r/gaming • u/Rich-Arm-104 • 1d ago
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 earned 35% of its $1.2 billion on disc, analyst says, but PlayStation is more interested in "control" of the market - "The disc decision was largely about margins, control, and killing the secondhand market"
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/spider-man/marvels-spider-man-2-earned-35-percent-of-its-usd1-2-billion-on-disc-analyst-says-but-playstation-is-more-interested-in-control-of-the-market/588
u/Kangarou 1d ago
We know. That’s part of the issue people have with digital-only markets.
There’s a reason GabeN is considered wildly benevolent when Valve does the bare minimum. Most companies can’t be expected to do even that, and Sony is one of them.
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u/ICC-u 1d ago
Do you know what happens as soon as companies don't do the bare minimum?
🏴☠️
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u/Juan20455 1d ago
Yeah, good luck with pirating online-only consoles
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u/Lambdafish1 1d ago
It would be harder, but the only way to prevent piracy is to make everything streaming. If the files exist on the consoles, it can be cracked and subsequently emulated, or played on a jailbroken console.
I'm not saying people should do that at all, I'm saying don't underestimate peoples ability to do it.
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u/Puddz 16h ago
It would be harder, but the only way to prevent piracy is to make everything streaming.
Until someone decides to say "fuck that i want that game for free" and figures out a way.
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u/Lambdafish1 15h ago
You can't pirate a streamed game because it isn't physically on the device. You are essentially being broadcast a screen recording from a console in a server room somewhere
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u/Normal-Tear864 1d ago
Thats game design, so you can't pirate sony games boohoo I think you'd miss out on like 3 titles a year
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u/ButWhatIfPotato 23h ago edited 23h ago
Why do you think online-only consoles are pirate-proof?
EDIT: typo
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u/Vio94 20h ago
Well, it's piracy or nothing. Either way they aren't getting my money. There are so many games to play that are available on PC, both old and new, that Sony would need to own every game studio now and forever, and keep them all exclusive, to bother giving them my money.
This isn't the genius business plan they think it is and I will die on that hill until they shove me off of it and prove me wrong.
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u/Little-Witness-1201 21h ago edited 14h ago
Steam family qualifies above bare minimum honestly. I couldn’t believe there were no limitations to it
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u/Notorious_Junk 23h ago
Gabe won't live forever. You can bet when he's gone some warlock with an MBA is going to try to boost profits by any means necessary.
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u/KarmaSaver 19h ago
Gabe is largely hands off these days anyway. Steam is not publicly traded and they know they live and die on their goodwill (just look at their competition)
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 13h ago
General leadership at valve seems on board with his ideals. They own just under half the company. Others speculate that he will leave his part to his family, and he could in theory leave it in a trust that would restrict what they could do with it, although it couldn't outright prevent some of the things that may enshitify the platform.
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u/ProfoundBootyEnjoyer 1d ago
I’d argue that they do much more than just one thing well. Yes the pricing and sales are great.
But so is their customer support, so is their game refund policy/leniency, the community workshop is amazing, family sharing is awesome, and plenty of other things that set them apart.
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u/JiminyJilickers-79 1d ago
That last part is what I've been expecting to hear. My favorite thing about having actual discs is that I can loan them to my friends or family when I'm done with them and then eventually sell it to someone for cheap. That's all potential lost sales for Sony. Sony thinks they have dominated the market to the point that they don't have to hide their anti-consumer agendas anymore.
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u/Bladder-Splatter 1d ago
Helps a heck of a lot. I bought my PS5 and it came with RE:Village which I had finished on PC a week before, but it was the only stock at the time (during the PS5 shortage) so I grabbed it. Because of discs I got to post a listing to a local Craigslist kinda thing (It's like Craigslist but with less genitals and more scammers) that I wanted to exchange a sealed RE:V for a "used" Returnal.
Week later in a shady construction site, done.
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u/UltimaGabe 21h ago
If I can recommend a resource for this sort of thing, check out /r/GameSwap. It's a subreddit that takes game trading very seriously, and takes great measures to make sure anyone using it is legit.
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u/MadCarcinus 1d ago edited 23h ago
This is what Sony fails to understand. If games weren’t sharable or rentable or not on demo discs, then I wouldn’t have bought anywhere near as many as I have over the years. So many games I own on PlayStation because my friends let me try them, or I rented them from Blockbuster, or I tried them on the demo kiosk at Target, and what did that make me do? It made me fall in love with the games and buy them, at full price even. Taking away the ability for the customer to try out games, even ones lended, kills the sales of games.
