It's the ultimate push to turn everything into the perfect Capitalist (not market-oriented) business solution: Getting paid for nothing
If your goal is to accumulate capital, and there are not outside forces regulating your worst impulses, you ultimately will create a class of legal-protected thieves, since the absolutely best and most risk free way to accumulate capital is to be given it in exchange for quite literally nothing.
Gambling is about as close to the platonic ideal as you can, but conquest by military force of political capture is also a very, viable route. Use the law to force people to buy your nothing and be protected for it, rather than being lynched when you steal someone's products.
I agree with you, but then isn't it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.
Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.
But it does provide nothing. Whatever AI gives is a hallucination, that’s practically nothing since it’s not information you can rely on and you have to verify it anyway.
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Compared to insufferable automated phone systems, which have existed for decades and employ exactly no one, they are a vast improvement.
Not when you realize that the "something" they're charging you for is: a) bastardized cargo culted knockoff of "something" so insubstantial that it's very nearly "something-shaped nothing" b) the "something" is made of stuff that isn't even theirs.
Not only is it giving you a bamboo and thatch sculpture of an airplane when you ask for an airplane; it's made of STOLEN bamboo and STOLEN thatch.
I hope you don't misunderstand me by my saying "something" to imply it's anything substantial, significant, or even good. I'm very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I'm coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don't improve our lives in any way. But they can't exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU's, GPU's, SSD's, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that's what I mean by "something."
That's a lot of work they're doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC's generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those inve
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I hope you don't misunderstand me by my saying "something" to imply it's anything substantial, significant, or even good. I'm very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I'm coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don't improve our lives in any way. But they can't exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU's, GPU's, SSD's, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that's what I mean by "something."
That's a lot of work they're doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC's generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.
I just don't think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?
I did not mean to sound as though I had been disagreeing with you \^.\^; my comment was more intended to have a 'yes-and' kind of vibe~
but I really do like all that you had to say here and I still agree!
While they're truly not stealing the electricity, what I would hope to imply is that they are nevertheless acquiring it via nefarious means--in that many of these data centers are building gas combustion generators to supplement their power usage in violation of environmental regulations, workplace safety standards, and generally all the laws that say "you can't do that without proper documentation and licensing" etc.
So yeah--the "stolen thatch and stolen bamboo" isn't literally stolen (like you said!) but rather just ill-gotten.
Also I have indeed noticed the way that there's so much money being thrown around, especially the funds they've gotten from "investors" which are really just debt. They're going into massive debt to pay contractors and vendors... and that cap-ex and op-ex? sometimes I wonder if t
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oh, allow me to clarify--!
I did not mean to sound as though I had been disagreeing with you \^.\^; my comment was more intended to have a 'yes-and' kind of vibe~
but I really do like all that you had to say here and I still agree!
While they're truly not stealing the electricity, what I would hope to imply is that they are nevertheless acquiring it via nefarious means--in that many of these data centers are building gas combustion generators to supplement their power usage in violation of environmental regulations, workplace safety standards, and generally all the laws that say "you can't do that without proper documentation and licensing" etc.
So yeah--the "stolen thatch and stolen bamboo" isn't literally stolen (like you said!) but rather just ill-gotten.
Also I have indeed noticed the way that there's so much money being thrown around, especially the funds they've gotten from "investors" which are really just debt. They're going into massive debt to pay contractors and vendors... and that cap-ex and op-ex? sometimes I wonder if that's the real motive. Just a big stinkin' money laundering racket to bilk people out of their savings (anyone with a managed retirement investment fund that happens to do business with these jerks) and squirrel it away on "other companies" who are "working for" them.
They AREN'T worth the effort. It's the emperor's new clothes all over again. The only thing they're really actually TRYING to do, I hypothesize, is just keep everyone distracted so they can do exactly what you said they would: make themselves 'too big to fail' and then ride off into the sunset when the shoddy facade they propped up comes crashing down, leaving the public sector to foot the bill...
Esta entrada fue editada (domingo, 5 de julio de 2026, 16:09)
Mandated insurance that isn't a crown corporation beholden to ratepayers is a perfect example. If you have mandated insurance for something, and that private insurance has a shareholder requirement to see growth every quarter, and the same amount of things are being insured, only one thing can happen:
Rates go up with denials
Payouts go down
Eventually you're paying for insurance you know is worthless but it's mandated by law.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 16:42)
there's so many assholes getting paid for nothing nowadays I don't feel like lifting a damn finger any more and I've been a hard worker all my life, I'm sure I'm not alone. A general strike can't come fast enough these fuckers need a punch in the gut
any company born after 1993 can’t make good products… all they know is exploitation, fire their workers, enshittify, be pink capitalist, eat hot cash & lie
(yes i know sony was founded before 1993 thank you)
Eat Hot Chip and Lie or Any Female Born After 1993 refers to a copypasta based on a viral tweet describing perceived behavior of female individuals born af
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Ever since fucking Trump came to power, he basically defanged the agencies that were supposed to curb corporate abuses and enforce laws and regulations, and allowed corporations to do a lot more anything they want to make more profit.
Yeah but until their bullshit hits their bottom line they won't change, and most people are on autopilot through life and either don't notice or don't care.
They'll do it if they can manage to make it impossible to use any adapter. PSVita used those tiny memory sticks because fuck you for wanting standardized storage solutions
They'll probably keep releasing for the PS5 for years into the PS6's lifespan, so as long as that happens I'll get their games if they look good, but once they shift over to PS6 completely, I'm done. I already have the hardware, much cheaper to keep using it than get something new.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 20:12)
You might be able to jailbreak it! I have a collection of consoles that I got only to tinker with. I keep up to date with the PS5/PS4 through MODDED WARFARE on Youtube. Might give you something to make it useful for you, even if it is just to run Linux on it. :P
I'll be looking into jailbreaking my PS5 once Sony drops support for it. Any hardware you already own, even years old, is much more valuable now than it used to be.
There were several PS4-exclusive games coming out that I was really looking forward to,and I was expecting many more; furthermore, I thought it might be handy to have something with built-in optical media support. Most of those original titles were re-released for PC, my future hopes never really materialized, and I never used the optical drive except to insert a disc for DRM purposes.
Depends, it's been worth it for me as it's more powerful than my PC and was much cheaper than building a similar power one would have been at the time. But if you already have a powerful PC, yeah, definitely not worth it.
Yeah, I really only got mine for Ragnarok. and as an upgrade to my 4k player. Which I then proceeded to only use detective Pikachu in. So, definitely not my brightest usage of money.
The biggest problem with this isn't really the lack of physical games. (Although this is really disappointing as I used to love having a huge collection of games to look at.) The real problem is where we are being pushed because of this.
Digital games are basically just license keys for us. These companies reserve the right to revoke those license keys from us or just completely remove said game/movie/show from the store and your library whenever they see fit.
Not to mention the end if the used game market but I don't feel like getting into that right now
On PC we have a plethora of options to get our games the way we prefer. GOG is a fantastic company that sells games old and new that are DRM free. Meaning when I buy a game from them I get all of the files for said game and am free to do with it whatever I want, no launcher or internet required.
Not to mention there is always piracy for those that are so inclined.
And those two are just the tip of the iceberg. Console players have to get their games from the console's store and that's it.
That kind of feels like conjecture in my opinion. While yeah piracy is absolutely a problem on PC, that doesn't mean that everyone on the platform is doing it. There's still a ton of money to be made from sales on there.
Well it is, but the writing is also on the wall, computer hardware increases will have more of an impact than consoles which are subsidised
I don’t think it out of the question that to play the newest game on PC your only option will be to stream it from PlayStation or xbox as that will work on cheaper hardware that more people have
At that point the piracy backup goes out the window
Amazing to see all four major players in the AAA gaming industry shooting themselves in the feet one way or another:
Xbox trying to spread itself thin between consoles and PC, going into studio purchasing sprees that it was unable to maintain long-term and churning them out as we speak
Steam getting bitten hard by the AI bubble, making their Steam Machine dead on arrival in price, power, and availability of games (although the latter is partly due to a lack of anti-cheat solutions that can be legally deployed on top of an open-source kernel)
And Nintendo pushing for more expensive games than the competition, and deploying Game Cards for physical games as the worst of both worlds
Right? I'm still pissed off about the PS3. I owned a PS1 and a PS2. PS3 launched and before I could save up enough money, two awesome features that the PS3 launched with they pulled support for. At launch you could boot to linux and you could play PS2 games. They disabled both before I could buy one. Huge class action lawsuit if I remember correctly. But they keep pulling the same shit.
In fairness, the Linux feature was half baked. I got YellowDog running on it, but because of the goofball CPU, you had to recompile everything to get it to run, which it did poorly.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 15:51)
The removal of digital media is also out of their hands. They agreed to a distribution contract. The entity that owns that media offered a conditional license in that distribution agreement. Now they are either choosing not to renew or choosing to cancel the agreement and legally Sony don't have a choice except to be sued if they continue to allow people to access that digital content.
I agree it's shitty. I agree that it's a crazy thing to have happen when you're dropping the news about doing away with physical media. But it's still not really in their control.
I guess you could argue that they negotiated a shit contract. They should have had the right to sell a perpetual license to the media. When the contract runs out, they just can't sell it anymore, but they don't have to pull it from those that had purchased it.
I'm this particular case what they were selling wasn't a license copy of a movie or show. They were selling a license to stream. When the contract ran out they had to pull it from the streaming platform.
Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles including Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “due to our content licensing agreements.” As of September, Sony will remove any affected titles that UK users bought from their PlayStation library, per the notice.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 22:58)
The consumers contract for the content is with sony, not with someone else. The underlying structure doesn't interest anyone except lawyers. Sony should be mandated to refund content that they pull from libraries, or they have to ensure that they don't lose access to the content they are "selling". Also, it should be enshrined in law that if you only get a licence that can be pulled anytime that this information is very, very clear when paying for content, and not to hide this information on page 23 or so in their licence agreement, where they redefine the meaning of buy, own, purchase... and so on to something that very much has NOT the meaning of those words.
Ok. So let's say for the sake of argument, you have Netflix. You pay for Netflix specifically for... I dunno, Top Gear. Suddenly without warning Netflix is forced to pull Top Gear from its streaming platform because the license to provide it to stream has lapsed or been otherwise ended. That's basically what happened here except that they allowed you to pay per show or movie.
In this case what these customers paid for is the license to stream these digital items. Which (shitty though I agree it is) they agreed to when they made their purchases. But the fact is, Sony didn't reach into people's Harddrives and remove anything. What they did was remove these shows and movies from the digital streaming library of people who purchased it and the only reason they did is because otherwise they'd be sued if they didn't.
So while I appreciate your outrage, I think it's pretty important to note that the license holder (the entity that actually owns the ability to sell distribution rights for digital licenses to consumers) is the one who sets the terms, not the pl
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Ok. So let's say for the sake of argument, you have Netflix. You pay for Netflix specifically for... I dunno, Top Gear. Suddenly without warning Netflix is forced to pull Top Gear from its streaming platform because the license to provide it to stream has lapsed or been otherwise ended. That's basically what happened here except that they allowed you to pay per show or movie.
In this case what these customers paid for is the license to stream these digital items. Which (shitty though I agree it is) they agreed to when they made their purchases. But the fact is, Sony didn't reach into people's Harddrives and remove anything. What they did was remove these shows and movies from the digital streaming library of people who purchased it and the only reason they did is because otherwise they'd be sued if they didn't.
So while I appreciate your outrage, I think it's pretty important to note that the license holder (the entity that actually owns the ability to sell distribution rights for digital licenses to consumers) is the one who sets the terms, not the platform of distribution, and this happens so often that literally not digital media is safe except when you can download it DRM free (Google play music, band camp, GOG etc).
I don't disagree that Sony is at fault for agreeing to that distribution agreement. That's not anything like what I said. What I said was that they did it because they are required to by law.
Don't forget they also paid $3.6 Billion for Bungie just to shut down their most popular game and put all their hope in their new extraction shooter that's been struggling. No new games in dev or even green lit. Also they just laid off a bunch of people.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 14:20)
Imagine if Bungie never "vaulted" (read: deleted) any part of Destiny 2 and we were still able to play the original campaign it shipped with? More people would still be playing Destiny 2 and you'd get plenty more new players without them having to use a guide or YouTube lore videos to get caught up on the story.
Instead of mArathon they'd probably be making a Destiny 3
Oh yeah don't get me started on Bungie. The are a shell of their former selves. When they split from Activison and it all came out that the mircotransactions was all Bungie's idea that was my first WTF moment with these guys. They let us believe it was the Corp overlords ruining our game but they did it themselves. Then they did everything they could do to make themselves look profitable for Sony's acquisition. Just horrible decision after horrible decision.
What really sucks is that Marathon is actually pretty fun.
They just completely fumbled the marketing and launch, the UI needs to be cleaned up, and it doesn't feel worth it at $40. IDC if it's a AAA developer, it's still a pretty small game content wise even if it is fun to play.
I’m a diehard Marathon fan, I dumpster dived for an Apple to play the first two on when I was a kid. I can’t even try the new one because they purposefully broke it on Linux.
Don’t blame Sony for bungies mess. Sony got absolutely scammed by Bungie because they were desperately and panicking after MS accounted they were buying ABK.
Bungie have been a terrible studio for a decade at least. Microsoft turned them down when Bungie attempted to sell themselves back to them for a fraction of what Sony paid them only a few months later.
Destiny got what it deserved. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did. I noped after they started charging $40 for a couple maps and a raid labeled as "expansions". And that was destiny 1. The game was an unbelievable ripoff.
