Hmm, interesting: Sony CEO sells over half his stock following PlayStation disc announcement

Some other high level Sony execs did the same right after. Coincidence?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-07-09, 05:42:

Hmm, interesting: Sony CEO sells over half his stock following PlayStation disc announcement

Some other high level Sony execs did the same right after. Coincidence?

I don't believe in Coincidences , everything happens for a reason or because some asshole caused it.

Sony has caved to customer demand before. Case in point: the store for PS3 and Vita was originally slated to close years ago, but then that got deferred. Only the PSP store ended up closing; probably most PSP games worth playing were made backwards-compatible in downloadable form for Vita by that point anyway.

Considering how consoles are growing in sophistication, expense, and with less distinction from computer platforms, I think the matter is whether they will remain a viable market at all in coming generations; brand loyalty only goes so far, and Sony [who won the most recent of the console wars] just crapped on theirs. Heck, it is possible to take advantage of 3rd-party cloud gaming services via Edge on Xbox systems, and Microsoft seems to be hedging its bets by completely intertwining the lines between Xbox and PC gaming (ROG Xbox). The notable defiance of this trend comes from Nintendo, whose key strengths have always been its exclusive franchises and willingness to experiment with how games are played instead of going for the most raw power & pizzazz.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-07-09, 01:53:

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-07-09, 01:18:

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-07-07, 14:28:

Steam currently has active users in excess of a hundred million users. So while you might not be buying digital PC games, plenty of other people are.

Steam has also been around for 22 years. There are PC gamers that have grown up in an environment where Steam and digital distribution of PC games is the norm.

Out of almost 9 billion

It is estimated that there are currently less than a billion people (but growing) who actually play games on computers and Steam was recently estimated to have over 200 million users.

It's all estimated of course, but if we're talking about statistics, then it is likely that more than 20% of people who play games on computers use Steam. I would imagine that a huge portion of the rest aren't using Steam because they mainly play games that are exclusive to other digital game stores, like Epic (Fortnite), only play games like Minecraft or Roblox, or exclusively play MMOs.

well i play minecraft, gog, not steam or epic since i deleted those accounts years ago. Its fake ownership because you cant really backup all games on steam or epic without requiring the launcher so like an archival thing. If you invested thousands keeping up with steam's requirements and move to new pcs every 5 to 10 years so you can still access your library. Epic really pissed me off with their launcher. I bought into fortnite early on as a founders pack i think, but then they locked the stuff away so i said screw it and i deleted the account since their foray is the Engine not games anymore. Fortnite wasnt really developed by them at first it was People Can Fly their former subsidiary and epic has been adding bloat to it ever since

Jo22 wrote on 2026-07-05, 20:43:

Who knows, maybe the popularity will eventually be close to that of MS/Win 11? ;) I mean, those two caused not a few users of th […]
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lti wrote on 2026-07-05, 18:25:

I hear lots of people claim that they don't like what's happening, but the "pushback" is just a few angry social media posts while continuing to use enshittified products. They don't take any real action against it because they've convinced themselves that they're such an overwhelming majority that the corporations and government will listen and naturally revert everything.

Who knows, maybe the popularity will eventually be close to that of MS/Win 11? 😉
I mean, those two caused not a few users of the past years to make a switch already.
There's only so much people are willing to endure until they finally have enough.

Edit: I think what the PS company misses to understand, is, that people want to have options even if they don't use them.
The planned model for digital distribution is less sophisticated than that of other platforms.
It's very top-down, very authorian. I have my doubts that users will accept this.

Edited.

Sony will press on because unless they have a high density optical media that can store 300+ GBs of crap or send games out on 1 TB SSDs meaning you'd be paying 120+ USD for some game you pop in, They will offload to the servers. The discs will be just license checks like the game key cards for switch 2. Its worse than digital only its fake ownership sure you can buy and resell the discs but you still need internet and its like the first days all over like Windows XP Product Activation. Sure you can resell Windows XP the disc but the keys been used and you cant activate it anymore so its a drink coaster

dont you get it? When microsoft did Xbox 360 compatibility they arent streaming from the disc you are downloading the game that the cd acts a license key. Its a binary thats been made to run on new systems its not streaming from the disc like xbox 2001 on 360. Wait it wasnt even native you had to have a HDD and install some thing from xbox live which you cant anymore

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2026-07-09, 14:01:

brand loyalty only goes so far, and Sony [who won the most recent of the console wars] just crapped on theirs.

