Lots of internet noise on this whole thing. Let's see what the consumer will do. We went through this with Nintendo with the #droptheprice Fiasco. Switch2 became the best selling year one console for Nintendo.

Money talks...

There's a big difference here; the Switch 2 hardware was never overpriced for what you were getting at $449, so the sales showed that it was just a small vocal minority whining about it (Mario Kart World's $80 price not withstanding).

But the outrage over what Sony is doing is anything but.  You have every post on X that Sony makes bombarded with criticism, showing consumers are pissed.  You have other innocent publisher's games that appear on Sony's feed faring the same, so publishers are pissed.  You have retailers pissed that all they can carry are codes in boxes for the PS6, so I see less places willing to carry Sony's $1000 console.  And then there's the global outrage and lawsuits on top of that.

The only time we've seen this level of pushback before was the DRM on XBox One and even that looks like it won't compare to this in the long run.  But I guess time will tell because Sony doesn't appear to care and almost certainly will not reverse this.

Why should retailers care if there are codes or discs in the boxes they sell through?

Only retailers who also make a profit of buying and reselling used games will be pissed... all other retailers would have less competition from the used games market.

And adding ads in games and locking ads-free versions behind higher subscription tiers.

Which, to anybody who doesn’t lack reading comprehension, means charging you to skip ads. 

Why do I get the feeling all these people saying “I don’t care about Sony going digital only, I haven’t bought discs in years” will start caring once they see a “pay $X to skip ads” popup on their $1,000 PS6? The same people cheering Sony taking away their rights like a sycophantic sheep.

Oh and speaking of sycophantic sheep, this guy says he’s not a corpo bootlicker, but I’lll let you be the judge on that (I think I know what the answer is gonna be):

The $1000 price tag alone will cripple its sales. Just ask the $600 PS3.

Hell, PS5 has seen its lowest sales ever ever since prices went up.

Because absolutely nobody is going to drive to a store, buy a code in a box and input that long code, when they can just download the game from their couch. 

This is also why Sony will quickly have a monopoly. Stores won't exclusively sell codes in a box for longer than two years before gutting it due to zero sales. 

Exactly.  I thought it was pretty obvious.

This is why many stores are reporting lower preorders for GTA6 than expected.  Once people find out that all they are preordering is a code, they opt to just wait and download it on launch day.

"Absolutely nobody"... these exaggerations and black&white thinking (on both sides) kills any civil discussion about these topics.

Exaggerations aside, the point still stands.

The only hope is that retailers might put those code-in-boxes on sale at times compared to the PSN store, which is a possibility, I guess.  Otherwise, only people who would truly value having something to decorate their shelves would bother.  That is, if the box itself is even included as the standard.  It could devolve into just a bunch of cards with codes hanging on store shelves being the norm.

Adding ads in games and locking ads-free versions behind higher subscription tiers could/would be the same for physical versions, wouldn't it.

Such forms of enshitification are not tied to the distribution method of the game data.
Even if played offline there could be some generic ads on the disc which are played instead of newer downloaded ads. 

honestly this is what makes all the fearmongering in this thread so ridiculous: none of the potential issues brought up would have to be exclusive to digital only games.