Can't believe people still stuck with it even after they locked down the legacy content. It's crazy how much it takes to get people to stop buying enshittified products.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 13:34)
I agree I don't blame Sony at all. Also I hate myself for it but for me no FPS I've played comes close to the fluid gunplay in Destiny and Destiny 2. That is where Bungie always shined for me above everyone else. The rebooted Doom games are a close 2nd. and there are a few indie titles like Turbo Overkill that get close as well. Everything else just doesn't match up when I get that FPS itch.
And PC games have been digital for ages it feels. Still a loss, I usually wait half a year to two years before buying new games and can just pick up whatever I want for 20€ on disc without having to wait for the next PS Store sale, often even the version that includes all the DLCs and the remaster of the previous game. PS5 is probably my last console.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 15:29)
Steam kinda killed physical PC games 20 years ago.
And the Steam zealots will come and say, "Yeah, but but you can still buy games on other storefronts! So it's not like this Sony thing at all!" OK, sure.
You need a DRM free installer (preferably with patches built-in) not physical.
Mind you, I am no Valve fan, they lean towards typical American oligarchical behaviour and they made a massive contribution to developing loot boxes. But in comparison to all other large American tech companies, they are not aggressively terrible, still nowhere near "great" though.
Depends on how long Nintendo plans to keep doing game key cards. They suck, but they're better than having no way to transfer a game license at all. I suspect that the "Switch 3" won't have any physical media at all, though.
yeah i still remember when sony lawyered lik-sang.com out of existence for having the temerity to sell sony games outside their intended regional markets.
Minidisc was licensed technology, companies like Sharp, Denon, Pioneer, JVC, Onkyo and Kenwood all made competitive minidisc players. The discs were also sold by many brands.
I don't think Sony's audio division was as restrictive and aggressive as their gaming division.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 18:52)
Hello, Sony's commitment to customer satisfaction is our top priority. The reason for that is that we determined the current product specifications from our analyses of target users and available technologies. For XAVC HS, we envision users enjoying HLG movies by connecting the camera to an HDR (HLG) compatible BRAVIA TV over HDMI, and 60p is what we view as the default setting for playback with it. To record movies in higher quality in 4K/30p, we would recommend selecting XAVC S and XAVC S-I, 10-bit 4:2:2 sampling, either Long GoP and All-I codec. Could you tell us how creators such as yourself want to use HEVC at 30p so we can provide feedback to our design team?
I found that oddly enlightening.
“Well, it’s not optimal for BRAVIA TV over HDMI, so why would users want this?” Sony cannot fathom anything outside that.
It makes that whole list in OP’s post make total sense. It’s not even cynicism on their part; they literally cannot understand why their PlayStation users would want any of those things outside the immediate domain. What would they need a disk play for? What value is Bluepoint is a business review?
Essentially suits who don't and have never gamed making decisions on gaming. They have no idea what the players want and don't actually care because caring costs money.
Could you tell us how creators such as yourself want to use HEVC at 30p so we can provide feedback to our design team?
I just want to fucking choose what I want without having to provide a "user story"!! I HATE uber-market-optimized software and products, give me fucking settings instead of trying to guess for me!
I was an XBox guy, and didn't get into Playstation at all. But it was always clear that they were excellent consoles. At a certain income level back in the day, you'd get an XBox or a Playstation, but not both. If you had a smidgen more money to spend, Nintendo had you covered.
I have no emotional fealty to Playstation in any way, but what a shame to see all three formerly awesome systems now competing to see who can enshitify more effectively.
I had a PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Was a huge twisted metal fan. Xbox came out some friends got that. Halo was fun. What made me switch to Xbox was strictly fears of war. The few of my friends that were still PlayStation fans switched to the 360 almost immediately after playing gears.
Nintendo wasn't always like that. Every Nintendo console before the GameCube was the most powerful console of its generation. The GameCube was second most powerful behind Xbox but ahead of PS2. But like the N64, Nintendo made the GameCube with a fatal flaw that caused a severe limitation that was completely unnecessary: the game storage media.
For the N64, it was the choice to not use disks and thus were limited to only 64MB at most of game filesize, but the GameCube had disks. Except they were those stupid tiny ones that only held like 1.5GB instead of a normal sized disks at the time which held up to 8GB.
Then they made the Wii, which was just the GameCube 1.5, used nearly the same parts except it used normal disks finally and it sold like crazy. Unfortunately, Nintendo learned the wrong lesson and instead of saying "make normal consoles" they now learned to "make weak, cheap consoles." And now we are at where we are.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 18:22)
I'm fine with "weak, cheap consoles" if the games are good, as that's all that really matters. The problem is, Nintendo's game output has been kinda shit lately.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 19:21)
Sony only announced this now because of the upcoming Xbox layoff announcement. Typical “get all of your bad news out in front of the competitors worse news so yours is only in the news cycle for a few days” play.
Xbox’s “physical as digital” plans for the Xbox One were amazing. Bet the people who cried about it are now feeling pretty stupid.
That was kind of my point? That just because it's "dangerous" for children doesn't justify banning it wholesale. Sorry I wasn't more clear. Yet Microsoft allows people access to host a private server while also putting up scary warnings for kids telling them to stick to the "safe" realms servers or whatever (are they even still called Realms? fuck if I know). On the one hand, it's good they haven't removed it entirely, on the other hand, it seems like that may be their eventual long-term goal with how they treat the private server ecosystem.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 18:47)
Both because it’s more safe and secure. Plus I have very fond memories of LAN parties and without private servers and local multiplayer kids won’t be able to experience that :(
Don't worry, they'll still be able to drink a bunch of cough syrup and think they're really hanging out chatting with random people on forums and Pink Floyd and Abe Lincoln, and then get genuinely lost in a game for what seems like eternity but can only ever be vaguely recalled later.
The carts, discs, and hardware will unfortunately eventually stop working, but fortunately most of them can also be emulated on PC really well, sometimes better looking than on original hardware.
Disc systems are mostly built like shit especially from the early 2000s but ROM based cart systems if well taken care of will run for a long long time.
Have my OG N64, Dreamcast and GameGear all run perfectly fine. Well my GG has a dead spider in the screen but it still runs.
PlayStation 1,2, Saturns , the first 2 Xbox’s might be a different issue all together.
But to me this is connected to the growing eshitification of the industry
eventually but that will likely be long after most of us are dead. old consoles and carts are built like a brick house and most of them are repairable even games that have batteries. Just look at the N64 for example. that thing is like the Toyata truck of consoles.
I've found that the real problem is having a television to plug them in to. Still got my old NES and SNES from when I was a kid. But no modern TV has the RF input to connect them to, they're all digital only. Emulation is much easier.
that's what i hate the most about this. "retro gaming and second hand" works now because everything was physical back then, and could be preserved. what will the people of the future have of us? nothing but memories of what will then be a digital graveyard. most of it unpreserved, even through piracy, because consoles are getting harder and harder to hack and emulate and companies are getting more and more litigious.
Eh, everything PS3/360 generation and earlier is basically available at perfect emulation, or definitely will be soon because of the existing emulators and their development.
95% of all games from the PS/Xbox generations since then have been on PC from day 1. Almost all of the Xbox first party games have been on PC since then as well. The switch has been emulated perfectly for ages.
This realistically leaves only a handful of Sony first party PS4 and PS5 games left, and the switch 2 which only just came out.
It was always going to be digital only on account of 85%+ of all game sales being digital.
The digital only PS5 wasn’t a market test though, it was purely a marketing tactic - they barely made 5% of PS5 production digital only ones, but it allowed them to market the PS5 as “from $399”, when in reality it was $499.
Its 78% actually, up from 76% last year, but that is sales and not users. I would hardly believe that are users that bought all of their games digitally, even the good collection ones.
My little brother, who started with PS3 as a kid and had/has PS4, PS5 and almost all of his games are in discs, won't be happy about it.
Incorrect, the 3DS eshop is still online. Digital games can still be re-downloaded, you just can't buy new ones. The same is true for Wii, DSi, and Wii U.
They need to up their exclusive game...game. Other than DK Bananza, their output has been disappointing. I only got a Switch 2 now because it's only going to get more expensive and I'm hoping for quality exclusives in the next 6 or so years that they'll be supporting it.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 20:09)
Yes, but the quality of those exclusives is lacking compared to their previous consoles. It's only been a year, so I'm going to be optimistic that their output will improve. Looking forward to Ocarina of Time and Xenoblade Genesis.
Ports of games to Nintendo consoles are always the worst way to play them due to the weaker hardware, so exclusives matter a lot more on them. It's the entire reason I got one. PS5 is good for more than just exclusives (especially since, as you pointed out, it barely has any!)
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 20:22)
It won't really affect me, but I understand the appeal of a physical artifact servicing as time game's license for those who like to lend, sell, trade, library, etc.
And those same benefits are why the corporations can't wait to do away with it. It's been quite a while since Microsoft tried the same thing and people freaked out enough that they reversed course.
It’s worth pointing out that Microsoft didn’t try the same thing. Microsoft tried to move to “physical as digital”, where they retained the benefits of physical copies such as resale and loaning.
I specifically remember that their plan was essentially CD Keys. You'd buy a physical game and it would have a code inside, or the discs would have unique identifiers that force linked to your account, or whatever.
So yeah, essentially physical media with a digital license. If you were going to be able to resell your game it was going to have to go through microsoft, or maybe you could lend a friend your disc and that lets them buy their own license for a small discount to play it.
It was keys in a box, but they had a framework to allow physical retailers to remove licenses from Xbox accounts and refresh the license key for resale. They also had a system for you to loan your digital games out to your friends via their gamertag. When you digitally loaned it to them, you could not play it and they could. Iirc it would automatically revert after 30 days if you didn’t extend, but you could choose how long to loan it for.
They abandoned it all after the ridiculous crashouts by people who couldn’t see where the future was heading, and now you get digital with no resale and no loaning.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 0:14)
I'll just point out that they/we did not have a system like that, but just promises of it from a tech giant. (except of course for whatever they had designed internally up until that time) So even as somebody who doesn't really sell games, I get why people weren't thrilled with the idea of microsoft being the ever-present broker in the transactions.
It was a new system, one never done before but not outlandish and easy to see how it would work. People just can’t understand and fear new things. Microsoft are, to their own detriment, too forward thinking. The Intended XB1 digital system was as close to a perfect one as you can get. benefits of both physical and digital wrapped in one.
Or old enough to not care that much. What am I going to do with more plastic?
BUT, I should have been more clear that I was talking only about ps5 and ps5 owners. I would never own one. Their online account is annoying and I have never forgiven them for the rootkit.
I was surprised to find out that there are games that will play without the internet. Although every ps5 MUST be connected to the internet first to link the disc drive to the device.
I used Does It Play to look at the games, and a lot of them will not work without updates. I assumed all at this point, which is why I said what I said.
Played in Performance mode. Runs at 60 FPS. Many visual bugs are present in this game. Texture pop in, lighting issues, character models partially or fully invisible, muddy low resolution textures, floating and T posing NPC’s and object clipping all …
That is only the case because your console is connected to the internet. For example, I can dust off my old PS3 today and play the version 1.0 release of GTA V after installing it from the disc because the console is offline, meaning there won't be any prompt asking me to update the game to the latest version, and it simply works.
You might argue that this is a bad example and that GTA V runs better on modern hardware, so let us consider Bloodborne on the PS4 instead, a title you will not find anywhere else and for which current emulation remains, at best, sketchy. I can insert that disc into my PS4 unplugged from the internet and play it immediately without any mandatory update.
Killing physical support means the end of this possibility for further releases, not that Sony has many exclusives these days, but for the handful of PS6 games that won't make it to PC.
OK, I was looking over Does It Play and a lot do let you play without updates, although the site notes those can have a lot of issues before being patched.
It was more than I would have thought, since everyone I know with a ps5 seems to spend more time getting updates than actually playing, lol.
Played in Performance mode. Runs at 60 FPS. Many visual bugs are present in this game. Texture pop in, lighting issues, character models partially or fully invisible, muddy low resolution textures, floating and T posing NPC’s and object clipping all …
Just get a console they said. Console just works they said. Why get a PC when it won't work in a year they said.
This is why I don't buy consoles. I can use a controller on my computer which is upgradable and not subject to one individual company dictating what I can and can't do.
Why get a PC when it won’t work in a year they said.
Interesting because my Steam digital purchases go back to 2007 and I can still play them all.
My first digital purchase was the Orange Box and my second purchase was Psychonauts.
I had purchased Half Life 2 as a physical copy and it still works, too.
Sure they're all just licenses, but a lot of effort has been put into me being able to continue playing them, including on Linux.
Yes, Valve is a different story because they're a private company, but 20 years of license when I could play on any computer I owned at any time I think is showing that digital licensing isn't inherently evil as much as it is widely abused for control.
They're actually not just licenses. When you download a game from steam you get the game data. You can back up this gamedata if you wish. Sure it will have steam DRM but thats something on can get around one way or another.
This is the power of open platform like PC
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 22:20)
The same is true of Xbox consoles btw. You can back-up your game files from your Xbox to a external hdd and transfer them back to your Xbox in 50 years time and play them even if they’ve been delisted and Xbox no longer exists.
They are still only licenses though, same with steam. Steam still has verification servers. If steam disappeared you are no better off than if xbox did.
Real and based. If you get them on GOG, you can download offline installers with no DRM. My GOG collection isn't as big as my Steam, but it's also fairly significant as well. Heroic Launcher on Linux is sweet for GOG games (you just have to plan out wine prefix and directory structure to properly have updates install).
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 22:24)
So, this means mandatory proprietary hardware just to play the four or five true permanent exclusives that will be on the PS6 throughout its entire lifetime, given that everything else will eventually come to PC, and you don't actually own any of your digital content, meaning that they can revoke your access to your purchases without notice at any point if they choose to do so.
People will still buy it though, that's the saddest part.