People have short memories and FOMO will ultimately win out. All it takes is a handful of compelling exclusives and Sony will have no trouble selling consoles.

As a recent example of "gamer outrage" and how impotent it really is, consider the Subnautica 2 debacle. During all the drama about the ousting out the original founders, failure to pay bonuses, and the lawsuit against Krafton, gamers were calling for a boycott of Subnautica 2.

Flashforward to the game's early access release a year later, it has sold over 5M copies and has a 93% positive rating on Steam.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-07-09, 16:51:

Jo22 wrote on 2026-07-05, 20:43:

Who knows, maybe the popularity will eventually be close to that of MS/Win 11? ;) I mean, those two caused not a few users of th […]
Show full quote

lti wrote on 2026-07-05, 18:25:

I hear lots of people claim that they don't like what's happening, but the "pushback" is just a few angry social media posts while continuing to use enshittified products. They don't take any real action against it because they've convinced themselves that they're such an overwhelming majority that the corporations and government will listen and naturally revert everything.

Who knows, maybe the popularity will eventually be close to that of MS/Win 11? 😉
I mean, those two caused not a few users of the past years to make a switch already.
There's only so much people are willing to endure until they finally have enough.

Edit: I think what the PS company misses to understand, is, that people want to have options even if they don't use them.
The planned model for digital distribution is less sophisticated than that of other platforms.
It's very top-down, very authorian. I have my doubts that users will accept this.

Edited.

Sony will press on because unless they have a high density optical media that can store 300+ GBs of crap or send games out on 1 TB SSDs meaning you'd be paying 120+ USD for some game you pop in, They will offload to the servers. The discs will be just license checks like the game key cards for switch 2. Its worse than digital only its fake ownership sure you can buy and resell the discs but you still need internet and its like the first days all over like Windows XP Product Activation. Sure you can resell Windows XP the disc but the keys been used and you cant activate it anymore so its a drink coaster

dont you get it? When microsoft did Xbox 360 compatibility they arent streaming from the disc you are downloading the game that the cd acts a license key. Its a binary thats been made to run on new systems its not streaming from the disc like xbox 2001 on 360. Wait it wasnt even native you had to have a HDD and install some thing from xbox live which you cant anymore

Hi, I read that the PS6 is planned to have a 500 GB SSD.
With numbers of 300 GB or more, players could install one game only.
And storing such masses of data online would cause extreme server costs to Sony.
Because millions of players would have to stream that data, each time they play the game.
That's quite some difference to just have each player download such updates once a couple of months each.

But anyway, back in time it was a non-issue to release games on multiple discs.
In CD era, some games had 4, 7 or 9 CDs for installation.
That's no problem to DVD cases. They can hold 4 CDS, DVDs or BDs just fine.
That would be about 200 GB already. More sophisticated DVD cases had (have) extra holders inside that could be flipped like pages in a book.
In CD era, such things had existed already. VCDs and Linux CDs had used such special Jewel cases. Some Jewel cases held up to 10 discs, I think.
Personally, I see no modern day problem here, thus. 4K UHD Blu Ray releases often come with multiple discs, too.
They often include the 4K UHD and 1080p Blu Ray disc. So two discs, at minimum.

Edit: I mean to just address the technical side here, btw.
From a political/business point of view, it makes sense to get rid of a physical medium in order to prevent the second-hand market.
It must a dream come true to any soulless, profit-oriented company to have total control over distribution, without actually providing anything physical or running a production facility.
The customers nolonger buy something but spend money on something they don' t even own.
It's about renting something at the same price level of buying it.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-07-09, 17:02:

People have short memories and FOMO will ultimately win out. All it takes is a handful of compelling exclusives and Sony will have no trouble selling consoles.

I'm not so sure. The Xbox One failed because of their attempt to abolish the resale of physical games by tying each copy to one account. After heavy backlash, Microsoft walked this back before the console even launched, but the damage was already done. And Sony lost the console war during the PS3/X360 generation, despite the PS2 being the best selling console of all time.