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u/prunebackwards 21h ago
It's even more egregious with how utterly awful Sony's consumer rights are. Even if you start simply downloading something you've bought, you're not eligible for a refund without significant effort.
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u/ermagerditssuperman 23h ago
Yeah there's a lot of games I was on the fence on, that I would have never tried if it didn't pop up at my local used bookstore for $10. And then I became a fan of the studio/game series/genre. It's not as though, without discs, I would have just said "Fine, I'll pay $70". I just wouldn't have played it.
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u/MadCarcinus 20h ago
Exactly. Some games and game series off the top of my head that friends introduced me to by letting me borrow their copy: Burnout, Marvel vs Capcom, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Mercenaries, Star Wars Battlefront, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Zone of the Enders, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Metal Slug, Goldeneye, Command & Conquer, Jet Grind Radio, Crazy Taxi, Virtual On, Power Stone, Tech Romancer, Robot Alchemic Drive, Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, Sniper Elite.
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u/alluballu 6h ago
Yeah, only like 3 or 4 of my 35 PS5 game collection was bought new fron retailers. Biggest reason I got the PS5 in the first place was for the physical media. I know I'm just one guy but I'm out of their ecosystem for good after this gen.
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u/Dark_Pulse 1d ago
As we all know, physical control is always about the money. Take away the phyiscal, and you have full control of everything.
Remember, this is still Sony we're talking about. Sony has always, ALWAYS wanted that irongrip control, and that easily dates back to well before the PlayStation era. Betamax failed precisely because Sony all but refused to cede control of things, resulting in everyone and their grandma going to the then-inferior VHS.
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u/xterminatr 1d ago
It's just going to encourage people to find ways to jailbreak consoles and download less than legal copies of games like the good old pirating days. The joke will hopefully be on them.
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u/Dark_Pulse 1d ago
That probably can and will happen no matter what, though obviously that will be a motivator.
The bigger challenge for Sony (and in a way, Microsoft as well) is a pretty simple one: Consoles are no longer really custom, unique hardware anymore. Fundamentally all a PS5 or an XBox is is a PC with regular computer components, abstracted behind a custom OS and hypervisor.
Jailbreaking is certainly something that will happen, but nowadays, the bigger concern for them is that an "emulator" really only needs to emulate the OS, not the hardware anymore, that can just be virtualized. Which means that if you've got a decent PC, in a way you've already got all the hardware you need, sans some stuff that has to be accounted for (graphics APIs, unified memory, etc.)
Ironically AI might even topple that theoretical "unified memory can be faster than standard consumer memory" issue that could make those emulators trickier, considering AI-enabled systems all have unified memory as part and parcel of their hardware.
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u/RibbitHoppit 1d ago
That is such a minor niche of people that I'd guess it's statistically irrelevant. Most younger people can't even figure out how a file system works because they are so used to apps and if something isn't in their most recent section it might as well have vanished into the ether.
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u/notabot3648262 1d ago
The joke will be on the people supporting this. They are in every thread acting like jackasses laughing at people that prefer discs.
Only a matter of time before Sony starts jacking up prices because people are invested in their ecosystem. That's LITERALLY the only point of this.
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u/MadCarcinus 1d ago
I thought the reason Betamax lost was because Porn chose VHS?
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u/Piranata 22h ago
Betamax lost because it held less minutes of video than VHS, but it did so at a higher quality.
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u/Major-Front 21h ago
Sony’s real competition is Steam. And they want the same amount of control that Valve has owning their own storefront. Xbox amd Nintendo aren’t competitors anymore they are kind of doing their own thing
What they don’t get is that steam is somewhat more ethical, have cheaper pricing, and also kept a little in check because there are other storefronts on pc.
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u/Jtenka 1d ago
And that's absolutely fine. While my sales won't amount to much, this is the last playstation I'll ever own.
And I am almost exclusively a digital buyer. I will occasionally snag a disc for cheap. The toxic businesss decision will only drive me to stick to PC where I can shop on different markets.
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u/RibbitHoppit 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was tempted to buy a PS5 to play GTA but now it seems like it is even more pointless. I'll just wait for PC, maybe upgrade some part
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u/Paksarra 1d ago
In the long run, everything is a PC game.
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u/UnsorryCanadian 1d ago
Developed on PC, ported to PC
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u/Bladder-Splatter 1d ago
Back in the console war days you could swear some kids thought games were programmed using dualshock/xbox buttons.