Actually, the 2026 strategy and business environment report from Sony simply removed the line "Will continue its efforts to deploy its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC" from their priorities list, but did not outright state that they won't port games to PC anymore, as many journalists misinterpreted, the report simply states that it isn't a priority anymore due to mitigated revenue. The main concern within the report seems to be that near simultaneous releases on PC are effectively cannibalizing PS5 hardware sales, so you might still expect PC releases but further down the line compared to the current 1-2 years window, maybe previous generation games released on PC, not current generation.
For now, yes. But these companies change their strategies all the fucking time. As soon as they see their "only on Playstation" strategy is not giving them the expected return, I am sure they're gonna get backflip, again.
Microsoft and Sony (and pretty much any other big corporation in the game business) are not reliable at all. I find it both amusing and shocking that we still have 'fanboys' up to this day, when these companies themselves can't even maintain a solid long term strategy. All they care about is making maximum profit at the cost of literally everything else, so their 'promises' hold no weight at all.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 20:47)
Good thing Sony’s first party output is easy to ignore. Just go watch Wolverine and all the rest of their games on YouTube since they’re basically interactive movies.
Little did the Luddites who applauded this realise that they were signing their own fate.
Xbox One’s digital plans were amazing. Luddites and Sony fanboys just couldn’t understand that an all digital future was inevitable, and actively fought against the only company that was bringing the benefits of physical copies to digital.
Microsoft were doing their “physical as digital” plan which was literally the best digital-only system ever devised, and they were forced to ditch it by people who were too dumb to see the industry trends at the time, and by people who hate Microsoft/xbox.
Now no one gets that amazing “digital only” system.
Microsoft made a plan. Great. Anybody can 'make' a plan and that plan could sound amazing to some people.
You are nostalgizing the ideal parts of their plan without having to see it play out. How would sharing have really worked? Would the disc be tied to your account forever? Would your friend be able to install from it?
And for sake of argument let's say Microsoft executed on this best plan ever. Fast forward 10 years and they are looking for more profits somewhere. What's stopping them from changing the terms of their plan? Pretty sure the TOS you click OK to when installing the game says it lets them alter things as they fit.
They literally outlined all of this. Everything single part. You could choose a friends gamertag to loan your game to. While it was on loan they could download and play it, but you couldn’t since you loaned it out.
As for your second paragraph, no you’re just inventing imaginary what-ifs because you want to be anti-Microsoft - just like I’m sure you did back when they announced these plans.
Thanks to people like you, you’ll now get all the drawbacks of digital and none of the benefits of physical. Congratulations, you played yourself.
Tell me: what is the monthly subscription price of gamepass? What was it a year ago? 2 years ago? How's their game library?
I must've imagined all that fuckery they did to that service. Surely they would never have done anything like that to that digital asset policy you love so much. We can trust them.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 11:05)
This was me a decade ago when Xbox suggested something like this. Nintendo was shutting down their old eshops and making purchased games in playable and Playstation was selling shovelware on their online store.
In a dystopia like that... Suddenly, Steam's digital only didn't look so bad.
Xbox’s digital future was actually incredibly user friendly - it was all digital, but it allowed people to re-sell and loan their digital games. People were just too dumb to understand what was so good about it.
The alternative is what Sony are now doing - all digital with zero of the perks of physical.
Yeah. The Xbox One's initial digital library plans were actually pretty compelling. The ability to lend and sell licenses was actually pretty neat, but they had to cancel it with the backlash to the announcement that you'd have a license code tied to the disc.
Honestly, if Xbox had ditched physical entirely that generation instead of causing the confusion around requiring the digital license despite having a disc I think it would have been better-received. That or going to a 2-tiered system where you had to have the disc in the machine to play games that hadn't initially been a digital download.
While I applaud your decision, the market has spoken - 85%+ of all console game sales are digital. The overwhelming majority of people don’t care about physical games, especially in a time when the physical copies don’t even contain the full game due to storage constraints.
I’ve been digital-only since the day they made all games available digitally on the Xbox 360, because I don’t trade or re-sell games, ever, and I much prefer the benefits of digital. Most people are like me these days. It sucks for the people that aren’t, but they’re going to have to just move on or abandon their hobby.
Nah. Sony will stick around, Playstation will die, Microsoft kills Xbox and everyone will complain about Steam being a monopoly despite their competition choosing to shoot themselves in the foot and dying all on their own.
PlayStation won’t die lol. The overwhelmingly large majority of PlayStation console owners buy digital games exclusively. They have a massive dedicated fan base who will buy whatever they release and defend it to their last breath too.
The 85% stat isn’t a lie - it’s in their own financials that they release to shareholders, and they’re actually one of publishers with the least digital uptake. Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, etc all also release these figures and they’re higher.
Physical media is not making a resurgence. It’s getting lower and lower every single year.
Sony will not abandon this plan because they have no reason to. It won’t affect their sales at all.
Also we don’t know how this will affect retail yet, that all depends on if they allow retailers to sell below the PS Store prices.
It’s not inflated. They’re not counting PS Plus downloads or anything else, unless you’re accusing them of lying to shareholders and breaking many laws.
The amount of people leaving physical media is not being outpaced by those picking it up.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 0:41)
The removal of physical games isn't that big of a deal to me as someone who mostly plays on PC, and the only physical PC games I've bought in the last decade and a half were touhou games I imported off Yahoo auctions.
Honesty I wonder why that actually became so normalized on PC while it didn't on consoles. I'm sure Steam has a big role in it.
I think the main reason for this on PC has been the fact that there's been piracy/licensing for so long. We used to have cd keys to prove you were using the legit disc. You bought a license, and there were cdchecks. Once you were able to prove ownership with a key instead of a disc, and create your own offline installers too? All the reasons to fight against it were gone. On consoles you can't make offline backups. You can't play without constant online license checks. And once the license date rolls over you can't play anyway.
My gog backup, I can install offline tomorrow never touch the Internet and be fine.
Playstation customer since my first job at McDonalds let me buy the original first model PSX, all the way through the PS5 --- fuuuuuuuuck you Sony. I've got a PC and you can eat 10 tons of my shit right now with this and your cancellation of PC support. We'll see who wins.
Maybe not, but the fact that customers who thought they purchased a movie are having it stolen from them with the excuse that the license ran out IS their fault, 100%.
Sony chose to advertise items for sale that indicated that their customer was buying the movie, not renting it for the lifetime of the license. From a consumer point of view, it doesn't matter whose fault the license expired, because Sony is at fault for misleading storefront and advertising. They knew the terms of the license, and chose to advertise the product in ways that were absolutely not in line with what the customer thought they got vs what they actually got.
There is no world in which Sony does not take fault in this. Well, outside of a courtroom anyway, because media owners can do as they want in our current copyright hellscape. In any sane world, this would be seen as the theft it is. In this world, it's just a Tuesday.
I bought every PlayStation ever released. I will not be buying this one. Consoles are supposed to get cheaper over time. The gaming sector is going to go tits up and I hope it does.
I seriously don't understand the "disk" thing. I could see how you want your game to be on a physical media so you don't have to download it when you want to play, but games are so big you couldn't do it for decades already, and having a disk is barely saves you any time anyway. Meanwhile it's a waste of materials, it get scratched all the time, and if you lose it it's gone.
But that's the point, your game is not on your disk! Your game is downloaded after you insert your disk. You can't do it without an account. When they decide to take away your digital renting agreement, or when they decide to not support your game anymore, your disk becomes a piece of plastic that you can't do shit about. You don't own a game, you own a piece of plastic that has some private downloader on it. Y'all talking like we're in 1998 and the game can fit on a disk leaving room for developer's commentary.
your game is not on your disk! Your game is downloaded after you insert your disk.
I have seen this being mentioned a few times. I wonder what those games are, or whether people are exaggerating for hyperbole.
I own physical copies of PS5 exclusives that I play without signing in to PSN. Most recently, I played the director’s cut of Ghost of Tsushima this way. I used to do the same on my PS4 too.
I think its because you can borrow a game from a friend. That was always the reasoning behind higher pricing of console titles. I wonder if borrowing a game between friends or buying second hand will be still a thing now.
Can you? With an age of always online shit, can you really give a friend your disk, and they will be able to play, or will it tell you that the game is already registered to an account? If it's still not the case for some games, it's not the lack of disks that finishes it.
No, it won't be. That's literally the point. Publishers have viewed the second-hand market as craven scalpers for decades. Companies like GameStop make an absolute killing selling the same used disc 3 or 4 times at $65/ea than selling new for $70 once.
Every few years there's a new and more aggressive push to limit what people can do or get with a trade-in. It's why pre-order "bonuses" have gotten to be such a big deal, why live-service games got such a huge push, and now why Sony is eliminating physical media. They think cutting the resellers out means they'll get more customers, not that less people will play their games.
They're betting on consumers being too impulsive and stupid to care, and... they're probably right. Nothing's stopped them before, this likely isn't a new line in the sand for them.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 13:13)
It works until it doesn't. Companies can push prices for a little while, maybe a whole generation, but one day people decide it's not worth it and it all crashes down suddenly.
Happens over and over again, could be the new era of PC gaming that Valve is pushing will tip them over, could be a new generation of Nintendo games. Could be a new company from China.
Big players do this every time, then the CEO says "nobody could have predicted that the 6th price hike was the end of the brand!"
Nah, people are stupid generally speaking. I mean, just look at Apple, they are releasing basically the same phone every year with an increasing price tag and the sheeple keep mindlessly buying it.
I feel like I got into self hosting at the exact correct time. Immich is amazing, Filebrowser Quantum is incredible, Ghost (Patreon alternative) has been awesome, and there's so much more. It's so good.
E-scooters. They've been pretty rapidly getting both cheaper and more capable (longer range, higher speeds). Sadly, most of the innovation seems to come from Chinese companies.
They just remove the right to access it. You don't own it, you own a licence to play it. You don't own anything digitally you yourself cannot access and transfer.
You don't own the content on Netflix. Or Amazon. Or any digital marketplace, besides DRM-free places.
They don't hack your computer, they just turn off the servers and ban accounts.
They can't do that, it's impossible. You are not logging into their server to play the game. You are downloading and installing in on your local machine.
This is NOT like Netflix. How can people be so ignorant about this? Do you not really know how this works? For Netflix, you stream from their servers. That IS NOT what is happening here.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 3 de julio de 2026, 13:20)
Do you have those movies saved on your local machine? Or are you accessing them on a remote server?
People here are supposed to tech literate, goddamn. I'm barely tech literate and I understand the difference between downloading and installing a program on your local machine and accessing streaming video on remote servers.
Sony cannot remove programs from your local machine.
Esta entrada fue editada (viernes, 3 de julio de 2026, 13:26)
Let me paint a picture for you, friend: you have a power outage while playing games. Your drive is corrupted (yes, this happened to me). Sony has removed the game from their servers, and you just lost your only copy, as you have no way to back it up. It is now gone forever, just like the movies they removed after selling.
You seem irritated that people push back at you, but they have valid points. Without a physical copy, you are no longer in control of the game/movie.
You also lose the ability to buy and sell used, which is a right you have with physical disks, but not with a digital license.
It’s ok to not care for physical media, but at least try to understand the point we’re trying to make. We want us all to have access to both digital and physical to choose freely. Why fight that when it’s a win/win for all of us?
This is what happens when their only competitor is a mindless Microslop.
Nintendo carved out their niche and Sony has no chance against them in that market after abandoning AAA and AA single player games in favor of trash service games.
as long as people buy the mainline games like pokemon, and some other well know IP mario and friends,,,etc. nintendo isnt going to lose customers, eventhough some of them have become slop over the years.
Nintendo also doesn’t do mass layoffs. Nintendo provides lifetime employment. Hence why they have released high quality games for decades, because the new generation of devs gets the time to grow and the old generation stays to pass down their knowledge to the next generation.
Nintendo Kyoto is know as a very good employer in Japan.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 8:46)
they make their product and service worse but they're still trying to fight the console wars in 2026 like that japanese soldier who fought ww2 for 30 years after japan surrendered
Not really end of an era, you're just witnessing a monopoly forming since Xbox is pretty much dead in the water. I guess it's technically a duopoly since Nintendo is fine, but Nintendo kinda does its own thing without regard to what others do. Basically, with Xbox out of the picture, Sony is free to do whatever it wants.
No, this is just playstation continuing to hate their customer base.
They've always hated their customers. Between Sony, and Nintendo, I dont know who hates their customers the most... but they both certainly try.
and it doesnt matter, because they both have enough fanboys that strip off their clothes and gleefully dance naked and joyous in the rain of shit both companies sputter out of their assholes and down onto their customers.
Its like they saw how much Xbox has been sucking and thought "hold on, instead of building on this market lead, I bet we could beat Xbox in enshittifying!"
Ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360, it's like the console wars have just been about them trading whose turn it was for the next PR disaster. Racing to the top was too expensive so they race to the bottom instead.
It helps when you get that their goals and ours are not really the same. They want to earn more money, and don't need to provide a perfect service to achieve that. They just need to be (slightly) less shitty than Xbox.
sony probably figures they can get away with pulling all this shit since what else ya gonna do? buy a new gaming pc? at literally double or more what they cost last summer?
Since playing online is free and games can be gotten for free as well, that's exactly what I'll do at a higher upfront cost. Or, if prices remain outrageous forever, I'll stick to old games until the hardware stops working, then stop playing games altogether.
I've been picking up game consoles for my whole life. I decided before the NS2 was announced that I was done picking up game consoles. Now there is absolutely zero chance of me picking up a ps6, it's just not acceptable to do this.
They all want you to go to digital storefronts because they get a bigger cut of the pie and you cannot use anyone else's copy. Soon we'll see them remove activating two consoles on one account entirely and possibly the offline capability as well. They want to make sure you drink your verification cans to keep playing, they just haven't gotten there yet.
