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Slownenberg on 04 August 2026
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PAOerfulone said:

82/18 ratio in favor of digital.

THAT'S why they're going all-digital.

Even if by some insane hypothetical scenario where that entire 18% just leaves PlayStation altogether and maybe say 10% of the digital because of the loss of a physical/disc option - I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air by the way, don't put any real weight to them. Say the PS5 finishes with 110 million units lifetime (I don't think it's catching the PS4, I didn't think it would before, but after the recent price hike and the all-digital announcement - I DEFINTELY don't think it will now.) a drop of 28% would put PS5 at 79.2 million units.

I'm pretty sure Sony will be content with that because they know they'll build that number back up as the years go by and the newer generations embrace all digital.

The fact of the matter is - We live in a digital world now. Everything is digital. *EVERYTHING.* Games, TV, Music, Movies, Banking, your insurance, a lot more jobs now require you to have a cell phone and to download an app to clock in and out of work. Every streaming app and almost every form of entertainment or office work now requires a wifi connection. AI is becoming more and more prominent in workspaces and writing rooms. (Going to be a very long time before you see a console under $400 ever again after the Series S).
Gaming is just the latest one to catch up.
That's why the 'No Disc/No Buy' movement had no real weight to it because a) Half those people are most likely going to buy anyway. b) It's inevitable.
Trying to preserve physical is like trying to swim against a rip tide - You just can't do it. You're doomed to fail from the start.
The focus should instead be on reinforcing and strengthening digital rights laws for consumers.

You're gonna get a lot of hate for that but you ain't wrong. Movies/shows, music, newspapers, magazines, consumer software, PC games...it's all mostly or entirely digital and has been for a while. Console games are literally one of the last forms of media where it's still normal to go to a store to purchase the thing (books obviously being the one thing that will continue to stay significantly physical but that's because there is a big tangible difference between physical and digital there, still digital books and e-readers are very popular too).

It makes total sense that eventually console games are gonna go the way of PC games and be entirely digital. Also whenever I see people saying they will never buy digital games I wonder if they play on PC at all, cuz if so that makes no sense haha.

Anyway, I'm not saying Sony dropping physical games is good, but it is the way the whole console industry will go eventually, following in the footsteps of pretty much all other forms of media. Nintendo will last longer with physical just because they have portable systems and so to keep size and cost down as compared to big expensive home consoles they gotta limit the storage capacity. Still, it's kinda annoying to have to swap out games on a Switch. This ain't the days when there were no OS's and the system was off except when a game was in the cartridge slot. It's way more convenient to just have all your games directly in the system's storage. I myself have like 50+ digital Switch games and i think 6-8 physical, just because it's more convenient and I don't plan to sell my Switch games so there's no real upside for me.

But I get the desire to own physical things, it was cool back in my college days having like over a dozen systems all hooked up and a big shelf of like 400 games spanning a couple decades. But as the person I'm quoting said, we live in a digital world, it's natural for things to move to fully digital format. Whether people like it or not. And yeah, strengthening digital rights laws for consumers is obviously important for the digital age.