4fold

So they are saying they didn’t negotiate a great deal. Why would they look to clear that up?…oh, I suppose MS must have been pissed by the story.

I would say they only need to hold out 1 generation of gamers to reap big rewards, about 15 years; just like with Microtransactions, it’s now completely normal and nobody questions it…but then will there be another strong generation of PlayStation gamers without the ability to give games to your kids or younger siblings? Without cheap second hand games allowing kids to experience all PlayStation’s has to offer and get people into the franchises? So short sighted by Sony.

Unless they at least allow digital game ownership to be gifted away, this is the start of PlayStation decline. All so they can make some fast bucks by further monetising those already in the ecosystem, like they admitted.

@VeldinX
This is a censored version? If so that’s me immediately out.

If it’s just the lack of rewind features then I’m completely fine with that, I’d rather not have the temptation of that crutch. I presume as it’s a PS4 game it still has trophy challenges

This obviously doesn’t count all the second hand game purchasing and trades between friends that physical allows. No short term money in that so it’s not looked at, despite keeping gaming alive and active between generations and those on lower income, like teenagers, who will spend more money when older.

Forced to visit my wife’s friend this weekend, but brought the portal and will stream broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Reforged. Haven’t played it since PS1 original.

Actually looking forward to trying this. Will there be added trophy challenges?

All they need to say is that they are committed implementing a digital return policy and lending/sale ability before discs are scrapped.

Without that they may as well stay silent and just take the loss.

Might be helpful to mitigate next gen potentially not having a disc drive, but it won’t solve the real problem of discs going bye bye.

@nomither6
What do you mean? My time is limited so I need fewer game options to fill that time, thus I don’t need multiple systems 🤷‍♂️ pretty self explanatory I thought.

@nomither6
I have limited spare time to play. Maybe 90 minutes a day. If I can’t play all the games I want on one platform, having more than one would be a needless waste of money.

@Sweetz
I think it’s obviously fair to say that people that engage with gaming websites like this are more enthusiast that the general PlayStation user base.

Sony clearly don’t care about them as much, as the more discerning usually skews older, and it’s the Fortnite pocket money kids and COD/FIFA young adults that spend all the money, so certainly good they avoided saying this poll is representative of PlayStation players, hence their categorisation.

@johnedwin
Why do you not consider the poll representative? If you force me to buy digital, which is already going to be massively more expensive due to the inability to resell, then I want the best sales (steam) and the option to return a game if I don’t like it after a few hours (steam). As PC also has more games (including VR, which Sony seem to have abandoned) and I’m bored with Sony’s cookie cutter narrative adventures by now, I really see no reason to stay with Sony. They already killed a good amount of my goodwill with their increased censorship policies over Nintendo and Steam from 2018, and this announcement, along with the increased price pushing console gaming into a more premium cost category anyway, absolutely makes PC a much more logical proposition for me. And no, I haven’t had an Xbox since the 360 and don’t expect any better of MS.

Actually looks quite good. Obviously designed around being easily released on Switch, but at least the character models are fun.

I’ll stick with P4 Golden on the trusty VITA then (luckily I have the physical game). Ridiculous change, especially given the character arc.

I’ve had PlayStation since PS1 (my first system was a secondhand Commodore 64 and, thanks to two brothers, I’ve had all Nintendo, SEGA, and Xbox consoles too (well, only the original XBox and 360). Basically I’m system agnostic but have mained PlayStation most of the time and never had a true gaming PC.

I’ll probably get one once I’m finished with PS5 though. Partly because I don’t believe they’ll allow the same refund policies as Steam, nor as low prices, but mainly because their first party games bore me now and they’ve pretty much abandoned PSVR2. Much more choice on PC, including far more VR games, plus cheaper prices, makes it a pretty each choice now I’ve actually been forced to think about it.

I think there are a lot of people like me who just really haven’t had a reason to consider leaving the PlayStation ecosystem until this gen (well, I did during the 2018 censorship run, but not enough given my investment up to that point).

Thinking of that, I wonder how much my PS Account is worth with its uninterrupted PS Plus run from the end of the PS3 era…)

@naruball
I said the devs, not Sony. The devs are just getting more views, it’s Sony getting the bad press (rightfully so).