Really scary to see where the industry is headed! I've started purchasing games on GOG whenever possible so as to put my money towards an actually good source in the industry but it doesn't feel like enough.
These companies are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with and it feels like we just gotta take it at this point.
I especially feel bad for the console gamers as they have very little options to get around this and switching to PC is unfortunately more expensive than ever.
Now that PC gaming is at feature parity with console gaming, I think it's particularly important to tell people how available DRM-free gaming is. No, it's not going to be common in the AAA segment of your library, but it's a lot of games. And you'll never have to worry about it being pulled from your library.
The price of hardware is a pain point for sure, but if you're able to see past that, you'll be spending less over a generation on PC than you would on a console between not having to pay for online service, dramatically cheaper gamepad/accessory options, and a massive library of quality games at $30 or less.
Microsoft is killing their software while Sony kills the hardware and marketplace. This looks like the end of the console generation with the only device left being a handheld by Nintendo.
Nintendo is also now the only one left I'll consider buying their next console depending on how enshittifed it is. They're the only one left now that isn't just a locked-down PC.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 17:01)
Because stopping disc production has worked so well for Microsoft...
Here's the bit both are forgetting:
The hardware is still sold at retail.
So you go into a store, you see a console for sale but no games. Or, worse, a shelf of old games on the "Discontinued" rack (the Xbox section in most Targets and Walmarts now.) Do you feel inclined to buy that hardware?
Also steam is a storefront, if you want the hardware you go to PC store.
Saying that made me realised that they might actually want to make sure they (the Sony store) are the only one to be able to sell this, no more game store in the future.
They're actually planning for games to be sold at retail as a code in a box, so they still want game displays at retail, but also want to have complete control over the pricing of them. A "have their cake and eat it, too" kind of thing.
The games will still be sold at retailers as a code in a box. I don't see the point, but apparently that's the plan.
Valve can also get away with it because PCs are an open platform and you have options to have control over your digital games, whether legal or not. So the lack of physical media doesn't really matter there.
I’m not one of those people who pretends they will play a physical disc game for the rest of their life
I do however like physical for two reasons. Firstly, the price, how tf can you justify charging more when you are cutting out all of the middlemen and listing on your own online store. Secondly, resale. I can buy a game, play it and resell.
If the tradeoff on going digital was that games were 50% cheaper, then I’d be happy. I wouldn’t have to hoard games and I’d have the convenience of digital.
They also just announced that the PS3 and Vita Playstation Store will be shutting down, starting next month in certain regions and everywhere by July 2027. At some point in the future it will be impossible to buy games for your old PS6 because it doesn't support discs and the Playstation Store dropped support.
Honestly, once cheap physical media wasn't able to keep up with game sizes this became inevitable. Blurays can store 100GB, which isn't enough for the bigger games of today, and they will only get bigger. It was still nice to have the disc as a sellable, tradeable license for the game as long as the servers were up, though.
Even with the high prices you can still build a decent AM4 based PC and play titles bought on GOG which is DRM free. If you install Linux you all get one of the best is for free. If you want to go further you can emulate the heck of old consoles and old PC games and have tons of fun. You could also sail the high seas for content that has DRM and/or is very expensive. Don't forget. If you don't own what you buy the piracy is ethical and justified. After akk, piracy is mostly a service problem and when you enshitify a service you end up FAFO.
Yeah I’m completely done with Sony. They also killed Destiny as a franchise and are already getting ready to launch a PS6 despite them basically producing no games during the pandemic because most people didn’t own a ps5 due to shortages. Feels like we got half a life cycle for this console, then they release the pro for like twice the price, and now they expect you to get ready to upgrade. And of course they are stopping disc production while simultaneously proving they can and will just stop letting you use your digital purchases. I’m sticking to PC and switch 2 for the foreseeable future. I honestly may never buy another console.
This is Sony though, they care so much about playstation customers they even went to the effort of updating the ps3 firmware in March this year to improve things for their customers.
I mean it would be crazy to suggest they would do that for a console they discontinued a decade ago just to try and fuck with people who have the temerity to run custom firmware on hardware they bought and paid for 20 years ago....
Do they still make money of it or was the security hole easy enough to fix, that they paid a few engineer hours from pocket money, just for the fuck you?
"By updating, you can enjoy additional features, improved usability, and enhanced security.
Please note, to play Blu-ray discs, your PS3 system needs a renewed Blu-ray player encryption key. Please update your PS3 system software to the latest version to renew the Blu-ray player encryption key."
I havent actually tried to watch a bluray on custom firmware since, but I'm a weirdo who uses it for playing games so that doesnt matter to me.
definitely end of an era. I'm not buying a console without physical media.
Sony can kill the second hand market if they want, but that was the last thing that differentiated them from Steam. Good bye Playstation, i'll remember you fondly.
It warms my heart to see that EVERY comment on Sony's blog post about it is negative. Hope the decision ends up biting Sony in the ass, but even if not, at least people weren't silent about it.
EDIT: and they're being yelled at everywhere else on the internet that people can post, as well. Good.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 1 de julio de 2026, 22:49)
After the recent Sony is deleting your movies you bought crap, I decided I'm never buying a digital game from them ever again. So sounds like it's my last as well. And I was already 90% digital.
Especially seeing as they tried to do the same thing before and reversed course due to the backlash, but I guess they just don't care anymore.
The entire reason I've ever bought consoles and games was because I could get used games at a bargain and also sell my old consoles and game collections when I'm done with them. I can't imagine that I'm the only person who looked at it this way.
Now console producers pull shit like this when they can't even claim to be more user friendly than PC because SteamOS is a real competitor.
Well I guess it was good while it lasted, at least until the last few years when greed fully took over. Microsoft is already on it's last leg and Sony and Nintendo are going to follow eventually.
I'm gonna miss them as they were the only way of playing paid games via Playstation 4 since you couldn't buy digital games via PS Store if you were living in an unavailable country.
I don't think this is a world-ending catastrophe per se, but I don't understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this. The only draws of consoles was the turnkey hardware, which you can generally get with Proton now, and access to physical games, which won't be a thing soon. Now it's just a locked-down PC with a DRM storefront that makes you pay a subscription to pay online games and which may or may not have backwards compatibility from system to system.
Maybe that's just the PC gamer in me talking. Are there any advantages to console anymore? Like, a single benefit?
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 15:48)
The loss of physical media in addition to the rest of their terrible decisions solidified that I'm done with Sony. Still on the PS4, but I see no need to give them any future support.
It really sucks that between this and the death of personal computing at the hands of the AI bubble, my main hobby is becoming unaffordable.
There is no point to consoles anymore. It used to be that consoles were easy to use and cheaper while PCs were more expensive and complex. That is no longer the case. Computers are stupid easy now and consoles have become too expensive.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 16:01)
Besides being expensive, you would think owning a console would get rid of headaches. But noooo - No pass-subscriptions? No online access! No couch co-op! No optimisations! And now - no owning!
And those greedy CEO's scratch their heads and are wondering "Why is nobody buying our stuff anymore?!" the day gaming turned corporate is the day it died. It can be still fun today, but the awesome rock'n'roll days of gaming are loooong gone.
Consoles were always a walled garden from the very start, very purposefully so, and those things tend to squeeze customers once captured with higher prices and, sooner or later, fully enshittify.
So when consoles originally appeared I just kept gaming on the PC because it was an open platform and the only console I ever had was a WII (the original one) because their controller was at the time innovative, and honestly it wasn't really worth it.
Then, specifically for the PlayStation there's Sony, who have a long track record of anti-consumer actions that started when their leadership stopped coming from the Engineering Division and started coming from their Media Division (after they bought a Movie studio in the US), from their electronics becoming locked down and restrictive for users (they're the ones who came up with Blu-Ray, which was way more locked down to block copying than DVDs were) to the infamous shipping of music CDs with rootkits (the "Sony Rootkit" scandal)
So this increasing enshittification of the PlayStation isn't at all surprising and suspect it
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Consoles were always a walled garden from the very start, very purposefully so, and those things tend to squeeze customers once captured with higher prices and, sooner or later, fully enshittify.
So when consoles originally appeared I just kept gaming on the PC because it was an open platform and the only console I ever had was a WII (the original one) because their controller was at the time innovative, and honestly it wasn't really worth it.
Then, specifically for the PlayStation there's Sony, who have a long track record of anti-consumer actions that started when their leadership stopped coming from the Engineering Division and started coming from their Media Division (after they bought a Movie studio in the US), from their electronics becoming locked down and restrictive for users (they're the ones who came up with Blu-Ray, which was way more locked down to block copying than DVDs were) to the infamous shipping of music CDs with rootkits (the "Sony Rootkit" scandal)
So this increasing enshittification of the PlayStation isn't at all surprising and suspect it will get even worse than this.
Ultimately I think the PlayStation platform will end up dying.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 9:17)
If you go by the definition of "console" than includes things like the ZX Spectrum or the Amiga, then you are partly correct (you got my age wrong) as all home computing started with such "consoles" (and then there was a time when it was pretty much all PCs, and then came the modern consoles which are the ones I was talking about).
Technically speaking the modern age "console" was a reinvention of the "game consoles" of the pre-PC era, only originally the "closed system" nature was mainly a technical limitation, whilst the closed system nature of the modern age consoles was a choice.
Having lived and used computing devices in both eras, I would say that the modern one's have almost nothing to do with the original ones, especially the business model.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 11:02)
PC games are pretty much locked down to the original purchaser. Console games could be bought and sold used. Once I was done with a console generation I just sold everything on ebay and made back a bunch of my money (especially since I bought most of it used as well).
PC games are a whole different beast. But now that most console games are locked to an account... there's really no benefit of them anymore. Just get a PC for your living room and install SteamOS (or similar).
Back in the era of physical media PC games too could be bought and sold used (though only some: it really boiled down to whether it used phone-home DRM or not, something which in the PC world was all over the place).
But yeah, you were right that console games could be bought and sold used in a much more standardized way, whilst that wasn't really a value proposition in the PC were such possibility was not at all a standard feature of PC games and it wasn't really reliably supported in the broader ecosystem (for example, with game stores not usually buying back used PC games as they often did for console games).
Naturally, as a unique value proposition (vs PC games) used as bait to get users inside the console walled garden in earlier days, this feature was taken away from users.
Personally I always thought that in the PC world the absence of this was balanced by games being a lot cheaper and even piracy for those for whom even so games weren't cheap enough and in the long run, as we see, the "much cheaper" part is being way harder for PC publish
... Mostrar más
Back in the era of physical media PC games too could be bought and sold used (though only some: it really boiled down to whether it used phone-home DRM or not, something which in the PC world was all over the place).
But yeah, you were right that console games could be bought and sold used in a much more standardized way, whilst that wasn't really a value proposition in the PC were such possibility was not at all a standard feature of PC games and it wasn't really reliably supported in the broader ecosystem (for example, with game stores not usually buying back used PC games as they often did for console games).
Naturally, as a unique value proposition (vs PC games) used as bait to get users inside the console walled garden in earlier days, this feature was taken away from users.
Personally I always thought that in the PC world the absence of this was balanced by games being a lot cheaper and even piracy for those for whom even so games weren't cheap enough and in the long run, as we see, the "much cheaper" part is being way harder for PC publishers to try and undo (they've definitely tried of late, and IMHO it's failing which is why AAA game publisher are bitching and moaning that their market share is falling) than the used console games market was, and the piracy part is even harder.
If there's one think I learned early on in Tech as a professional already back in the 90s is that in the mid and long term sticking to open tech will save you from getting squeezed, both as a professional when choosing 3rd party tech stacks and as a consumer.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 2 de julio de 2026, 14:14)
shweddy
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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kat_angstrom
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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Action Bastard@lemmy.world
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •It's the ultimate push to turn everything into the perfect Capitalist (not market-oriented) business solution: Getting paid for nothing
If your goal is to accumulate capital, and there are not outside forces regulating your worst impulses, you ultimately will create a class of legal-protected thieves, since the absolutely best and most risk free way to accumulate capital is to be given it in exchange for quite literally nothing.
Gambling is about as close to the platonic ideal as you can, but conquest by military force of political capture is also a very, viable route. Use the law to force people to buy your nothing and be protected for it, rather than being lynched when you steal someone's products.
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HarkMahlberg
in reply to Action Bastard@lemmy.world • • •I agree with you, but then isn't it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.
Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.
msn.com/en-us/money/economy/nearly-half-of-us-data-centers-planned-for-2026-canceled-or-delayed-and-…
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Grandwolf319
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •But it does provide nothing. Whatever AI gives is a hallucination, that’s practically nothing since it’s not information you can rely on and you have to verify it anyway.
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
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MiddleAgesModem
in reply to Grandwolf319 • • •Compared to insufferable automated phone systems, which have existed for decades and employ exactly no one, they are a vast improvement.
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Cypress
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •Not when you realize that the "something" they're charging you for is:
a) bastardized cargo culted knockoff of "something" so insubstantial that it's very nearly "something-shaped nothing"
b) the "something" is made of stuff that isn't even theirs.
Not only is it giving you a bamboo and thatch sculpture of an airplane when you ask for an airplane; it's made of STOLEN bamboo and STOLEN thatch.
HarkMahlberg
in reply to Cypress • • •I hope you don't misunderstand me by my saying "something" to imply it's anything substantial, significant, or even good. I'm very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I'm coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don't improve our lives in any way. But they can't exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU's, GPU's, SSD's, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that's what I mean by "something."
That's a lot of work they're doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC's generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those inve
... Mostrar másI hope you don't misunderstand me by my saying "something" to imply it's anything substantial, significant, or even good. I'm very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I'm coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don't improve our lives in any way. But they can't exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU's, GPU's, SSD's, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that's what I mean by "something."
