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I knew what the latest State of Play’s live chat was going to look like before I took a few screenshots, and it turns out I wasn’t far off the mark.
In fact, if anything I miscalculated the strength of sentiment around Destiny 3, as I’d say demand for the hypothetical Bungie sequel almost matched the number of comments about physical discs.
Make no mistake about it, though, this was a disastrous look for Sony. There was no anticipation for the event itself, just streams of CD emojis and #NoDiscNoBuy hashtags.
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It’s consistent with what we’ve seen on social media since the company announced its decision to cease manufacturing discs in January 2028.
While the numbers have certainly declined since their peak, practically every post by the platform holder is seeing some form of snarky response.
And I think the toxicity is tainting everything the manufacturer does.
This week’s State of Play was not good – as reflected by our poll rating where 59% of you said it was ‘Poor’ or ‘Very Poor’ – but I personally don’t think it reflected a console devoid of content, like the most reposted social media takes would lead you to believe.
And yet, for want of a better word, there’s a “stank” around everything PlayStation right now. Any hint of bad news is getting amplified.
A good example is a new policy implemented by Sony Japan which is designed to protect its employers from harassment.
This, as I understand, is connected to new Japanese labour laws which requires companies to guard their staff from customer harassment.
Yet reporting on it has linked it all back to the disc-based backlash, and social media has run with the idea that Sony is trying to silence criticism. (Which isn’t true.)
The big thing here is how much any of this will actually affect PlayStation’s ability to do business; it says it hasn’t seen any impact from the various boycotts and protests that are taking place, and I tend to believe it. (We’ll get further evidence as it releases future financial reports.)
But there’s no question the platform holder is losing control of the conversation.
It’s reluctance to actually address these issues and communicate with its customers is allowing negative sentiments to fester.
Whether it can actually resolve this in a climate of misinformation remains to be seen, but I do wonder whether it’ll ever be “fun” to talk about PlayStation again.