You know, I do wonder, are some devs happy for their game trailers and other announcements to be flooded with these comments? I imagine they are getting a lot more views because of it. Sure the comments aren’t relevant, but has that ever been important?

Will probably try this the . I like rogue likes and have only heard good things.

I like how they specified that none of the first part “public ally announced” games are being cancelled.

I wouldn’t be surprised if MS actually release their own streaming platform and clamp down hard on YouTube.

What people need to understand is that, what Sony and MS mean by “players” is not the traditional player. We are not profitable enough. They mean a load of kids spamming their pocket money on skins and gatcha rolls, and loads of people playing candy crush and spending money on time gated…whatever. Of those there could be billions. If they focus more on China and India. But of traditional players, these companies can’t get the growth that capitalism demands.

This actually happened to me on Xbox. I lost all my 360 games and achievements and that stopped me even considering a later console from them. It’s crazy how these companies can just steal purchased products.

@CallMeDuraSouka
Remains to be seen, but they do clearly say

“ We’ll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that’s at retailers or PlayStation Store. ”

Gotten into granblue fantasy relink and really liking it so far. The only annoyance is it’s another game with cheat codes (listed as “accessibility options”) that allow for gradients of reduced damaged all the way up to invincibility. It’s hard to play a JRPG based on levelling up when you can effectively do so immediately from the options menu. Please devs, stop doing this! It just makes you constantly feel like every enemy is a needless damage sponge and that you are wasting your life by playing properly. At the very least turn off trophies when using such options.

@Old-Red
I completely take your point about second hand sales and game lending, but I would also say it is more of a younger person thing, and gamers are aging. I swapped games with friends when I was younger too, but they’ve all since stopped gaming other than live service tosh, and are young kids still playing single player games?

CEX is still the cheapest way to game by far, but as disposable income exceeds time available with age, that becomes less of an issue.

I do flip flop between the idea So y want to destroy the second hand market and that they don’t care much. Especially as Microtransactions take over as the dominant way to make money. When someone gets bored with a game and passes it on they are less taking away an important revenue stream and more opening one up with a new player…

@Old-Red
Thanks, I’ll read the table later.

On the bullet points though, it is obvious to see that the ones highlighted as selling way more physically are games bundled with the console. So I would point that out.

Also, I can’t really get on board with the idea that you can’t count games that don’t have a physical option. Market economics would indicate that if it’s not released physically it’s because the publishers has indications there is no demand for physical.

Ultimately this isn’t useful data I don’t think. What would be useful is to see the percentage of gamers who are only digital. Because Sony can still lose much of those digital sales if consumers buying mainly digital would choose another platform if they couldn’t get some games physically.

@Old-Red
I’d like to see a source for that please. Everything I can find says this 15% figure includes all DLC and Microtransactions on the digital side (although I find that hard to believe given I’d think a good 95% of total revenue comes from the likes of Fortnite and other “gaming” hangouts).

I’m interested to find out how much Sony lose in digital sales when everyone who wants the option to get physical moves to the green walled garden next gen (assuming Xbox still allow physical media, which they absolutely should if they want to win back market share now), or move to PC, because they had previously been put off by the lack of physical games. It’s not only the 15% Sony are putting at risk because those who buy tentpole physical games also buy lots of smaller digital games. Not to mention all the Microtransactions.

@Nf157
Of course they wanted to do it, they just needed an excuse, even a bad one (and it is a bad one, as 15% of the current market is still way more than 85% of the ps3 market in financial terms).

The reason they want it is virtual store monopoly and the destruction of the second hand game market, giving them greater pricing control. The same reason every publisher wants it.

It’s short sighted as it will reduce the future player base, but then business is designed around short term gains.

@Titntin
You mean “saleable/tradeable download tickets”, which is the main point when digital doesn’t have that option, nor a semblance of a return policy.

Sony either just don’t care or have a terribly naive marketing department. Communication has been awful for years.

In regards to ditching physical, they have missed that hardcore fans and collectors may not drive the most revenue, but they maintain a culture that gets others invested in the community. To throw them away is madness.