That's a lot of work they're doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC's generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.
I just don't think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?
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MiddleAgesModem
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •Any proof that that actually happened?
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Cypress
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •oh, allow me to clarify--!
I did not mean to sound as though I had been disagreeing with you \^.\^; my comment was more intended to have a 'yes-and' kind of vibe~
but I really do like all that you had to say here and I still agree!
While they're truly not stealing the electricity, what I would hope to imply is that they are nevertheless acquiring it via nefarious means--in that many of these data centers are building gas combustion generators to supplement their power usage in violation of environmental regulations, workplace safety standards, and generally all the laws that say "you can't do that without proper documentation and licensing" etc.
So yeah--the "stolen thatch and stolen bamboo" isn't literally stolen (like you said!) but rather just ill-gotten.
Also I have indeed noticed the way that there's so much money being thrown around, especially the funds they've gotten from "investors" which are really just debt. They're going into massive debt to pay contractors and vendors... and that cap-ex and op-ex? sometimes I wonder if t
... Mostrar másoh, allow me to clarify--!
I did not mean to sound as though I had been disagreeing with you \^.\^; my comment was more intended to have a 'yes-and' kind of vibe~
but I really do like all that you had to say here and I still agree!
While they're truly not stealing the electricity, what I would hope to imply is that they are nevertheless acquiring it via nefarious means--in that many of these data centers are building gas combustion generators to supplement their power usage in violation of environmental regulations, workplace safety standards, and generally all the laws that say "you can't do that without proper documentation and licensing" etc.
So yeah--the "stolen thatch and stolen bamboo" isn't literally stolen (like you said!) but rather just ill-gotten.
Also I have indeed noticed the way that there's so much money being thrown around, especially the funds they've gotten from "investors" which are really just debt. They're going into massive debt to pay contractors and vendors... and that cap-ex and op-ex? sometimes I wonder if that's the real motive. Just a big stinkin' money laundering racket to bilk people out of their savings (anyone with a managed retirement investment fund that happens to do business with these jerks) and squirrel it away on "other companies" who are "working for" them.
They AREN'T worth the effort. It's the emperor's new clothes all over again. The only thing they're really actually TRYING to do, I hypothesize, is just keep everyone distracted so they can do exactly what you said they would: make themselves 'too big to fail' and then ride off into the sunset when the shoddy facade they propped up comes crashing down, leaving the public sector to foot the bill...
Tim_Bisley
in reply to Cypress • • •iocase
in reply to Action Bastard@lemmy.world • • •Mandated insurance that isn't a crown corporation beholden to ratepayers is a perfect example. If you have mandated insurance for something, and that private insurance has a shareholder requirement to see growth every quarter, and the same amount of things are being insured, only one thing can happen:
Rates go up with denials
Payouts go down
Eventually you're paying for insurance you know is worthless but it's mandated by law.
Pieisawesome
in reply to iocase • • •iocase
in reply to Pieisawesome • • •joelle_ether
in reply to Action Bastard@lemmy.world • • •Games reshared this.
Chloé 🥕
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •any company born after 1993 can’t make good products… all they know is exploitation, fire their workers, enshittify, be pink capitalist, eat hot cash & lie
(yes i know sony was founded before 1993 thank you)
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HarkMahlberg
in reply to Chloé 🥕 • • •Enron - Wikipedia
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Games reshared this.
tomalley8342
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •reference
Eat Hot Chip and Lie | Know Your Meme
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HarkMahlberg
in reply to tomalley8342 • • •iocase
in reply to HarkMahlberg • • •lechekaflan
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •Ever since fucking Trump came to power, he basically defanged the agencies that were supposed to curb corporate abuses and enforce laws and regulations, and allowed corporations to do a lot more anything they want to make more profit.
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fyzzlefry
in reply to kat_angstrom • • •einlander
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in reply to samus12345 • • •Pika
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in reply to Pika • • •Pika
in reply to samus12345 • • •dudeface
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
VexLogic
in reply to dudeface • • •The biggest problem with this isn't really the lack of physical games. (Although this is really disappointing as I used to love having a huge collection of games to look at.) The real problem is where we are being pushed because of this.
Digital games are basically just license keys for us. These companies reserve the right to revoke those license keys from us or just completely remove said game/movie/show from the store and your library whenever they see fit.
Not to mention the end if the used game market but I don't feel like getting into that right now
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dudeface
in reply to VexLogic • • •VexLogic
in reply to dudeface • • •On PC we have a plethora of options to get our games the way we prefer. GOG is a fantastic company that sells games old and new that are DRM free. Meaning when I buy a game from them I get all of the files for said game and am free to do with it whatever I want, no launcher or internet required.
Not to mention there is always piracy for those that are so inclined.
And those two are just the tip of the iceberg. Console players have to get their games from the console's store and that's it.
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dudeface
in reply to VexLogic • • •You understand that all this talk of piracy will just ensure that developers only target consoles in the future like they used to right?
It may be relatively strong sales in PC right now but I am sure they will collectively cut that off and you will be left with indie releases on GOG
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VexLogic
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dudeface
in reply to VexLogic • • •Well it is, but the writing is also on the wall, computer hardware increases will have more of an impact than consoles which are subsidised
I don’t think it out of the question that to play the newest game on PC your only option will be to stream it from PlayStation or xbox as that will work on cheaper hardware that more people have
At that point the piracy backup goes out the window
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VexLogic
in reply to dudeface • • •Maybe for first party games. But I find it hard to believe that companies like Capcom for example would abandon PC.
Realistically though, considering we are clearly in bizarro world anything is possible at this point haha
sdcSpade
in reply to dudeface • • •like this
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Carlos Solís
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • •Amazing to see all four major players in the AAA gaming industry shooting themselves in the feet one way or another:
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in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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in reply to owenfromcanada • • •like this
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jordanlund
in reply to yaroto98 • • •Games reshared this.
13igTyme
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •The price increase part is sort of out of their hands. They are a small player in the chip game.
Other parts are all them all shit.
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atrielienz
in reply to 13igTyme • • •The removal of digital media is also out of their hands. They agreed to a distribution contract. The entity that owns that media offered a conditional license in that distribution agreement. Now they are either choosing not to renew or choosing to cancel the agreement and legally Sony don't have a choice except to be sued if they continue to allow people to access that digital content.
I agree it's shitty. I agree that it's a crazy thing to have happen when you're dropping the news about doing away with physical media. But it's still not really in their control.
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feannag
in reply to atrielienz • • •like this
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atrielienz
in reply to feannag • • •I'm this particular case what they were selling wasn't a license copy of a movie or show. They were selling a license to stream. When the contract ran out they had to pull it from the streaming platform.
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Wildmimic
in reply to atrielienz • • •Games reshared this.
atrielienz
in reply to Wildmimic • • •Ok. So let's say for the sake of argument, you have Netflix. You pay for Netflix specifically for... I dunno, Top Gear. Suddenly without warning Netflix is forced to pull Top Gear from its streaming platform because the license to provide it to stream has lapsed or been otherwise ended. That's basically what happened here except that they allowed you to pay per show or movie.
In this case what these customers paid for is the license to stream these digital items. Which (shitty though I agree it is) they agreed to when they made their purchases. But the fact is, Sony didn't reach into people's Harddrives and remove anything. What they did was remove these shows and movies from the digital streaming library of people who purchased it and the only reason they did is because otherwise they'd be sued if they didn't.
So while I appreciate your outrage, I think it's pretty important to note that the license holder (the entity that actually owns the ability to sell distribution rights for digital licenses to consumers) is the one who sets the terms, not the pl
... Mostrar másOk. So let's say for the sake of argument, you have Netflix. You pay for Netflix specifically for... I dunno, Top Gear. Suddenly without warning Netflix is forced to pull Top Gear from its streaming platform because the license to provide it to stream has lapsed or been otherwise ended. That's basically what happened here except that they allowed you to pay per show or movie.
In this case what these customers paid for is the license to stream these digital items. Which (shitty though I agree it is) they agreed to when they made their purchases. But the fact is, Sony didn't reach into people's Harddrives and remove anything. What they did was remove these shows and movies from the digital streaming library of people who purchased it and the only reason they did is because otherwise they'd be sued if they didn't.
So while I appreciate your outrage, I think it's pretty important to note that the license holder (the entity that actually owns the ability to sell distribution rights for digital licenses to consumers) is the one who sets the terms, not the platform of distribution, and this happens so often that literally not digital media is safe except when you can download it DRM free (Google play music, band camp, GOG etc).
I don't disagree that Sony is at fault for agreeing to that distribution agreement. That's not anything like what I said. What I said was that they did it because they are required to by law.
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allidoislietomyself
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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VitoRobles
in reply to allidoislietomyself • • •Games reshared this.
Zahille7
in reply to VitoRobles • • •Imagine if Bungie never "vaulted" (read: deleted) any part of Destiny 2 and we were still able to play the original campaign it shipped with? More people would still be playing Destiny 2 and you'd get plenty more new players without them having to use a guide or YouTube lore videos to get caught up on the story.
Instead of mArathon they'd probably be making a Destiny 3
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allidoislietomyself
in reply to VitoRobles • • •Games reshared this.
Doc_Crankenstein
in reply to allidoislietomyself • • •What really sucks is that Marathon is actually pretty fun.
They just completely fumbled the marketing and launch, the UI needs to be cleaned up, and it doesn't feel worth it at $40. IDC if it's a AAA developer, it's still a pretty small game content wise even if it is fun to play.
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GoatSynagogue
in reply to allidoislietomyself • • •Don’t blame Sony for bungies mess. Sony got absolutely scammed by Bungie because they were desperately and panicking after MS accounted they were buying ABK.
Bungie have been a terrible studio for a decade at least. Microsoft turned them down when Bungie attempted to sell themselves back to them for a fraction of what Sony paid them only a few months later.
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dreamkeeper
in reply to allidoislietomyself • • •Destiny got what it deserved. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did. I noped after they started charging $40 for a couple maps and a raid labeled as "expansions". And that was destiny 1. The game was an unbelievable ripoff.
Can't believe people still stuck with it even after they locked down the legacy content. It's crazy how much it takes to get people to stop buying enshittified products.
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allidoislietomyself
in reply to dreamkeeper • • •Games reshared this.
Jaeger86
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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zaphod
in reply to Jaeger86 • • •like this
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garretble
in reply to zaphod • • •Steam kinda killed physical PC games 20 years ago.
And the Steam zealots will come and say, "Yeah, but but you can still buy games on other storefronts! So it's not like this Sony thing at all!" OK, sure.
But Steam still helped kill physical games on PC.
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samus12345
in reply to garretble • • •Games reshared this.
garretble
in reply to samus12345 • • •Games reshared this.
Agent_Karyo
in reply to garretble • • •Why do you need physical release on PC?
You need a DRM free installer (preferably with patches built-in) not physical.
Mind you, I am no Valve fan, they lean towards typical American oligarchical behaviour and they made a massive contribution to developing loot boxes. But in comparison to all other large American tech companies, they are not aggressively terrible, still nowhere near "great" though.
LemmyTellYou
in reply to zaphod • • •This
Whilst I don’t agree with it, it’s hardly something new.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Jaeger86 • • •Games reshared this.
master94ga
in reply to Jaeger86 • • •Games reshared this.
samus12345
in reply to Jaeger86 • • •auzy1
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
flamingleg
in reply to auzy1 • • •blackbeans
in reply to auzy1 • • •Minidisc was licensed technology, companies like Sharp, Denon, Pioneer, JVC, Onkyo and Kenwood all made competitive minidisc players. The discs were also sold by many brands.
I don't think Sony's audio division was as restrictive and aggressive as their gaming division.
Flamekebab
in reply to auzy1 • • •You're allowed to swear here and MDs weren't proprietary.
UMDs were though.
brucethemoose
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •A funny anecdote from outside gaming land:
Sony mirrorless cameras, even MEGA expensive ones, have this quirk where they can’t shoot 30P HEVC.
The A6700 for instance, can record 24, 30, 60 h.264, but only 24 or 60 h.265. The A7C II is particularly handicapped, with only 24 h.265.
The $7000 A1 flagship is the same.
It doesn’t make any sense. Why?
Well, people kept asking Sony, and someone finally got a response:
us.community.sony.com/s/question/0D54O00007B6m2ISAR/why-sony-a7s-iii-doesnt-support-25-or-30-fps-in-…
... Mostrar másA funny anecdote from outside gaming land:
Sony mirrorless cameras, even MEGA expensive ones, have this quirk where they can’t shoot 30P HEVC.
The A6700 for instance, can record 24, 30, 60 h.264, but only 24 or 60 h.265. The A7C II is particularly handicapped, with only 24 h.265.
The $7000 A1 flagship is the same.
It doesn’t make any sense. Why?
Well, people kept asking Sony, and someone finally got a response:
us.community.sony.com/s/question/0D54O00007B6m2ISAR/why-sony-a7s-iii-doesnt-support-25-or-30-fps-in-…
I found that oddly enlightening.
“Well, it’s not optimal for BRAVIA TV over HDMI, so why would users want this?” Sony cannot fathom anything outside that.
It makes that whole list in OP’s post make total sense. It’s not even cynicism on their part; they literally cannot understand why their PlayStation users would want any of those things outside the immediate domain. What would they need a disk play for? What value is Bluepoint is a business review?
Customer Community
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Snot Flickerman
in reply to brucethemoose • • •zebidiah
in reply to brucethemoose • • •I am jacks complete lack of surprise....
This should be expected from the people who brought us memory sticks and betamax
floquant
in reply to brucethemoose • • •I just want to fucking choose what I want without having to provide a "user story"!! I HATE uber-market-optimized software and products, give me fucking settings instead of trying to guess for me!
