Metal Gear Forums

https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/...-consoles/

Quote:
As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028.  Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.  

I knew GTAVI's digital-only release would accelerate the oncoming of the end of the physical gaming market, but even I didn't expect to see something like this confirmed so soon. A very dark day for gaming (and in general, media) preservation. That may see me done with consoles apart from Nintendo. My brother in law could only play Resident Evil Requiem and Lego Batman because I loaned him my copies, I could only buy Pokopia because I sold my copy of Mario Tennis. I'm not going to be playing much in a world of €80+ games with little to no discounts available and no recourse to moving something on if it doesn't gel with my group or if I'm finished with it and know I won't return. Fuck this and fuck Sony.

I'm sure they'll pass on the savings to the consumer!

Yeah this isn't great. If you lose your account through bans, hacks, etc you now lose your gaming collection. Combine that with games heading towards $80 and consoles trending closer to 4 digits than not...

Hopefully Xbox doesn't follow suit.

Valve must be so confused watching competitors continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

(01-07-2026, 06:05 PM)black king Wrote: [ -> ]Hopefully Xbox doesn't follow suit.

Talk going around that their next console will follow suit.

I think I'm done with consoles at this point.

I find it completely ridiculous that they're doing this. They'll take loses on console sales, but the used game market is too much of a potential lost? With this regard, they should make online free again as an attempt of any form of goodwill. Unfortunately, the masses will eat the slop and continue on without thinking twice about this.

The thing that I'm wondering about besides the immediately bullshit way this executes the used games market is:
if they're not selling physical games why would they bother putting a disc drive on the PS6? And if there's no disc drive on the PS6 are they going to come up with a way for us to carry across our PS4 and PS5 collections that only exist as discs or are those collections going to become useless? Do we have to keep our PS5 just to maintain access to our old games, meaning people that sell their old consoles to fund buying the new one are going to have to choose between the next generation of gaming and all the games they're amassed since 2013?

This is so anti-consumer it's baffling. I can't believe it's only taken Sony two console generations to fall so far from this:

(02-07-2026, 01:44 PM)Dirty Duck Wrote: [ -> ]The thing that I'm wondering about besides the immediately bullshit way this executes the used games market is:
if they're not selling physical games why would they bother putting a disc drive on the PS6? And if there's no disc drive on the PS6 are they going to come up with a way for us to carry across our PS4 and PS5 collections that only exist as discs or are those collections going to become useless? Do we have to keep our PS5 just to maintain access to our old games, meaning people that sell their old consoles to fund buying the new one are going to have to choose between the next generation of gaming and all the games they're amassed since 2013?

This is so anti-consumer it's baffling. I can't believe it's only taken Sony two console generations to fall so far from this:

Since it was announced I've been 90% sure it's part of their way of telling us that the PS6 will have no disc drive. It also makes sense with regards to the GTA VI announcement. A game that will likely be played by people up to 10 years if not longer, of course Rockstar would say they're not making a disc version if it's future upgrades on the next system will be obsolete in a year's time for anyone that went with that version. Microsoft are rumoured to be testing a system that converts a disc-based game into a digital licence that will only stay on your system / account as long as the disc isn't used again in another system / account, otherwise it will be transferred. I could say that was Sony's plan too but 1.) I don't actually believe I trust MS to implement this given what's been going on over there and 2.) if this was Sony's intention, I believe they would have announced it. They haven't and have literally given us a date of death of physical media with them so I think it'll be left to say what Don Mattrick did years ago when asked about Microsoft's Xbox One plans, which (to paraphrase) was "we have a system for those games, the older one".

I suspect that either the PS6 won't be backwards-compatible at all, will only have disc drives as a peripheral, or perhaps Sony is banking on people just ponying up for digital copies of games they already own on disc.

Of course, this comes in the aftermath of Sony's announcement that they're deleting hundreds of Studio Canal films purchased (not rented!) from Playstation digital stores due to some licensing reasons. No refunds. You don't even own the stuff you've "bought" apparently. One can only imagine what that might mean for games that have, say, music licenses expire, or the fate of licensed IPs in general going forward.

Only time I've ever bought a digital game on PlayStation was if it was heavily discounted. I suppose once the PS6 is home brewed I'd give it a go?