BTW, the online petition that I mentioned before just passed 250k verified signatures. So a quarter of a million people took the time to register on change.org and sign it. Not exactly an insignificant number.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-07-09, 17:02:

People have short memories and FOMO will ultimately win out. All it takes is a handful of compelling exclusives and Sony will ha […]
Show full quote

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2026-07-09, 14:01:

brand loyalty only goes so far, and Sony [who won the most recent of the console wars] just crapped on theirs.

People have short memories and FOMO will ultimately win out. All it takes is a handful of compelling exclusives and Sony will have no trouble selling consoles.

As a recent example of "gamer outrage" and how impotent it really is, consider the Subnautica 2 debacle. During all the drama about the ousting out the original founders, failure to pay bonuses, and the lawsuit against Krafton, gamers were calling for a boycott of Subnautica 2.

Flashforward to the game's early access release a year later, it has sold over 5M copies and has a 93% positive rating on Steam.

To be fair, the issue with Subnautica 2 was basically resolved. The original founders won their case against Krafton. Krafton was ordered to basically do everything that was owed to the devs.

About the only thing people could have wanted beyond that would be for Unknown Worlds to have gotten the game back entirely and self published it... But that would be quite a stretch since Krafton had funded development up to that point. Also, the dev team is seemingly still employed by them and presumably getting paid, so any major changes there would probably have caused a lot of issues.

Also, the devs have been trying to make it clear since all of that started that the team are all dedicated to making a good game and have worked hard to do so. Even if the Krafton situation hadn't been resolved yet, punishing the devs for the ills of the publisher is not really fair either. Once people calm down and stop looking for more things to be outraged over, many/some realize that there are actual decent human beings affected by situations like this and things are rarely as cut and dry as "boycott game to punish the bad guys or else you're evil too" (EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you are saying this. Just using that as an example of how people's rage can subside and they can change their behavior for legitimate reasons).

Interestingly, Krafton is no longer listed as the publisher on Steam. Their name has been tarnished so badly that they (Krafton or Unknown Worlds) don't even want the game associated with them.

Thankfully, the game is actually coming along really well and the devs have done a great job of giving the fans what they want while staying true to the original. It is absolutely not done yet, but it really doesn't feel like a game that still has 2-3 years left in early access.

for single player / non internet games , there will never be a resolution where all people will buy the original. pirates have always existed and will always exist.

the reality is that IF a game is good it will make money no matter how many illegal/cracked copies will exist.

in late 90's , early 2000s... in romania , to buy a original pc game would cost like a months pay in some cases. i remember playing half life for the first time... obviously pirated as 99% of the games in the country... i bought the game on steam years after... and i bought the original on cds for my retro rig... why? because it s worth it.

for physical media to still exist it needs new tech... and that is probably the flash drive. need at least 1tb storage , long lifespan and super fast transfer rates. don t think optical will survive this. but usb drives might.

Digital stores on PS3 and Vita will also close in 2027. Although with ability to download already bought games (and probably patches) for now. Not a big issue though, because both were hacked completely.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2026-07-10, 01:34:

Digital stores on PS3 and Vita will also close in 2027. Although with ability to download already bought games (and probably patches) for now. Not a big issue though, because both were hacked completely.

It makes no different you can't backup stuff you download from PSN. If the console dies your left with encrypted data on the discs that console can't play. Forget it and light the console on fire so you can share in it's warmth one last time. You can archive and backup a book a physical book but you can't do the same for digital because we don't speak digital natively you can't write out a game in 1 and 0s on paper

twiz11 wrote on 2026-07-10, 02:29:

It makes no different you can't backup stuff you download from PSN. If the console dies your left with encrypted data on the discs that console can't play.

With a jailbroken PS3 console running custom firmware, it's possible to backup both physical discs and downloaded games.

After that, it's easy to copy the backup images to a local NAS, or any other storage device for safe keeping.

Jo22 wrote on 2026-07-09, 19:12:

From a political/business point of view, it makes sense to get rid of a physical medium in order to prevent the second-hand mark […]
Show full quote

From a political/business point of view, it makes sense to get rid of a physical medium in order to prevent the second-hand market.
It must a dream come true to any soulless, profit-oriented company to have total control over distribution, without actually providing anything physical or running a production facility.
The customers nolonger buy something but spend money on something they don' t even own.
It's about renting something at the same price level of buying it.