MushuChupacabra
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •I was an XBox guy, and didn't get into Playstation at all. But it was always clear that they were excellent consoles. At a certain income level back in the day, you'd get an XBox or a Playstation, but not both. If you had a smidgen more money to spend, Nintendo had you covered.
I have no emotional fealty to Playstation in any way, but what a shame to see all three formerly awesome systems now competing to see who can enshitify more effectively.
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REDACTED
in reply to MushuChupacabra • • •I always assumed Nintendo stuff is cheaper since it looks like indie games and not anywhere close to the games you could play on consoles. Huh, TIL.
RightHandOfIkaros
in reply to REDACTED • • •Nintendo wasn't always like that. Every Nintendo console before the GameCube was the most powerful console of its generation. The GameCube was second most powerful behind Xbox but ahead of PS2. But like the N64, Nintendo made the GameCube with a fatal flaw that caused a severe limitation that was completely unnecessary: the game storage media.
For the N64, it was the choice to not use disks and thus were limited to only 64MB at most of game filesize, but the GameCube had disks. Except they were those stupid tiny ones that only held like 1.5GB instead of a normal sized disks at the time which held up to 8GB.
Then they made the Wii, which was just the GameCube 1.5, used nearly the same parts except it used normal disks finally and it sold like crazy. Unfortunately, Nintendo learned the wrong lesson and instead of saying "make normal consoles" they now learned to "make weak, cheap consoles." And now we are at where we are.
samus12345
in reply to RightHandOfIkaros • • •LemmyTellYou
in reply to REDACTED • • •There is no world where Nintendo had you covered
Their hardware and systems, particularly any online connectivity is 20hrs behind. They’ve also be the shittiest of them all with price hikes
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TankovayaDiviziya
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •DupaCycki
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Personally I bought a PS5 only to collect physical games and be able to play them. I'm not paying premium PS prices for temporary, digital access.
I think it's safe to say this means PS6 will either be digital only, or heavily focused on digital. Which for me is a non-negotiable deal breaker.
PlayStation is pulling off the best marketing campaign Xbox could ever dream of.
samus12345
in reply to DupaCycki • • •PS6 will 100% be digital only. It's likely directly related, and will probably release in Nov. 2028.
This isn't gonna help XBOX any, they're even worse and will be doing the same, guaranteed.
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GoatSynagogue
in reply to samus12345 • • •Sony only announced this now because of the upcoming Xbox layoff announcement. Typical “get all of your bad news out in front of the competitors worse news so yours is only in the news cycle for a few days” play.
Xbox’s “physical as digital” plans for the Xbox One were amazing. Bet the people who cried about it are now feeling pretty stupid.
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in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
Danitos
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •They are also lobbying to make hosting your own videogame server illegal: pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/esa-bafflingly-declares-private-minecraft-servers-illegal-in-stop-killin…
Sony is part of ESA.
esa-bafflingly-declares-private-minecraft-servers-illegal-in-stop-killing-games-hearing-we-consider-it-piracy-we-have-lawsuits
www.pcgamer.comGames reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to Danitos • • •Games reshared this.
rollerbang
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •Games reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to rollerbang • • •a4ng3l
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •Games reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to a4ng3l • • •Games reshared this.
a4ng3l
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •Games reshared this.
Trump Rapes Kids
in reply to a4ng3l • • •Games reshared this.
64bithero
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
HarkMahlberg, A Sharky Anthro y dandi8 like this.
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marighost
in reply to 64bithero • • •like this
dandi8 likes this.
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samus12345
in reply to marighost • • •Games reshared this.
64bithero
in reply to samus12345 • • •Disc systems are mostly built like shit especially from the early 2000s but ROM based cart systems if well taken care of will run for a long long time.
Have my OG N64, Dreamcast and GameGear all run perfectly fine. Well my GG has a dead spider in the screen but it still runs.
PlayStation 1,2, Saturns , the first 2 Xbox’s might be a different issue all together.
But to me this is connected to the growing eshitification of the industry
Games reshared this.
Bilb!
in reply to 64bithero • • •Games reshared this.
64bithero
in reply to Bilb! • • •Games reshared this.
rozodru
in reply to samus12345 • • •samus12345
in reply to rozodru • • •addie
in reply to samus12345 • • •samus12345
in reply to addie • • •Chloé 🥕
in reply to 64bithero • • •Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Chloé 🥕 • • •Eh, everything PS3/360 generation and earlier is basically available at perfect emulation, or definitely will be soon because of the existing emulators and their development.
95% of all games from the PS/Xbox generations since then have been on PC from day 1. Almost all of the Xbox first party games have been on PC since then as well. The switch has been emulated perfectly for ages.
This realistically leaves only a handful of Sony first party PS4 and PS5 games left, and the switch 2 which only just came out.
Games reshared this.
Strawberry
in reply to Chloé 🥕 • • •Surp
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
Sektor
in reply to Surp • • •Games reshared this.
Kyden Fumofly
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Kyden Fumofly • • •It was always going to be digital only on account of 85%+ of all game sales being digital.
The digital only PS5 wasn’t a market test though, it was purely a marketing tactic - they barely made 5% of PS5 production digital only ones, but it allowed them to market the PS5 as “from $399”, when in reality it was $499.
Games reshared this.
Kyden Fumofly
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •Its 78% actually, up from 76% last year, but that is sales and not users. I would hardly believe that are users that bought all of their games digitally, even the good collection ones.
My little brother, who started with PS3 as a kid and had/has PS4, PS5 and almost all of his games are in discs, won't be happy about it.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Kyden Fumofly • • •ThunderComplex
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
bitjunkie
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •My MSPaint skills aren't what they used to be, but imagine a console version of this
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •Games reshared this.
VitoRobles
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •Nintendo shut down the e-shop for the 3DS. All the digital games you owned? Gone.
They're part of the problem.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to VitoRobles • • •Games reshared this.
Cintari
in reply to VitoRobles • • •SaharaMaleikuhm
in reply to VitoRobles • • •bless
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •Games reshared this.
SaharaMaleikuhm
in reply to bless • • •Games reshared this.
JcbAzPx
in reply to SaharaMaleikuhm • • •Games reshared this.
samus12345
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •ThunderComplex
in reply to samus12345 • • •Edit with sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nintendo_Switch_2-only_games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_games
Category:Nintendo Switch 2-only games - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.orgsamus12345
in reply to ThunderComplex • • •Yes, but the quality of those exclusives is lacking compared to their previous consoles. It's only been a year, so I'm going to be optimistic that their output will improve. Looking forward to Ocarina of Time and Xenoblade Genesis.
Ports of games to Nintendo consoles are always the worst way to play them due to the weaker hardware, so exclusives matter a lot more on them. It's the entire reason I got one. PS5 is good for more than just exclusives (especially since, as you pointed out, it barely has any!)
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •I don't understand why anyone cares.
I can't think of a single game that didn't require an install and then updates before playing anyways.
Games reshared this.
Vipsu
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •Games on GOG come with offline installer that can be used to install the most reacent version.
But you're right, many games do require day 1 patches or even game data to be dowloaded but that makes these worse / lower in quality for many.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Vipsu • • •Games reshared this.
Zink
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •It won't really affect me, but I understand the appeal of a physical artifact servicing as time game's license for those who like to lend, sell, trade, library, etc.
And those same benefits are why the corporations can't wait to do away with it. It's been quite a while since Microsoft tried the same thing and people freaked out enough that they reversed course.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Zink • • •Games reshared this.
Zink
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •I specifically remember that their plan was essentially CD Keys. You'd buy a physical game and it would have a code inside, or the discs would have unique identifiers that force linked to your account, or whatever.
So yeah, essentially physical media with a digital license. If you were going to be able to resell your game it was going to have to go through microsoft, or maybe you could lend a friend your disc and that lets them buy their own license for a small discount to play it.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Zink • • •It was keys in a box, but they had a framework to allow physical retailers to remove licenses from Xbox accounts and refresh the license key for resale. They also had a system for you to loan your digital games out to your friends via their gamertag. When you digitally loaned it to them, you could not play it and they could. Iirc it would automatically revert after 30 days if you didn’t extend, but you could choose how long to loan it for.
They abandoned it all after the ridiculous crashouts by people who couldn’t see where the future was heading, and now you get digital with no resale and no loaning.
Games reshared this.
Zink
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •Useful details, thanks.
I'll just point out that they/we did not have a system like that, but just promises of it from a tech giant. (except of course for whatever they had designed internally up until that time) So even as somebody who doesn't really sell games, I get why people weren't thrilled with the idea of microsoft being the ever-present broker in the transactions.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Zink • • •MinnesotaGoddam
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •Games reshared this.
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to MinnesotaGoddam • • •Or old enough to not care that much. What am I going to do with more plastic?
BUT, I should have been more clear that I was talking only about ps5 and ps5 owners. I would never own one. Their online account is annoying and I have never forgiven them for the rootkit.
I was surprised to find out that there are games that will play without the internet. Although every ps5 MUST be connected to the internet first to link the disc drive to the device.
I used Does It Play to look at the games, and a lot of them will not work without updates. I assumed all at this point, which is why I said what I said.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - Base PS5 (ESRB - Standard)
DoesItPlay?MinnesotaGoddam
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •Aneorthisio
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •That is only the case because your console is connected to the internet. For example, I can dust off my old PS3 today and play the version 1.0 release of GTA V after installing it from the disc because the console is offline, meaning there won't be any prompt asking me to update the game to the latest version, and it simply works.
You might argue that this is a bad example and that GTA V runs better on modern hardware, so let us consider Bloodborne on the PS4 instead, a title you will not find anywhere else and for which current emulation remains, at best, sketchy. I can insert that disc into my PS4 unplugged from the internet and play it immediately without any mandatory update.
Killing physical support means the end of this possibility for further releases, not that Sony has many exclusives these days, but for the handful of PS6 games that won't make it to PC.
Games reshared this.
ForgottenUsername
in reply to Aneorthisio • • •And there were ps5 discs that did this. I played Astrobot for a month with no downloads or updates.!
I agree it wasn't the norm, but it was possible.
Games reshared this.
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to Aneorthisio • • •Were there any ps5 games that could play from the disc offline anymore?
I guess that was my point: that ps5 players already were used to having to deal with online content.
Games reshared this.
ForgottenUsername
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •Games reshared this.
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to ForgottenUsername • • •OK, I was looking over Does It Play and a lot do let you play without updates, although the site notes those can have a lot of issues before being patched.
It was more than I would have thought, since everyone I know with a ps5 seems to spend more time getting updates than actually playing, lol.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - Base PS5 (ESRB - Standard)
DoesItPlay?Games reshared this.
MinnesotaGoddam
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •Games reshared this.
Aneorthisio
in reply to NewNewAugustEast • • •thezeesystem
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Just get a console they said. Console just works they said. Why get a PC when it won't work in a year they said.
This is why I don't buy consoles. I can use a controller on my computer which is upgradable and not subject to one individual company dictating what I can and can't do.
Games reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to thezeesystem • • •Interesting because my Steam digital purchases go back to 2007 and I can still play them all.
My first digital purchase was the Orange Box and my second purchase was Psychonauts.
I had purchased Half Life 2 as a physical copy and it still works, too.
Sure they're all just licenses, but a lot of effort has been put into me being able to continue playing them, including on Linux.
Yes, Valve is a different story because they're a private company, but 20 years of license when I could play on any computer I owned at any time I think is showing that digital licensing isn't inherently evil as much as it is widely abused for control.
Games reshared this.
Vipsu
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •They're actually not just licenses. When you download a game from steam you get the game data. You can back up this gamedata if you wish. Sure it will have steam DRM but thats something on can get around one way or another.
This is the power of open platform like PC
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Vipsu • • •The same is true of Xbox consoles btw. You can back-up your game files from your Xbox to a external hdd and transfer them back to your Xbox in 50 years time and play them even if they’ve been delisted and Xbox no longer exists.
They are still only licenses though, same with steam. Steam still has verification servers. If steam disappeared you are no better off than if xbox did.
Games reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to Vipsu • • •limer
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •If steam changed ownership and control, there is nothing stopping the new people from doing things similar to other big companies.
Many games are potentially a heart attack away from loss of access
Games reshared this.
CheeseNoodle
in reply to limer • • •Games reshared this.
Snot Flickerman
in reply to limer • • •Aneorthisio
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •So, this means mandatory proprietary hardware just to play the four or five true permanent exclusives that will be on the PS6 throughout its entire lifetime, given that everything else will eventually come to PC, and you don't actually own any of your digital content, meaning that they can revoke your access to your purchases without notice at any point if they choose to do so.
People will still buy it though, that's the saddest part.
Games reshared this.
Jackal
in reply to Aneorthisio • • •Games reshared this.
Squizzy
in reply to Jackal • • •They have but others have not. GTA will come to PC. GoW Faye likely wont.
I'd rather wait and emulate the next spiderman and Wolverine game tbh.
Games reshared this.
Aneorthisio
in reply to Jackal • • •Jackal
in reply to Aneorthisio • • •KssioAug
in reply to Jackal • • •For now, yes. But these companies change their strategies all the fucking time. As soon as they see their "only on Playstation" strategy is not giving them the expected return, I am sure they're gonna get backflip, again.
Microsoft and Sony (and pretty much any other big corporation in the game business) are not reliable at all. I find it both amusing and shocking that we still have 'fanboys' up to this day, when these companies themselves can't even maintain a solid long term strategy. All they care about is making maximum profit at the cost of literally everything else, so their 'promises' hold no weight at all.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Aneorthisio • • •Games reshared this.
Aneorthisio
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •renrenPDX
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video
PlayStation (YouTube)Games reshared this.