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u/Transposer 1d ago
Yup. I was a big PlayStation fan, but I was immediately turned off and had no problem not investing in their ecosystem any further. I’m not paint over a grand for a console where I have to pay a premium to play online just to be ripped off on games that I don’t own.
There are about 6 must-play PlayStation games a generation. I will just buy a used PS6 at the end of the generation, sub to Plus Extra for 3 months, play those exclusives from said service, and then will resell the PS6. There is no incentive to buy into this horse shit over PC, which I can also use for a wide range of other things as well.
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u/Icy_Indication_5563 23h ago
That's a great approach, just waiting out the generation and playing its stuff at the end. Like you said, you're basically only going to miss out on like six games in the meantime. Meanwhile Nintendo's running laps around that pace, putting out a game a month consistently. I wish we were in the alternate reality where Sony didn't go all in on live service and instead focused on their single player games and were also okay with smaller AA level titles rather than every game being a big budget cinematic experience.
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u/Transposer 23h ago
Yup. This is the way. I’m gonna play my ps5 backlog into next gen, along with switch 2 games, and then maybe go PC if I can’t wait til the end of the generation with this formula before buying a used Ps6 at the end of the gen.
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u/innercityFPV 1d ago
Same. I’m PC and Nintendo only going forward. The exclusives just aren’t worth it and my gaming PC will probably outclass the PS6 when it releases anyway.
GTA6 can wait for the PC release too. I wish I’d waited on GTA5 because I bought it for Xbox One and then rebought for PC anyway. Not going to give rockstar money twice this time
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u/AlsopK 1d ago
I’ve owned every PlayStation but 5 will be my last if PS6 is totally digital.
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u/ermagerditssuperman 22h ago
Ditto. Probably 2/3 of my game purchases are digital, but the 1/3 that are physical are important for me to have available.
For example, every single game in first person... I'm one of those many, many people that can get motion sickness from first person POV. (Apparently it's getting more widespread as graphics qualities improve enough to trick our eyes into thinking that surely, the world is moving?! Shout out to devs who've started including motion sickness presets in accessability settings though!). And it's only going to get worse as I get older, or so I hear. PlayStations return policy is essentially non-existent, I have to buy FPS on disc so I don't get 15 minutes into a game, concede that none of the accessability settings are going to be enough for me, and realize that I'm out $70 for a game I physically cannot play.
Another example is games I'm on the fence on - why risk an un-returnable $70 if I'm kinda meh on the game in the first place? Especially now that non-Japanese games rarely ever do demos anymore.
And the final category is my top-tier favorite games. These are discs I'm buying full-price, maybe even a steelbook version. For some, I even already have the digital also. Even if PlayStation doesn't exist 30 years from now, I want my pretty original Mass Effect Trilogy Steelcase on my bookshelf. And I want to continue shoving my Horizon disc into the hands of every friend who hasn't played it yet.
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u/Possible_Ad_2515 1d ago
Sony wants the used game market dead. 😭
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u/esoteric_enigma 1d ago
Every industry wants the used market dead. They don't make anything from secondary sales. So they'd rather make that $30 from selling a 2 year old game on sale than let you give it to somebody on Facebook marketplace.
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u/slotbadger 23h ago
It's never on sale when you want it though. Even when I buy a new game it's usually cheaper to get the disc version that the digital version, at least on PS5. It's stupid. Sekiro is £60 to download right now.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 1d ago
They don't care about the used market at all, it's too tiny at this point to matter. Circana guy said he hasn't received a single request by anyone in the entire 2020s for used game data. He said publishers stopped caring about that roughly 10 years ago.
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u/Generic_On_Reddit 1d ago
I hate when people search for conspiracy and malice where there doesn't need to be. Sony doesn't care about used games. They don't have to try to kill the used game market, it has been dying for a long time. That's why there are so few stores for used games. GameStop built an empire on used games and would have died years ago had they not pivoted away from that. (article)
Despite having “game” in its name, though, what’s driving so much money to GameStop at the moment isn’t video games. Instead, it’s collectibles, as 45% of GameStop’s money for this quarter was generated in this category. This means that various toys, statues, trading cards, and other products that have filled GameStop’s stores over the past few years have started to become its primary business.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 1d ago
Yeah funny enough when sony announced the digital move gamestop's CEO laughed it off because he said almost none of their business anymore is tied to used games. Lot of people aren't aware of that but they've shifted to other things.
