player counts. Development costs increasing is industry wide and affects all publishers, hence they’d like more of each sale rather than given GameStop a slice.

@Msw7089 I think optional PSN is a good call. At minimum a token amount for cloud saves. If you want to go all digital then spread the wealth.

Not sure I really understand the criticism of the store. I go there and buy licenses for games, and that works for me sufficiently well.

It is surprising that gifting games to friends is an unsupported feature. It must even be in Sony's interest. And if it is just limited to PSN friends, than I don't see any reason why such a feature could be problematic.

Also, making the store more widely available should be in Sony's interest, but maybe this would come with obligations Sony is not willing to fulfil i.e. ensuring that the game content does not violate any restrictions of the new countries or other legal obligations.

I think it is very unlikely to see the possibility of reselling games or lending games. The physical market is kind of limited by distance or shipping cost. But a digital game could tour the entire world. Maybe if the games can only be resold a limited number of times, and 30% of the price goes to Sony. But it is certainly not something that is really in Sony's interest.

Concerning refunds, I cannot go to the cinema watch a movie for 5 min and ask my money back, unless I have really good arguments. So, I don't see why this should be more liberal. What I do not know is whether a more liberal policy would motivated people to buy more games, or whether it is rather the opposite and most people would just have a quick look and refund the games (a bit like what gamepass does to games, that poeple loose the motivation to engage with games).

I would like to see game reviews for games, but then a lot of people misbehave, and at the moment all games would get negative reviews because of Sony ending physical games and people would just right stupid comments which have nothing to do with the game. Maybe it would improve if comments are signed by the authors real name rather than a pseudonym. I haven't read steam comments much, so maybe the situation is better than I think.

Personally, I think, search and the discoverability of games could be better. I kind of like the collections on ps5 but they are also quite limited and not on the web, are they? So, maybe one could promote certain catalog subsets for short periods of time by genre, publisher, art style, story topic, color palette, music, etc. which could also be linked to a topical sale. There must be something one could do to bring more than just cod and fortnite to people.

And yes it would be good if it was much more difficult to hijack an account. But since accounts are only tied to an email address and not a person, there is not much one can do to prove to be the owner of an account. I think it only really would be possible if the account is assigned to a personal ID.

@Vertere I’m afraid it is you who have fundamentally misunderstood how monopoly pricing works. Currently, unless your console is digital only, Sony does not have a monopoly on how you purchase games. Hence it is limited on how much it can charge (or alternatively how rarely and steeply it can run the discounts that it allows other publishers to opt into, as you say). This is simply because if it never gave discounts more people would buy and resell second hand games for example.

Once that source of competition is gone, Sony will be free to reduce the frequency or steepness of discounts. There will still be some of course: monopolists like to maximise profits and will try to segment the market for example between those who can wait after the holidays and those who can’t. But it’s ECON 101 stuff that a monopoly will capture more surplus than a competitive market like the current scenario. For example, Sony could restrict the timing of discounts, or the number of games that are subject to the steepest discounts etc. there are many ways for Sony to control things even if it doesn’t set prices directly (which I agree is the case). What you can be 100% sure is that Sony will try to maximise its profits and that it will have an easier time of it after it has eliminated the threat of competition from physical and 2nd hand sales.
One more thing, this is irrespective of the current percentage of digital vs physical sales. If anything, the relevant metric for this analysis would be the percentage of digital only consoles (ie those on which Sony already has a monopoly). Look up “contestable market” if you want more information: “A contestable market is one where there are low barriers to entry and exit, allowing potential competition to threaten existing firms.”
The point is that the games market for disc consoles is currently contestable and this reduces the monopoly profits Sony can charge.
One more thing, dynamic pricing will turbocharge the monopolist’s pricing power once the option of going physical is gone. If nothing else, I would be very wary of putting anything on my wishlist, even if they fix that feature.
That’s why I think regulation of this market is necessary, and it would be to Sony’s long term benefit if they got ahead of the game and introduced some of the features mentioned in this article of their own volition.

@kantaroo Where have I specifically referenced monopolistic pricing?

@Vertere That’s the point: you do not take into account in your analysis the fact that Sony will be in effect a monopolist in how games are purchased (either directly, or in the rare occasions when there is demand for a code in the box (given its lack of resale value)), because it will all go through PSN.
As I understand your position, you seem to think that prices on PSN will remain much as they are now. Even setting aside the fact that digital discounts for some games are a lot poorer than what you can find eg on eBay, I think that misses the fact that Sony will be in a much stronger position to dictate terms to other publishers to keep prices high. Eg no discounts greater than 50% unless the game has been on sale for at least a certain number of years. This is just an example of the sort of policy a monopolist might devise to ensure it maximises its take. Or as they themselves put it “monetising the installed base”.
This is why I think Sony’s new policy will make all consumers worse off in the medium term.