Ydna
in reply to renrenPDX • • •Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to renrenPDX • • •Little did the Luddites who applauded this realise that they were signing their own fate.
Xbox One’s digital plans were amazing. Luddites and Sony fanboys just couldn’t understand that an all digital future was inevitable, and actively fought against the only company that was bringing the benefits of physical copies to digital.
Games reshared this.
Sabrinamycarpet
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Sabrinamycarpet • • •What exactly is your point?
Microsoft were doing their “physical as digital” plan which was literally the best digital-only system ever devised, and they were forced to ditch it by people who were too dumb to see the industry trends at the time, and by people who hate Microsoft/xbox.
Now no one gets that amazing “digital only” system.
Games reshared this.
Sabrinamycarpet
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •I'll try to make it clearer for you.
Microsoft made a plan. Great. Anybody can 'make' a plan and that plan could sound amazing to some people.
You are nostalgizing the ideal parts of their plan without having to see it play out. How would sharing have really worked? Would the disc be tied to your account forever? Would your friend be able to install from it?
And for sake of argument let's say Microsoft executed on this best plan ever. Fast forward 10 years and they are looking for more profits somewhere. What's stopping them from changing the terms of their plan? Pretty sure the TOS you click OK to when installing the game says it lets them alter things as they fit.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Sabrinamycarpet • • •They literally outlined all of this. Everything single part. You could choose a friends gamertag to loan your game to. While it was on loan they could download and play it, but you couldn’t since you loaned it out.
As for your second paragraph, no you’re just inventing imaginary what-ifs because you want to be anti-Microsoft - just like I’m sure you did back when they announced these plans.
Thanks to people like you, you’ll now get all the drawbacks of digital and none of the benefits of physical. Congratulations, you played yourself.
Sabrinamycarpet
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •I'm imagining anti Microsoft things?
Tell me: what is the monthly subscription price of gamepass? What was it a year ago? 2 years ago? How's their game library?
I must've imagined all that fuckery they did to that service. Surely they would never have done anything like that to that digital asset policy you love so much. We can trust them.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Sabrinamycarpet • • •You’re seriously trying to use price increases as a reason why their “physical as digital” plan wouldn’t work?
The Xbox game library is amazing. They’re consistently the best publisher of the year. The game pass library is incredible.
Games reshared this.
forzanature
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
InFerNo
in reply to forzanature • • •Games reshared this.
dellish
in reply to InFerNo • • •Games reshared this.
VitoRobles
in reply to forzanature • • •This was me a decade ago when Xbox suggested something like this. Nintendo was shutting down their old eshops and making purchased games in playable and Playstation was selling shovelware on their online store.
In a dystopia like that...
Suddenly, Steam's digital only didn't look so bad.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to VitoRobles • • •Xbox’s digital future was actually incredibly user friendly - it was all digital, but it allowed people to re-sell and loan their digital games. People were just too dumb to understand what was so good about it.
The alternative is what Sony are now doing - all digital with zero of the perks of physical.
Games reshared this.
lechekaflan
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Bet the Sony fanboys wish they didn’t make so much fun of the Xbox one’s digital plans now. Xbox’s digital plan had:
PlayStation buyers will definitely not get the first 2, and Sony will likely prevent the third.
“Arrogant sony” is well and truly back.
Games reshared this.
chiliedogg
in reply to GoatSynagogue • • •Yeah. The Xbox One's initial digital library plans were actually pretty compelling. The ability to lend and sell licenses was actually pretty neat, but they had to cancel it with the backlash to the announcement that you'd have a license code tied to the disc.
Honestly, if Xbox had ditched physical entirely that generation instead of causing the confusion around requiring the digital license despite having a disc I think it would have been better-received. That or going to a 2-tiered system where you had to have the disc in the machine to play games that hadn't initially been a digital download.
Oh, and ditching the Kinnect bullshit.
Games reshared this.
ritsku
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
SupraMario
in reply to ritsku • • •GoatSynagogue
Unknown parent • • •While I applaud your decision, the market has spoken - 85%+ of all console game sales are digital. The overwhelming majority of people don’t care about physical games, especially in a time when the physical copies don’t even contain the full game due to storage constraints.
I’ve been digital-only since the day they made all games available digitally on the Xbox 360, because I don’t trade or re-sell games, ever, and I much prefer the benefits of digital. Most people are like me these days. It sucks for the people that aren’t, but they’re going to have to just move on or abandon their hobby.
Games reshared this.
kalapala
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
HarkMahlberg, fistac0rpse y Lasslinthar like this.
Games reshared this.
Goodeye8
in reply to kalapala • • •like this
A Sharky Anthro likes this.
Games reshared this.
GoatSynagogue
in reply to Goodeye8 • • •Games reshared this.
Chloé 🥕
in reply to kalapala • • •viral.vegabond
in reply to kalapala • • •InFerNo
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
LordCrom
in reply to InFerNo • • •Games reshared this.
ILikeBoobies
in reply to LordCrom • • •Appoxo
in reply to InFerNo • • •GoatSynagogue
Unknown parent • • •The 85% stat isn’t a lie - it’s in their own financials that they release to shareholders, and they’re actually one of publishers with the least digital uptake. Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, etc all also release these figures and they’re higher.
Physical media is not making a resurgence. It’s getting lower and lower every single year.
Sony will not abandon this plan because they have no reason to. It won’t affect their sales at all.
Also we don’t know how this will affect retail yet, that all depends on if they allow retailers to sell below the PS Store prices.
GoatSynagogue
Unknown parent • • •It’s not inflated. They’re not counting PS Plus downloads or anything else, unless you’re accusing them of lying to shareholders and breaking many laws.
The amount of people leaving physical media is not being outpaced by those picking it up.
LettyWhiterock
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •The removal of physical games isn't that big of a deal to me as someone who mostly plays on PC, and the only physical PC games I've bought in the last decade and a half were touhou games I imported off Yahoo auctions.
Honesty I wonder why that actually became so normalized on PC while it didn't on consoles. I'm sure Steam has a big role in it.
007Ace
in reply to LettyWhiterock • • •I think the main reason for this on PC has been the fact that there's been piracy/licensing for so long.
We used to have cd keys to prove you were using the legit disc. You bought a license, and there were cdchecks. Once you were able to prove ownership with a key instead of a disc, and create your own offline installers too?
All the reasons to fight against it were gone.
On consoles you can't make offline backups. You can't play without constant online license checks. And once the license date rolls over you can't play anyway.
My gog backup, I can install offline tomorrow never touch the Internet and be fine.
n1ckn4m3
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Auth
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •ILikeBoobies
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
omarfw
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •Games reshared this.
Passerby6497
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •Maybe not, but the fact that customers who thought they purchased a movie are having it stolen from them with the excuse that the license ran out IS their fault, 100%.
Sony chose to advertise items for sale that indicated that their customer was buying the movie, not renting it for the lifetime of the license. From a consumer point of view, it doesn't matter whose fault the license expired, because Sony is at fault for misleading storefront and advertising. They knew the terms of the license, and chose to advertise the product in ways that were absolutely not in line with what the customer thought they got vs what they actually got.
There is no world in which Sony does not take fault in this. Well, outside of a courtroom anyway, because media owners can do as they want in our current copyright hellscape. In any sane world, this would be seen as the theft it is. In this world, it's just a Tuesday.
Games reshared this.
Appoxo
in reply to ILikeBoobies • • •ILikeBoobies
in reply to Appoxo • • •demizerone
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
Tollana1234567
in reply to demizerone • • •like this
HarkMahlberg likes this.
Nalivai
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Chill_Dan
in reply to Nalivai • • •like this
HarkMahlberg likes this.
Nalivai
in reply to Chill_Dan • • •Y'all talking like we're in 1998 and the game can fit on a disk leaving room for developer's commentary.
like this
HarkMahlberg likes this.
Games reshared this.
AusatKeyboardPremi
in reply to Nalivai • • •I have seen this being mentioned a few times. I wonder what those games are, or whether people are exaggerating for hyperbole.
I own physical copies of PS5 exclusives that I play without signing in to PSN. Most recently, I played the director’s cut of Ghost of Tsushima this way. I used to do the same on my PS4 too.
thatGuyWithGlasses
in reply to Nalivai • • •like this
HarkMahlberg likes this.
Nalivai
in reply to thatGuyWithGlasses • • •If it's still not the case for some games, it's not the lack of disks that finishes it.
HarkMahlberg likes this.
Games reshared this.
tmyakal
in reply to thatGuyWithGlasses • • •No, it won't be. That's literally the point. Publishers have viewed the second-hand market as craven scalpers for decades. Companies like GameStop make an absolute killing selling the same used disc 3 or 4 times at $65/ea than selling new for $70 once.
Every few years there's a new and more aggressive push to limit what people can do or get with a trade-in. It's why pre-order "bonuses" have gotten to be such a big deal, why live-service games got such a huge push, and now why Sony is eliminating physical media. They think cutting the resellers out means they'll get more customers, not that less people will play their games.
Nalivai
in reply to tmyakal • • •Games reshared this.
Phantaloons
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •LastYearsIrritant
in reply to Phantaloons • • •It works until it doesn't. Companies can push prices for a little while, maybe a whole generation, but one day people decide it's not worth it and it all crashes down suddenly.
Happens over and over again, could be the new era of PC gaming that Valve is pushing will tip them over, could be a new generation of Nintendo games. Could be a new company from China.
Big players do this every time, then the CEO says "nobody could have predicted that the 6th price hike was the end of the brand!"
Games reshared this.
bridgeburner
in reply to LastYearsIrritant • • •Games reshared this.
LastYearsIrritant
in reply to bridgeburner • • •Except history disproves this over and over.
People get stuck in what they know, but eventually they break out of it, and usually it's a small thing that takes them over the tipping point.
Thinking that everyone on the planet is dumb except yourself just proves you're not looking into the facts.
detren
in reply to bridgeburner • • •prole
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
CptOblivius
in reply to prole • • •Games reshared this.
Joelk111
in reply to CptOblivius • • •prole
in reply to CptOblivius • • •Stefen Auris
in reply to prole • • •Actually open source software just keeps getting better and better. I'm amazed at how much stuff I can run on my own computers for free!
However with AI flooding open source projects with security vulnerabilities and things, this is subject to change (but hopefully not)
Joelk111
in reply to Stefen Auris • • •Regrettable_incident
in reply to prole • • •Games reshared this.
SuperSpruce
in reply to prole • • •oyzmo
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
Joelk111
in reply to oyzmo • • •I'm pretty sure Trump said he was going to make things cheaper and we did not have any reason to not believe him
The largest /s you've ever seen.
meltycat
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •MiddleAgesModem
in reply to meltycat • • •Games reshared this.
Pinto, the Bean
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •They just remove the right to access it. You don't own it, you own a licence to play it. You don't own anything digitally you yourself cannot access and transfer.
You don't own the content on Netflix. Or Amazon. Or any digital marketplace, besides DRM-free places.
They don't hack your computer, they just turn off the servers and ban accounts.
Games reshared this.
MiddleAgesModem
in reply to Pinto, the Bean • • •They can't do that, it's impossible. You are not logging into their server to play the game. You are downloading and installing in on your local machine.
This is NOT like Netflix. How can people be so ignorant about this? Do you not really know how this works? For Netflix, you stream from their servers. That IS NOT what is happening here.
Games reshared this.
Pinto, the Bean
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •Games reshared this.
captain_oni
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •Too bad they can, and they did.
sony-rolls-out-30-day-online-drm-check-in-for-playstation-digital-games-players-could-temporarily-lose-access-if-they-dont-keep-their-consoles-online
www.tomshardware.comScrollone
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •Games reshared this.
MiddleAgesModem
in reply to Scrollone • • •Do you have those movies saved on your local machine? Or are you accessing them on a remote server?
People here are supposed to tech literate, goddamn. I'm barely tech literate and I understand the difference between downloading and installing a program on your local machine and accessing streaming video on remote servers.
Sony cannot remove programs from your local machine.
Games reshared this.
forestbeasts
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •...Have you not heard of DRM?
Because DRM is a thing too. They can make it so you can't open that program on your local machine.
Games reshared this.
Pinto, the Bean
in reply to forestbeasts • • •Games reshared this.
forestbeasts
in reply to Pinto, the Bean • • •How I wish it actually worked that way...
-- Frost
Bronzie
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •Let me paint a picture for you, friend: you have a power outage while playing games. Your drive is corrupted (yes, this happened to me).
Sony has removed the game from their servers, and you just lost your only copy, as you have no way to back it up.
It is now gone forever, just like the movies they removed after selling.
You seem irritated that people push back at you, but they have valid points. Without a physical copy, you are no longer in control of the game/movie.
You also lose the ability to buy and sell used, which is a right you have with physical disks, but not with a digital license.
It’s ok to not care for physical media, but at least try to understand the point we’re trying to make. We want us all to have access to both digital and physical to choose freely. Why fight that when it’s a win/win for all of us?
Scrollone
in reply to MiddleAgesModem • • •rafoix
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •This is what happens when their only competitor is a mindless Microslop.
Nintendo carved out their niche and Sony has no chance against them in that market after abandoning AAA and AA single player games in favor of trash service games.
Tollana1234567
in reply to rafoix • • •Games reshared this.
rafoix
in reply to Tollana1234567 • • •Nintendo makes good AA and AAA games just like they did decades ago.
They don’t believe in discounts or quality analog sticks but their game design is still solid.
Games reshared this.
SkunkWorkz
in reply to rafoix • • •Nintendo also doesn’t do mass layoffs. Nintendo provides lifetime employment. Hence why they have released high quality games for decades, because the new generation of devs gets the time to grow and the old generation stays to pass down their knowledge to the next generation.