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u/McSloot3r 1d ago
This is a bad take. There aren’t used game stores everywhere, because you can sell games on virtually any digital marketplace with a much higher profit margin and shipping things is way easier these days. Sony themselves said that they want to kill off the second hand market.
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u/Phantom-Finger 15h ago
Instead it's killed the first hand console market because I'll be fucked if I'm ever buying PlayStation anything ever again.
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u/SnooObjections4333 1d ago
Hope PS6 has a terrible launch. And please fire Herman and his cronies. With the way they’re on a spending spree with live service, they’ve forgot what put them on the map. Fuck em.
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u/Thomas_JCG 1d ago
PS6 is dead on arrival, nobody will be able to afford it.
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u/mucho-gusto 17h ago
It will sell out just to the scalper class who will sit on their vulture investment. Just like the pricks who need to buy tons of rental homes in local markets
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u/GhoulArtist 1d ago
Yes, It's obvious but it bears repeating. Loudly.
Their motivation is strictly anti-consumer , NOT "inevitable progress"
Don't fall for the reductive reasoning that disks are outdated. It can be ANY form of physical ownership.
We want to own our games and its non negotiable as far as I'm concerned. It would mayeb be different if ps5 hit it out of the park this gen but they did not.
I'll pass on future Sony gaming in favor of whatever source let's me own things.
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u/steathrazor 1d ago
The second-hand market is the biggest highlight here; they really hate seeing someone else making money off their game, not to mention the second-hand market is a huge threat that the older games are better than their newer ones.
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u/DrRealName 21h ago
The second hand market will just become pure piracy so this is not going to go their way no matter what. People want to own their games, a very reasonable expectation mind you, and they will find a way to do so regardless of what a corporation wants.
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u/Vaiden_Kelsier 21h ago
Well, they can kill their own market too at this rate. I was all geared up to buy Ghosts of Yotei on PC too, but they fucked that up, so now I'm just never buying anything of theirs again out of sheer fucking spite.
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u/zgillet 23h ago
The solution to the second-hand market is to make games people want to keep.
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u/RisingPhil 23h ago
Like Nintendo does mostly.
There's a reason first-party Nintendo games keep their value and sometimes even rise in value long after their release.
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u/thewrynoise 1d ago
Sony remember that famous line someone said?
Play has no limits? Well we found a few.
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u/Fidel_Cashflows 1d ago
No more cross-platform games, no more physical media, killing off studios, and keeping their top-level executives.
It's okay though, their recent investments have built them a stable of studios ready to entice gamers. Things like Bungie...wait no, Firewalk...wait no. At least Insomniac's Wolverine looks worth the $200M+...wait no, how about that new Kojima game...wait no.
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u/Eggheadpancake 23h ago
Has anyone calculated how many people with lack of high speed or consistent internet even in America alone gets fucked over by all this?
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u/SaveADay89 1d ago
The worst part is that you have gamers arguing for Sony!
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u/nisamun 1d ago edited 1d ago
This report is based on info from Alinea Analytics which who basically make stuff up and are wildly inaccurate. People say they are worse than VGChartz.
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u/Dogarc123 1d ago
I'll never argue for Sony but I'll argue against using unverified information as facts and spreading misinformation and trying to scare people into thinking Sony will take your games from you once their all digital.
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u/Gavorn 1d ago
I think people aren't arguing for Sony, I think people are pointing out the gamers who complain about physical copies going away, but the sales show that they aren't buying physical copies.
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u/Generic_On_Reddit 1d ago
Yes, there is a difference between saying "this is bad for gamers" and "this is a bad business decision". This is very obviously not in the best interest for gamers, but that's true of Sony's market control and the locked down nature of consoles.
But does the data support this as a business decision? Yes, basically every data point on physical sales, the used game market, etc. suggest that this makes sense. Only time will tell if they are right, but having been in favor of FOSS, Linux, distributed platforms, etc. for over 15 years, I would not bet any money on consumers voting with their wallets in favor of consumer rights.
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u/DigitalisFX 1d ago
People are generally like that, they don’t care about issues like this until it affects them personally, but by then it will be too late to go back.
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u/Gavorn 1d ago
I also think more people PC game than in the past and we have been used to no physical copies for over 20 years now tbh.
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u/DigitalisFX 1d ago
Yep, that’s me, I haven’t used my consoles in the past 3 years. Canceled all my subscriptions. PC gaming is cheaper, generally speaking, once you’ve passed that hardware hump. Constant sales, various markets, and the return policy on steam is fantastic. I’ve used it a few times now when I realized a game just wasn’t for me. The big 3 would never.