It's not motivated by a desire to remove the used market, i doubt they care much. as in piracy one can "calculate" than 10 people pirating a $50 games "costs" the industry $500, but not really - those 10 wouldn't have bought it. Likewise in used markets if 10 people buy a used game for $10 by waiting a few months it doesn't mean they would ever have bought it new for $50. I think the companies know this. they're not really after the imaginary "loss"

Its about having control as means to optimising costs - no need to share distribution with optical disk printing, shipping, shops - less expense of pre-release QA (fix bugs after release....if the game gets enough money), control of price, control of content (introduce ways to get more cash later on), control of updates and versioning, ability to "switch it off" should there be loss of income (ie online servers low on users, some bad press, whatever)

In there future there wont be the same retro enthusiasm and scenes around old games i think, someone in 2048 wont be nostalgically playing a game from 2028, it wont exist anymore. and besides that, 2048... who knows what'll be going on then

Think about all the mobile games that are gone forever, although thankfully its possible to capture some of them and emulate a large amount, i don't see that happening with centrally streamed games (where at least some required game elements are generated centrally and streamed, ie cannot capture binaries), which is where i see this headed

gerry wrote on 2026-07-10, 09:59:

It's not motivated by a desire to remove the used market, i doubt they care much. as in piracy one can "calculate" than 10 people pirating a $50 games "costs" the industry $500, but not really - those 10 wouldn't have bought it. Likewise in used markets if 10 people buy a used game for $10 by waiting a few months it doesn't mean they would ever have bought it new for $50. I think the companies know this. they're not really after the imaginary "loss"

I don't think this is true at all, because that's exactly what MS originally planned for the release of the XBOX One - all games, whether they were digital purchases or discs bought at retail, were to be tied to an account and not transferrable/resellable. They wanted to completely stamp out the second-hand market because to them, every resale was a potential lost unit sale.

Of course they changed their mind due to overwhelming condemnation. Sony even made a mock presentation demonstrating how easy it was to share discs between different PS4 consoles in response.

jmarsh wrote on 2026-07-10, 12:02:

I don't think this is true at all, because that's exactly what MS originally planned for the release of the XBOX One - all games, whether they were digital purchases or discs bought at retail, were to be tied to an account and not transferrable/resellable. They wanted to completely stamp out the second-hand market because to them, every resale was a potential lost unit sale.

I think this is one of the prominent reasons why console gamers like having physical discs. Sometimes people buy a brand new game for 60 USD, play it for like 6 hours (which in reality takes a week because of the job, kids, travel etc.), figure out it's not a good fit for them, and then sell it on the used marked for 40 USD. This works out well for both the seller and the buyer. But you can't do that with digital games. Best we have is a 2 hour refund window on Steam, but there's nothing like that on PSN.

Similarly, someone might buy a physical game, play it to completion in 2-3 weeks, and then decide to sell or trade it in because they have no plans to revisit it in the future. On the flip side, someone who really likes a game may want to buy the collector's edition while trading in their regular disc.

I can say I don't care, because I've never owned any Sony console. My gaming is only games on physical media, never played online or have any plans of doing so.

Have hundreds of music CDs and they mostly still work, even the ones I bought 40 years ago. There's also dozens of DVDs, which I assume still work, but I rarely watch movies any more, even if it's on free-to-air TV.

Never owned a Blueray disk or player, and I guess it's too late now, even if I wanted to.

The situation I guess is something like when all our local record stores closed their doors and went online-only. I don't buy things online, so they lost my custom, and they will never know or care.

The main problem with online playing afaict is that they don't stay online for very long, eventually the server gets shut down and there's no refund. They'll just say you paid rent. I stumbled upon some site the other day that had a whole pile of online games listed for termination in the next 6 months. I don't like that idea, when I can play the physical copy for as long as it and the hardware it runs on still work.

Robbbert wrote on 2026-07-10, 12:42:

I can say I don't care, because I've never owned any Sony console. My gaming is only games on physical media, never played onlin […]
Show full quote

I can say I don't care, because I've never owned any Sony console. My gaming is only games on physical media, never played online or have any plans of doing so.

Have hundreds of music CDs and they mostly still work, even the ones I bought 40 years ago. There's also dozens of DVDs, which I assume still work, but I rarely watch movies any more, even if it's on free-to-air TV.

