After the Digital Markets Act in the EU specifically targeting apple in 2023 and recently the CMA in the UK expecting to do the same it was very clear that there is going to be a legal European trend for large locked down ecosystems to allow for 3rd party storefronts.

Before Sony never had to explore accommodating such a thing because buying PlayStation games was never a monopoly, there were 1000s of storefronts where you could purchase games physically and online. But now in 2028 there will be strictly 1 place and 1 storefront to buy PlayStation games and history shows that the EU will not be happy about this.

It seems to me like there's only 2 solutions for this:

1. Sony allow the Epic Games Store, Battlenet, EA, Ubisoft connect etc to be downloaded onto your console and exist as a storefront alongside the PlayStation store for 3rd party games.
2. Officially allocate digital codes to publishers that they will pay for to use on their online storefronts to buy 3rd party games there

I'm pretty sure of course the plan is to do and say nothing and wait for the law to force them into a decision.

Aren't there some rules that define which company falls under the DMA? Or am I wrong in thinking that.

The DMA covers companies that have a significant impact on the EU market, operate a core platform and have a large durable user base. 

The only arguable one is the core platform part. But giving the size of gaming in the world I think it would either be covered or modified to cover it 

Would the whole code in a box thing not solve this? A lot more games are surely gonna do what GTA 6 is doing in the coming years as a way to retain a level of retail presence.

Sure that's definitely still okay. But it's surely more of a stopgap than a foreseeable future situation?

I guess we'll see what happens once retail presence diminishes in importance enough that Rockstar and whatnot abandon retailers.

When Steam took over PC gaming we still had code-in-a-box releases up until 2014. But eventually storefronts stopped carrying them. Longterm it is not a solution at all. 

It would be interesting if the code-in-box releases at retailers mean we start seeing key sites for PS5 games like steam gets lol.

Key sites are sometimes run by people who steal credit cards and then buy game keys with said stolen credit cards. Game companies have to eat the CC chargeback while also allowing the person who redeemed the code to keep the game. 

Maybe on the short term, but due to the unpopular nature of the code-in-a-box, it will incentivize people to buy on their storefront and less at retail. Long term, retailers will carry less and less until they stop completely.

so they won’t have a monopoly out of the gate on their ecosystem, but it’s a mean to go there eventually.