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u/truckstick_burns 1d ago
Yea, at retail you have to share a chunk of the sale with the store, if force your customers to buy through your digital store that cut (and your original cut) now goes to you.
It's all about making that share price go up even more.
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u/Newkular_Balm 1d ago
I worked in video game retail from 2002-2015. my small-medium retailers paid 57.99 for a 59.99 new game (quantity in the hundreds) my GameStop paid 52.99, presumably because they bought in the tens of thousands. but all the retailers were forced under threat of fines to charge 59.99. (I know this is a small subset and aged data, but during my time it's all I knew)
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u/Sol_System209 17h ago
"The disc decision was largely about margins, control, and killing the secondhand market". Yes, we know.
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u/idothinksotim 1d ago
That's what a few of us have been saying.
I mean I think it's pretty obvious, but we still had people insisting otherwise... that somehow Sony was just "following consumer preferences". No. It's a decision based on malicious intent to control a market, eliminate competition, eliminate choice for consumers, and eliminate consumer ownership.
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u/SimulationConvection 1d ago
I don't agree with many things Sony does including getting rid of discs, but these analyst numbers are total nonsense. They are just making stuff up, they have no sales data to pull from. They also have a bias because if they provide these bogus numbers it gets articles made that then promotes their analytics firm. It is just an attempt to make money in the end.
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u/ggallardo02 1d ago
Why do you talk in past sense as if this article is the final statement that closed the argument forever?
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u/shadyultima 1d ago
One thing I haven't seen discussed regarding the impact of second hand sales is how it impacts DLC sales.
A person may buy the base game, get the DLC, the sell their game to someone else who then also buys the DLC.
So the publisher gets to sell the DLC multiple times for the same copy of the base game.
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u/Richmondez 1d ago
That is pretty much the whole reason for the "day 1" "dlc" packages, to ruin resale value.
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u/TheGrenglish 1d ago
Don't think an analyst was needed to tell us this. It's pretty obvious they're hedging their bets on the sales numbers going down but revenue per game going up.
Removing the second hand market also means they'll get some of those customers too.
It's shitty, and they'll probably suffer somewhat but it's only money to them and if they can down their costs and maintain profit then they'll do whatever they want.
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u/nisamun 1d ago edited 1d ago
The analyst is Alinea Analytics who has been shown to have no real insight and extremely wrong with their numbers over and over.
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u/kyuubikid213 1d ago
This article is genuinely nothing but empty confirmation bias for the blindly pro-physical crowd.
Some random guy said something just like all of you redditors say nonsense and it's an article you literally nod along to and go, "yep, figured as much."
They picked four titles that they may have made a bit more revenue from with physical and it's the same small handful of games that always get brought up. Spider-Man 2, Astro Bot, Ghost of Yotei, and Death Stranding 2.
You guys make it too easy.
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u/mixmaster321 1d ago
AAA companies have been wanting to be digital only for a while. The market just didn’t accept it back then. From games like Battlefield 3 requiring a unique “online pass” to play online to Xbox One not allowing you to share games, this trend has been a long one. It’s just that over COVID, the market moved in the direction the companies wanted, which is that 90%+ of gamers buy their games digitally. Suddenly, their greedy reason to abolish used games can now be justified by market trends
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u/Redstorm8373 1d ago
In other news, water is wet.
None of this is new, this is simply another tool they are using to accomplish their long term goals.
Publishers have been trying to kill the secondary market for video games for decades.
Pretty much every business in the history of forever has always wanted to control every aspect of the exchange from production, to delivery, to the point of sale. This gives them complete control to charge whatever they want at every step of the process, to squeeze every possible dime out of everyone along the way. The technology and political climate now make that more possible in a lot of industries, and in gaming specifically, they're hoping that their audience is hooked enough that while we might complain, we won't actually do much about it.
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u/Thefrayedends 1d ago
Killing the second hand market has got to be some of the dumbest MBA brain type thinking. People who have the spare money just buy the game. This method just prevents more people from playing a game they might not have otherwised played. Having second hand copies available helps keep full piracy at bay. They're also just creating a greater incentive for piracy cracks.
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u/notmyfakeid_hd 1d ago
Yeah this is really obvious. For example, Hitman WOA has been around $30 for a PS5 disc for a new disc at Walmart/Target for the last 2-3 years however its still $70 on the PS Store. I believe this is the case across games.