Never owned a Blueray disk or player, and I guess it's too late now, even if I wanted to.

The situation I guess is something like when all our local record stores closed their doors and went online-only. I don't buy things online, so they lost my custom, and they will never know or care.

The main problem with online playing afaict is that they don't stay online for very long, eventually the server gets shut down and there's no refund. They'll just say you paid rent. I stumbled upon some site the other day that had a whole pile of online games listed for termination in the next 6 months. I don't like that idea, when I can play the physical copy for as long as it and the hardware it runs on still work.

1. you are correct , they don t care BUT they do know they lost customers. it s just worth to loose these customers for them.

2. think the issue with the CD and DVD is that usually before , games were mainly single player. so there was no server. In all fairness , any game (if single player) can be put on your own physical media for future use. GOG have installers , you download the game , put it on your DVD or cd or flash disk and it s yours forever.

3. as stated before , the problem is the actual disk itself. cd , dvd , blu ray , quadruple blu ray... they transfer data at very VERY low speeds and are prone to scrathes. can you imagine installing 150gb game off blu rays? must take an hour or more... where as from a fast flash disk , a proper one , would take minutes...

bitzu101 wrote on 2026-07-10, 13:32:

1. you are correct , they don t care BUT they do know they lost customers. it s just worth to loose these customers for them. […]
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Robbbert wrote on 2026-07-10, 12:42:

I can say I don't care, because I've never owned any Sony console. My gaming is only games on physical media, never played onlin […]
Show full quote

I can say I don't care, because I've never owned any Sony console. My gaming is only games on physical media, never played online or have any plans of doing so.

Have hundreds of music CDs and they mostly still work, even the ones I bought 40 years ago. There's also dozens of DVDs, which I assume still work, but I rarely watch movies any more, even if it's on free-to-air TV.

Never owned a Blueray disk or player, and I guess it's too late now, even if I wanted to.

The situation I guess is something like when all our local record stores closed their doors and went online-only. I don't buy things online, so they lost my custom, and they will never know or care.

The main problem with online playing afaict is that they don't stay online for very long, eventually the server gets shut down and there's no refund. They'll just say you paid rent. I stumbled upon some site the other day that had a whole pile of online games listed for termination in the next 6 months. I don't like that idea, when I can play the physical copy for as long as it and the hardware it runs on still work.

1. you are correct , they don t care BUT they do know they lost customers. it s just worth to loose these customers for them.

2. think the issue with the CD and DVD is that usually before , games were mainly single player. so there was no server. In all fairness , any game (if single player) can be put on your own physical media for future use. GOG have installers , you download the game , put it on your DVD or cd or flash disk and it s yours forever.

3. as stated before , the problem is the actual disk itself. cd , dvd , blu ray , quadruple blu ray... they transfer data at very VERY low speeds and are prone to scrathes. can you imagine installing 150gb game off blu rays? must take an hour or more... where as from a fast flash disk , a proper one , would take minutes...

maybe is time cartdriges come back then!

jmarsh wrote on 2026-07-10, 12:02:

I don't think this is true at all, because that's exactly what MS originally planned for the release of the XBOX One - all games, whether they were digital purchases or discs bought at retail, were to be tied to an account and not transferrable/resellable. They wanted to completely stamp out the second-hand market because to them, every resale was a potential lost unit sale.

Of course they changed their mind due to overwhelming condemnation. Sony even made a mock presentation demonstrating how easy it was to share discs between different PS4 consoles in response.

to me its like the one lost copy = one lost sale fallacy, however some execs may indeed have been motivated by shutting down used markets without understanding why its folly and wont do anything for revenue, no accounting for their poor judgement

i found an interesting study suggesting the opposite is true - used markets are good for consoles : https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.128 … /isre.2021.1023 (makes buying a console more attractive)

things like online pass etc never seems to show any evidence of "success" in adding revenue too

I've even seen the used market sale example shown like this:

Buys game A for $60
sells it for $40
uses that $40 toward a $60 Game B

Hence buys $80 of games in total! Of course, as with the absence of evidence of increased revenues when inhibiting used markets, this example is also not strongly evidenced as far as i know

Regardless of the varied dynamics i think the manufacturers have now simply decided to control the distribution completely for the various reasons i suggested, and probably a few more