Not to mention the madness of throwing away the biggest advantage - the games players have collected from past generations locking them into the ecosystem. Now new consoles won’t benefit from that.

The writing has been on the wall a long time though. Since 2018, when a large community of open minded gamers were crapped on in order to pander to non or casual gamers demanding censorship of the games and devs Sony built their name on in many markets.

I only really stayed with Sony due to VR and my history/trophy collection. The former is better on PC unfortunately. The later not enough to keep me.

The only way for Sony to pull this bad PR around is to announce a slew of pro consumer digital changes - return periods and trading of licenses being the big ones.

@Stevemalkpus
Here: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/06/sony-will-permanently-delete-550plus-movies-you-already-paid-for

This only counts new purchases. If you took into account second hand sales I’m sure it would be a completely different picture. But then removing the secondhand market is precisely what all these publishers want.

Crosscode looks good. Although it’s another game with the ever tempting bloody cheat mode again, which I find really tiring to avoid, especially late in games.

Nothing else interests.

What an own goal for PS6. So many people with a huge catalogue of physical games, locked to the PlayStation ecosystem, and now instead of getting a PS6 to play them in a superior form (ideally) they now get no benefit from getting any console. Sony just threw away the fact they had people locked into their ecosystem. Madness!

Gaming is about to get massively more expensive. No second hand game market to buy from or sell to. I don’t suppose Sony will improve their options in this area, not without government intervention anyway.

I tried Uncharted for the first time about 5 years ago. A repetitive cover based shooting gallery that bored me to tears until I had to stop. They are right, it would need a huge amount of modernisation, at which point they might as well just put that effort into a new game.

Some games can just get too big. Will this update include new trophy challenges?

@FreasurePlanten
You can certainly own a digital license. You can also steal a digital license (for example, stealing someone’s PSN account would mean you steal all their digital licenses). I’m not sure what your point is on that one.

But, yes, it is a concern that people are generally duped into thinking they have bought goods rather than buying a license that may be limited in duration, T&C’s or no. At the least, I think these companies should be obligated to disclose how long they hold the rights for, so the customer can decide whether to risk them renewing or not.

@Zeke68
To be honest, the requirement to play the online element to get all the trophy challenges, and so 100% the game, really puts me off. Im hoping they don’t do that in 6. I have no interest in social gaming of any type other than split screen at home. Not hopeful though, it’s clearly a standard cynical practice for them - getting single player gamers to artificially inflate their online engagement numbers.

Not sure how a decision can be reached without knowing the impact of this extra stuff. It might just be cosmetic, or even weapons or cars from the mission, but which are completely outpaced by others available in the base game. Personally I hate the concept of ultimate editions at launch anyway, which means I prefer the easier option of all the stuff in said editions being limited and pointless, so I get your idea, but if people are paying a good chunk extra, then they should get a good chunk of extra content I guess.

Personally, I’ll be waiting until it’s a decent price anyway due to the lack of a resaleable option. I mean, I still haven’t even played GTA5, despite the wife owning it, so it’s not like I can’t resist these games lol.

@Blaze215
That’s not a logically consistent argument, but I can certainly get on board with the sentiment.

If you look at the biggest markets, in Asia, he is right, it’s mainly live service

Shame. Would have preferred 3 games with a more in depth story. 3 trophy lists would also be fun.

If they care about the market they need to remove the 2018 censorship decisions to align themselves with Nintendo again in this regard, and so increase the number of viable games.

What do they mean the physical version doesn’t contain a disc. Is it just a code? And the code only a one time use so no resale? That’s pretty sh*tty

I’m conflicted about this. Sometime some people do just want a low effort (for them) small and cheap game to spend a bit of time. I’ve played a few, mainly on VITA when away from home. What this will do is stop the store getting cluttered with these games…but surely this is just Sony giving up on proper curation.

Looks right up my street

Then I guess I’ll be waiting longer until it’s finished and I can buy it, like I have for BALL X PIT.

That’s the problem with these large companies. They have the money to invest in higher yield areas, like AI. Microsoft are the same.