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u/jfkdown 19h ago
That's because digital games don't take up shelf space. If Walmart could keep the price at $70 they would, but because it's not selling they have to lower the price so they can get something else on those shelves.
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u/ManOnDaSilvrMT 17h ago
It's not just that. When multiple retailers are selling the same product there is an incentive to price better than your competitor (not that that always happens). If the market goes entirely digital then there's no need for third party retailers meaning a total monopoly on the market and pricing.
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u/impuritor 1d ago
Another way to put this is that it earned significantly less than half on disc. That’s to say nothing of manufacturing, shipping, warehouse storage, or revenue splitting
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u/Marak830 1d ago
Of course. Some MBA saw a channel they could carve to give them more control (and thus more money), and damn the consequences for two reasons.
1) next quarters profits.
2) so many chuckle fucks will still buy playstations.
Thus proving the MBA's right that.
Addendium: with PC prices spiking I should probably forgive some for their aforementioned chuckle fucks but I'm not in the mood :-p
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u/thediecast 1d ago
I hate this ‘if someone still buys they’re dumb’ most people don’t actually care. It doesn’t affect them at all. People arguing about this online are a minority.
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u/Blackcl0ud38 1d ago
I’m convinced anyone defending Sony is a bot. This only benefits them and not us consumers.
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u/lew_rong 1d ago
I've been a PS player for 5 generations, but I'd switch in a heartbeat if the next gen Xbox still has discs while PS6 forgoes them. However, I've long since come to grips with the fact that I'm not the target audience for console gaming and haven't been for years, now. The number 5 may be my last ride on Metal Gear, GTA, and PS lol
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u/NopeSorryNo 1d ago
That's the thing. People.understand Sony is a business and their business model isn't "benefitting customers". Your idea of what this relationship really is, is just not correct.
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u/Lollipopsaurus 1d ago
Yeah it’s control. Secondary sales don’t count. They’d rather sell release licenses at full price, then get the person who will wait to pay at $30 with a digital purchase than not see that $30.
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u/HanzoNumbahOneFan 23h ago
It was only ever about money. There's too much to gain for them if they stop people from buying used games. It also stops people from buying the games at sales that aren't controlled by Sony.
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u/Pyromoto_ 23h ago
Hopefully PS6 launch abysmally than Sony can enjoy having "control" over an empty playstation ecosystem.
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u/ShroomlyJenkins 23h ago
This was obvious to anyone who gave it a minutes thought. Sony obviously tried to spin it to say they are moving with the times, customers don't buy physical anymore etc. but it was always nonsense. Unfortunately a large section of people ate it up but such is life these days.
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u/maxis2k 23h ago
Been trying to warn people for two decades about this with Hollywood. They will sacrifice tremendous amounts of potential profits for control. And have been trying to get rid of physical media for a while. Sony is just going warp speed with it. The company that got everyone onto DVD and BD is trying to do what Disney has been doing for 20 years, but in the span of a couple years.
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u/generated_user-name 23h ago
I used to spend a lot on games. I buy new cause I like a new disc and to have it. Prices go up, I buy less. Now I can’t even have the disc? I’ll find better use of my time now
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u/bloke_pusher 23h ago
They simply estimate that half of those 35% will get it digitally, then they increase prices by a few percentage and in future keep the prices up like Nintendo does. It's an easy win for them, in their eyes.
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u/cloistered_around 20h ago
They think most of that market will just buy it digitally, though. And sure some will... definitely not all. Some people will always want the disc for display or longevity purposes.
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u/CDF96Eire 1d ago
I think it’s such a shame they are actively trying to kill the secondhand market. Such an unnecessary decision made based on pure greed.
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u/JascaDucato 1d ago
It's always been about control. The "shift to digital" wouldn't be anywhere near as newsworthy if it wasn't coupled with the ownership/licensing conundrum (poor internet coverage gamers notwithstanding).
Further still, when gamers have no choice but to purchase a game via an interested parties' web store, prices will inevitably rise because of the resulting monopoly over the industry.
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u/Harry_Flowers 1d ago
Yea no shit, that’s why it’s wild to me that there are still gamers so adamantly defending the decision.
They have no clue they’re digging their own grave.
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u/WelshBluebird1 1d ago
So the vast majority was digital. I don't see how this disproves anything Sony have said about the reasoning?
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u/Hybr1dth 1d ago
Duh. Once the PS Store is the only place to buy games they fully control all aspects of pricing, and have already demonstrated being fine with dynamic pricing to boost sales. I hope eventually they start feeling the pain, but so far people are still buying.