Nintendo Kyoto is know as a very good employer in Japan.
pyre
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
grinning_serpent
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
RagingRobot
in reply to grinning_serpent • • •grinning_serpent
in reply to RagingRobot • • •Sam_Bass
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
A_Random_Idiot
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •No, this is just playstation continuing to hate their customer base.
They've always hated their customers. Between Sony, and Nintendo, I dont know who hates their customers the most... but they both certainly try.
and it doesnt matter, because they both have enough fanboys that strip off their clothes and gleefully dance naked and joyous in the rain of shit both companies sputter out of their assholes and down onto their customers.
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MasterOfProton
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Games reshared this.
bitjunkie
in reply to MasterOfProton • • •Games reshared this.
Scrubbles
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •madowlx
in reply to Scrubbles • • •djdarren
in reply to Scrubbles • • •Tollana1234567
in reply to Scrubbles • • •adarza
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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samus12345
in reply to adarza • • •Prove_your_argument
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •I've been picking up game consoles for my whole life. I decided before the NS2 was announced that I was done picking up game consoles. Now there is absolutely zero chance of me picking up a ps6, it's just not acceptable to do this.
They all want you to go to digital storefronts because they get a bigger cut of the pie and you cannot use anyone else's copy. Soon we'll see them remove activating two consoles on one account entirely and possibly the offline capability as well. They want to make sure you drink your verification cans to keep playing, they just haven't gotten there yet.
like this
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VexLogic
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Really scary to see where the industry is headed! I've started purchasing games on GOG whenever possible so as to put my money towards an actually good source in the industry but it doesn't feel like enough.
These companies are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with and it feels like we just gotta take it at this point.
I especially feel bad for the console gamers as they have very little options to get around this and switching to PC is unfortunately more expensive than ever.
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samus12345
in reply to VexLogic • • •Either that or become tech-savvy enough for 🏴☠️
Ashtear
in reply to VexLogic • • •Now that PC gaming is at feature parity with console gaming, I think it's particularly important to tell people how available DRM-free gaming is. No, it's not going to be common in the AAA segment of your library, but it's a lot of games. And you'll never have to worry about it being pulled from your library.
The price of hardware is a pain point for sure, but if you're able to see past that, you'll be spending less over a generation on PC than you would on a console between not having to pay for online service, dramatically cheaper gamepad/accessory options, and a massive library of quality games at $30 or less.
VexLogic
in reply to Ashtear • • •Say it louder for the people in the back!!!
I agree 100% friend 😁
ChicoSuave
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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samus12345
in reply to ChicoSuave • • •jordanlund
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Because stopping disc production has worked so well for Microsoft...
Here's the bit both are forgetting:
The hardware is still sold at retail.
So you go into a store, you see a console for sale but no games. Or, worse, a shelf of old games on the "Discontinued" rack (the Xbox section in most Targets and Walmarts now.) Do you feel inclined to buy that hardware?
How is that working out for Microsoft?
forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/06/26/xbox-sales-are-its-lowest-ever-this-month-playstation-its-lowe…
Valve can get away with it with the Steam products because they are sold in the same online store that sells the games.
xbox-sales-are-its-lowest-ever-this-month-playstation-its-lowest-since-2000
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psx_crab
in reply to jordanlund • • •Also steam is a storefront, if you want the hardware you go to PC store.
Saying that made me realised that they might actually want to make sure they (the Sony store) are the only one to be able to sell this, no more game store in the future.
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samus12345
in reply to psx_crab • • •samus12345
in reply to jordanlund • • •The games will still be sold at retailers as a code in a box. I don't see the point, but apparently that's the plan.
Valve can also get away with it because PCs are an open platform and you have options to have control over your digital games, whether legal or not. So the lack of physical media doesn't really matter there.
thiscat
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •infinitesunrise
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •like this
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LemmyTellYou
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •I’m not one of those people who pretends they will play a physical disc game for the rest of their life
I do however like physical for two reasons.
Firstly, the price, how tf can you justify charging more when you are cutting out all of the middlemen and listing on your own online store. Secondly, resale. I can buy a game, play it and resell.
If the tradeoff on going digital was that games were 50% cheaper, then I’d be happy. I wouldn’t have to hoard games and I’d have the convenience of digital.
Graphiar
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Eh. I’m not surprised to see this. But I am happy I built my PC when I did.
Quite frankly I do not feel bad about pirating everything and storing it to my hard drive. If we don’t own it, it’s not stealing.
ryper
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Sony Shutting Down PlayStation Store for New Purchases on PS3 and Vita, Beginning Next Month
Tom Phillips (IGN)samus12345
in reply to ryper • • •d3lta19
in reply to samus12345 • • •samus12345
in reply to d3lta19 • • •Mrsilkworm
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •If you install Linux you all get one of the best is for free.
If you want to go further you can emulate the heck of old consoles and old PC games and have tons of fun.
You could also sail the high seas for content that has DRM and/or is very expensive.
Don't forget. If you don't own what you buy the piracy is ethical and justified.
After akk, piracy is mostly a service problem and when you enshitify a service you end up FAFO.
Oneiros
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •GMac
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •This is Sony though, they care so much about playstation customers they even went to the effort of updating the ps3 firmware in March this year to improve things for their customers.
I mean it would be crazy to suggest they would do that for a console they discontinued a decade ago just to try and fuck with people who have the temerity to run custom firmware on hardware they bought and paid for 20 years ago....
Sony business logic is fucked.
MonkderVierte
in reply to GMac • • •GMac
in reply to MonkderVierte • • •Don't think that there was ever a security hole. I wouldnt consider installing alt firmware to be a security hole
Per the patch notes: playstation.com/en-gb/support/hardware/ps3/system-software/
"By updating, you can enjoy additional features, improved usability, and enhanced security.
Please note, to play Blu-ray discs, your PS3 system needs a renewed Blu-ray player encryption key. Please update your PS3 system software to the latest version to renew the Blu-ray player encryption key."
I havent actually tried to watch a bluray on custom firmware since, but I'm a weirdo who uses it for playing games so that doesnt matter to me.
I dont see any money being made on the ps3
How to update PS3 console system software
www.playstation.comSomething Burger 🍔
in reply to GMac • • •DanceMomsSavedMe
in reply to GMac • • •c64z86
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •lemmydividebyzero
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •mavu
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •definitely end of an era.
I'm not buying a console without physical media.
Sony can kill the second hand market if they want, but that was the last thing that differentiated them from Steam.
Good bye Playstation, i'll remember you fondly.
SaharaMaleikuhm
in reply to mavu • • •samus12345
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •It warms my heart to see that EVERY comment on Sony's blog post about it is negative. Hope the decision ends up biting Sony in the ass, but even if not, at least people weren't silent about it.
EDIT: and they're being yelled at everywhere else on the internet that people can post, as well. Good.
Itsamelemmy
Unknown parent • • •After the recent Sony is deleting your movies you bought crap, I decided I'm never buying a digital game from them ever again. So sounds like it's my last as well. And I was already 90% digital.
Especially seeing as they tried to do the same thing before and reversed course due to the backlash, but I guess they just don't care anymore.
bless
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •87Six
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •melfie
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Captain Howdy
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •The entire reason I've ever bought consoles and games was because I could get used games at a bargain and also sell my old consoles and game collections when I'm done with them. I can't imagine that I'm the only person who looked at it this way.
Now console producers pull shit like this when they can't even claim to be more user friendly than PC because SteamOS is a real competitor.
Well I guess it was good while it lasted, at least until the last few years when greed fully took over. Microsoft is already on it's last leg and Sony and Nintendo are going to follow eventually.
nicpicname
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •SunshineJogger
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •They can do all this because people keep giving them money.
Too many people make it about brand identity than simply playing games.
AlexisN
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •sorelight
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •GolfFoxtrotLima
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Sylvartas
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •MystValkyrie
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •I don't think this is a world-ending catastrophe per se, but I don't understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this. The only draws of consoles was the turnkey hardware, which you can generally get with Proton now, and access to physical games, which won't be a thing soon. Now it's just a locked-down PC with a DRM storefront that makes you pay a subscription to pay online games and which may or may not have backwards compatibility from system to system.
Maybe that's just the PC gamer in me talking. Are there any advantages to console anymore? Like, a single benefit?
BandDad
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •The loss of physical media in addition to the rest of their terrible decisions solidified that I'm done with Sony. Still on the PS4, but I see no need to give them any future support.
It really sucks that between this and the death of personal computing at the hands of the AI bubble, my main hobby is becoming unaffordable.
PacketPilgrim
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •TheDuke
in reply to PacketPilgrim • • •Besides being expensive, you would think owning a console would get rid of headaches. But noooo - No pass-subscriptions? No online access! No couch co-op! No optimisations! And now - no owning!
And those greedy CEO's scratch their heads and are wondering "Why is nobody buying our stuff anymore?!" the day gaming turned corporate is the day it died.
It can be still fun today, but the awesome rock'n'roll days of gaming are loooong gone.
Aceticon
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Consoles were always a walled garden from the very start, very purposefully so, and those things tend to squeeze customers once captured with higher prices and, sooner or later, fully enshittify.
So when consoles originally appeared I just kept gaming on the PC because it was an open platform and the only console I ever had was a WII (the original one) because their controller was at the time innovative, and honestly it wasn't really worth it.
Then, specifically for the PlayStation there's Sony, who have a long track record of anti-consumer actions that started when their leadership stopped coming from the Engineering Division and started coming from their Media Division (after they bought a Movie studio in the US), from their electronics becoming locked down and restrictive for users (they're the ones who came up with Blu-Ray, which was way more locked down to block copying than DVDs were) to the infamous shipping of music CDs with rootkits (the "Sony Rootkit" scandal)
So this increasing enshittification of the PlayStation isn't at all surprising and suspect it
... Mostrar másConsoles were always a walled garden from the very start, very purposefully so, and those things tend to squeeze customers once captured with higher prices and, sooner or later, fully enshittify.
So when consoles originally appeared I just kept gaming on the PC because it was an open platform and the only console I ever had was a WII (the original one) because their controller was at the time innovative, and honestly it wasn't really worth it.
Then, specifically for the PlayStation there's Sony, who have a long track record of anti-consumer actions that started when their leadership stopped coming from the Engineering Division and started coming from their Media Division (after they bought a Movie studio in the US), from their electronics becoming locked down and restrictive for users (they're the ones who came up with Blu-Ray, which was way more locked down to block copying than DVDs were) to the infamous shipping of music CDs with rootkits (the "Sony Rootkit" scandal)
So this increasing enshittification of the PlayStation isn't at all surprising and suspect it will get even worse than this.
Ultimately I think the PlayStation platform will end up dying.
naevaTheRat
in reply to Aceticon • • •Aceticon
in reply to naevaTheRat • • •If you go by the definition of "console" than includes things like the ZX Spectrum or the Amiga, then you are partly correct (you got my age wrong) as all home computing started with such "consoles" (and then there was a time when it was pretty much all PCs, and then came the modern consoles which are the ones I was talking about).
Technically speaking the modern age "console" was a reinvention of the "game consoles" of the pre-PC era, only originally the "closed system" nature was mainly a technical limitation, whilst the closed system nature of the modern age consoles was a choice.
Having lived and used computing devices in both eras, I would say that the modern one's have almost nothing to do with the original ones, especially the business model.
naevaTheRat
in reply to Aceticon • • •LastYearsIrritant
in reply to Aceticon • • •PC games are pretty much locked down to the original purchaser. Console games could be bought and sold used. Once I was done with a console generation I just sold everything on ebay and made back a bunch of my money (especially since I bought most of it used as well).
PC games are a whole different beast. But now that most console games are locked to an account... there's really no benefit of them anymore. Just get a PC for your living room and install SteamOS (or similar).
Aceticon
in reply to LastYearsIrritant • • •Back in the era of physical media PC games too could be bought and sold used (though only some: it really boiled down to whether it used phone-home DRM or not, something which in the PC world was all over the place).
But yeah, you were right that console games could be bought and sold used in a much more standardized way, whilst that wasn't really a value proposition in the PC were such possibility was not at all a standard feature of PC games and it wasn't really reliably supported in the broader ecosystem (for example, with game stores not usually buying back used PC games as they often did for console games).
Naturally, as a unique value proposition (vs PC games) used as bait to get users inside the console walled garden in earlier days, this feature was taken away from users.
Personally I always thought that in the PC world the absence of this was balanced by games being a lot cheaper and even piracy for those for whom even so games weren't cheap enough and in the long run, as we see, the "much cheaper" part is being way harder for PC publish
... Mostrar másBack in the era of physical media PC games too could be bought and sold used (though only some: it really boiled down to whether it used phone-home DRM or not, something which in the PC world was all over the place).
But yeah, you were right that console games could be bought and sold used in a much more standardized way, whilst that wasn't really a value proposition in the PC were such possibility was not at all a standard feature of PC games and it wasn't really reliably supported in the broader ecosystem (for example, with game stores not usually buying back used PC games as they often did for console games).
Naturally, as a unique value proposition (vs PC games) used as bait to get users inside the console walled garden in earlier days, this feature was taken away from users.
Personally I always thought that in the PC world the absence of this was balanced by games being a lot cheaper and even piracy for those for whom even so games weren't cheap enough and in the long run, as we see, the "much cheaper" part is being way harder for PC publishers to try and undo (they've definitely tried of late, and IMHO it's failing which is why AAA game publisher are bitching and moaning that their market share is falling) than the used console games market was, and the piracy part is even harder.
If there's one think I learned early on in Tech as a professional already back in the 90s is that in the mid and long term sticking to open tech will save you from getting squeezed, both as a professional when choosing 3rd party tech stacks and as a consumer.
Smaile
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •Lulzagna
in reply to VetOfTheSeas • • •