@kantaroo My original post was a specific response to the claim that PSN prices would increase directly and disproportionately as a consequence of Sony dropping physical media, and why I don't think that's likely. Primarily because publishers set their own prices and generally prefer digital sales. You're saying I've failed to understand or consider other factors, but then proceed to move the goalposts into a broader discussion around monopolistic pricing and answer your own questions as to why this is the case. I'll at least try to give my take on the points you've raised.

I think it's worth clarifying up front that regulators and courts don't currently consider digital storefronts within hardware ecosystems to be monopolistic by default. Sony having complete control over its own ecosystem, even if it became adorably all digital, isn't automatically monopolistic in the eyes of regulators, so I think we should be careful about using that as a starting assumption. Competition authorities generally look at the wider market, where Sony competes with Xbox, Nintendo and lesser extent PC storefronts like Steam. Antitrust law is obviously complex, nuanced and subject to change, and neither of us can presume to know the next landmark legal ruling.

On pricing, publishers largely dictate what their games sell for. That's why new third party releases tend to launch at broadly the same price across PlayStation, Xbox and PC. As long as publishers continue releasing games across competing platforms, I think it's fair to assume those prices will remain broadly aligned. That's not to say prices can't go up, just that I don't see a convincing reason why PSN would suddenly or disproportionately diverge from the rest of the market simply because PlayStation no longer sells discs.

@kantaroo (continued) You've also listed anti-consumer behaviour such as keeping prices artificially high or running fewer sales. My question is simply, why would Sony do that?

Sony makes a significant amount of money from third party digital sales. Most of the products on PSN cost Sony nothing to develop, nothing to manufacture and virtually nothing to distribute. From an economic perspective, discounting is often in Sony's interest because they're trying to maximise profit, not necessarily maintain the highest sticker price. Low marginal distribution costs, price elasticity of demand and intertemporal price discrimination all help explain why digital storefronts regularly discount older games. Sometimes selling ten copies at half price is more profitable than selling three at full price.

That's also why I think the burden of proof sits with the claim that prices will materially increase. What's the mechanism? What evidence suggests Sony becomes more profitable by abandoning pricing strategies that have been successful across digital marketplaces for years? Greater market power could, in theory, change incentives, but that doesn't automatically mean it will.

Personally, I like physical media. I think it's one of the console's unique selling points and I hope Sony continues to support it. The bad faith takes get a bit tiring though, and I think they distract from issues consumers should be more concerned about, like digital ownership rights, licensing and game preservation.

I realise I haven't really addressed your point about the second-hand market. I don't think it materially affects the pricing of new digital games. As far as I'm aware, publishers don't sit there looking at second hand trade-in values when pricing a game. Internal metrics like demand decay, product age, seasonal promotions and revenue optimisation seem far more likely to drive pricing decisions. That doesn't mean I'm unsympathetic to people who rely on trade-ins to reduce the cost of buying new games. Losing that option would absolutely be worse for consumers. Apologies for the long read, if you got here.

@Vertere hey, thanks for the “prompt” response

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. I see Sony gaining pricing power from the elimination of a physical storefront. You don’t.
Let’s wait to see how things pan out.

PS: I totally agree that the more productive discussion is around digital ownership rights. That’s why I think this article moves the conversation forwards. Physical is dead, we need to build something new to replace it. Let-that something new be pro consumer by design.

@kantaroo Yup, if we are heading towards only owning digital products then companies need to be more transparent and accountable for what they are selling us and giving us more control over what we do own.
Also it’s not that I don’t think Sony won’t gain more control over its ecosystem/ customers. I just don’t think it’s going to operate like it’s in a vacuum. It’s a business who presumably wants to sell us a $1000 dollar PS6 which is a much different proposition than a $399 PS5. They need to give us a reason to buy it. Sorry for the long post, you bothered to lay out your case, figured I try and provide a bit more context.

I see that "The ability to sell/trade digital games" is winning. It means that all what people want is to quickly run through the game and then sell it. What a shame. We deserve for Sony to stop caring about its gamers.

Those are indeed a lot of good improvements; that would make digital-only a lot more pleasant. What I do wonder, though, is if you bought a game via Steam, you get to play for 2 hours. But if I don't like the game, can I get my purchase amount back? But is the game then permanently gone and can I no longer play it (because if I downloaded it and it's on my hard drive, surely Steam can't do anything about it anymore? Or is that being very bleak of me? A genuine question, because I don't have any votes. How does that work?

@puddinggirl hey I tell you you another thing. I’ve had a person flat out refuse me. I just kept them on the phone and they kept saying they couldn’t do anything. So I waited and called back about 10 minutes later. I got a person in the United States where I live. Atlanta Ga. They did the refund for me. My experience is the people in overseas call centers go strictly by the book. No moving on policy at all. When I’ve gotten refunds it’s always been a person in the US. They just seem to understand more for some reason. So that also something to think about. If I call now I ask right up front are you in the United States and if they say No I hang up. Waste of time. That is how I’ve done this going back to 2014.