The policy doesn't come into effect for another 18 months. GTA6 releases in a just a few. You don't need GTA6 for Sony to have made this decision which has already been 2-3 years in the making.

But there's no denying that GTA6 will make the case that the vast majority of gamers won't care that it's digital only; which shouldn;t come as a shock considering even the likes of Capcom are seeing digital vastly outpace physical sales.

Yeah I also find GTA timing suspicious...

whether it's Sony piggy banking off Rockstars announcement and using it as a Trojan horse to give their decision more context or Rockstar being compelled by an awareness of the impending discless future, I don't think it's a coincidence.

I mean Sony has clearly poured some financial support Rockstars way in terms of marketing & release (Best on Playstation, entire GTA branded UI) so Rockstar going an all digital route would be something they were aware of and unprecedented for such a big AAA game. The logic of it being used to avoid leaks just sounds a bit overkill to me. Every AAA game has gone through the same process but suddenly GTA can't dare afford to be printed onto disc lol. The most damaging leaks we've seen was TLOU2 and that had nothing to do with disc distribution. 

As far as Sonys plan, they would have gradually been reducing disc production throughout the gen & thus had long term plan already in place for end of the disc production or what they're factories would look like with extremely limited disc production. The exact timing however was likely a moving topic as is always the case of these things. Likely the exact date/decision and announcement strategy was made sooner than a lot of people are suspecting.

I remember with PS4 generation, the system having 8 GB of GDDR5 Ram instead of 4 was something that was decided/procured last minute(12months before release), which caught MS & third parties by surprise.

i think we should all not buy gta 6 and put a real dent in its sales

I wont, but even Youtubers making several videos about how bad Sony is are still buying this game. Its gonna be an uphill battle...

I waited a few days to comment to be as clear as possible on the matter, but ultimately, the death of physical media will be a watershed moment for me between the past and the future.

For me, gaming has always been tied to a physical copy, wherever possible, for collection (and I'm thinking of 8-, 16-, and 32-bit games), for resale (and I'm thinking of some of my PS2 and Wii games), or for used purchases (and I'm thinking of a good portion of my PS3 and PS4 games). Then I think back to how many games I've traded with friends over the years, lent and received, and all the ones I've received as gifts during the holidays or given myself. Games tied to special moments, and special moments tied to special games.

For me, it's always been very important; in fact, all the games that are important to me and that define a platform have always been physical.
So it's not something I can overlook over time: from now on, I will only support those systems that allow physical copies, like Nintendo at this point, for as long as it lasts.

That said, I fear that young people and future generations raised on digital games on smartphones will surely come to terms with it; in fact, they won't even care.

But what's the point? In my opinion, the retail sector—that is, the presence of physical PlayStation, Nintendo, or Microsoft branded items in every corner of the planet, distributed extensively from small shops to large retail chains—was precisely what made a console perceived as such, a special world in itself, very different from both the smartphone universe (iOS, Android) and the personal computer world, which, as we know, has been all-digital for decades (but at least you have a copy of the installation files there, if you want!).

Without the widespread network of physical items that has distinguished PlayStation and Xbox until now, what could possibly differentiate one game box from another? The sticker on it? The operating system... Xbox with Windows? PlayStation and Steam with Linux?

But above all, what will stop a thousand other companies, which until now have failed to establish themselves, often due to their inability to establish themselves in the now consolidated physical distribution network, from releasing their own game box... I'm thinking of Apple, Amazon, Google, but also Huawei, Lenovo and so on. How long will it take NVIDIA to eat them all for breakfast?

I don't see a bright future for us gamers, and never mind, in the end (and thankfully) we (and I'm talking about those who care about ownership) will still have tens of thousands of 'retro' games to play and replay from here to eternity.

Yeah the twitter backlash is nice but people also have to put their mouth where there money is.

I have a feeling very few of the vocal groups are actually unsubscribing from PSN, avoiding the next few 1st party titles or avoiding purchases all together.

I feel like removing physical games from this industry is like removing movie theaters from that industry. They are both such a big part of the experience of games and movies for some. Becoming something you just download and only play/watch at home just seems so boring and reclusive.

Avoiding physical games is not a thing we should be doing, and I certainly won't ignore any physical game until they keep being made. That's the point of even wanting physical games, so we can have them.

I've cancelled my PS+ sub renew even before this announcement, prices are already too high. I was waiting for a double deal on both PS+ and coupouns for credit for store, but yeah, it's going to run out unless they reverse this.

Companies are not charity and customers mean money for them, that's perfectly fine, I'm not expecting an unreasonable fairytale dreamland Sony, but we are still both parts benefiting mutually from the transaction, supposedly.

Sony needs to benefit from it, which they surely have been doing for the entire generation yearly on a streak of record breaking results, so it's not like Sony needs to do what they are doing, they want to do it, which is very different.

As customers have been disrespected twice already both by the announcement and by Sony ignoring to address the result of it, for the service they provide they'll also need to show actual compromise to customers from now on too.

I know what you mean, but yea i wont be buying any digital.games from the psn anymore.

But in eyes of others those ARE just"words"