gerry wrote on 2026-07-10, 13:46:

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

Funny, I'd almost forgotten about doing this back in the day. I would go to Electronics Boutique (later EB Games) and trade in a pile of games so that I could buy a new PC game. It's a bit depressing to think about the stuff I traded in when I finally made the decision to part with my Genesis and SNES stuff to get more PC games. I kept my games nice and tidy... even the chintzy SNES cardboard boxes. I never even lost the little dust covers for the cartridges, or the manuals. They'd probably be worth thousands of dollars now... but hey, at least I was able to buy one $20 PC game mostly on credit. -_-

So, yeah, I can totally see used game sales still helping new game sales.

theelf wrote on 2026-07-10, 13:41:

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 […]
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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!

SDCard has had support for this kind of use for over a decade now. They can be fully read-only, and hardware encrypted/tied to unique device identifiers.

This is not a 'we need technology' problem.

Again, this has every earmark of being endstage 'we hate durable media, because we have to treat durable media like paper books, and permit resale. We really hate that. It puts a crimp in our willies, because we cant ban the license for a user being bad online, have to allow a new rando user to use that media's license, and disallow old users from using it, or WORSE, 'ALLOW SHARING', omg, our profit margins!'

Because two kids exchanhing game packs after school is jack the ripper, you see.

And the second hand market? Every second hand sale is a lost oppirtunity that deserves the full 60$ msrp! They STOLE from us, you see!

Capitalism is fine, but unregulated, it leads here.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-07-10, 14:14:

SDCard has had support for this kind of use for over a decade now. They can be fully read-only, and hardware encrypted/tied to […]
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theelf wrote on 2026-07-10, 13:41:

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.

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!

SDCard has had support for this kind of use for over a decade now. They can be fully read-only, and hardware encrypted/tied to unique device identifiers.

This is not a 'we need technology' problem.

Again, this has every earmark of being endstage 'we hate durable media, because we have to treat durable media like paper books, and permit resale. We really hate that. It puts a crimp in our willies, because we cant ban the license for a user being bad online, have to allow a new rando user to use that media's license, and disallow old users from using it, or WORSE, 'ALLOW SHARING', omg, our profit margins!'

Because two kids exchanhing game packs after school is jack the ripper, you see.

And the second hand market? Every second hand sale is a lost oppirtunity that deserves the full 60$ msrp! They STOLE from us, you see!

Capitalism is fine, but unregulated, it leads here.

probably won t be a SD card as they are cheap but the lifespan is not the best.

the OLD CF standard was much better , but more expensive...

think you want the new CFexpress cards...

good speeds , good capacity and will last for long time. you can probably make them read only as well , or even better , put them in a cartridge with a usb type C connection.

if you do proprietary it will fail. infact , i HATE anything proprietary. and NO , i don t care about the money reason of why the do proprietary stuff... if it s a good idea or a good product people will buy it instead of stealing it or pirating it.

SD card is only low life because of the materials used.

Nothing is preventing the use of hardened epoxy shells instead of low quality abs plastic, or the use of higher longevity emmc flash chips, except penny pinching.

The point is that a suitable tech exists that has all the needed features required to prevent replication, remain portable/resaleable, do per-device analytics, and is sufficiently fast.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-07-10, 14:35:

SD card is only low life because of the materials used.

Nothing is preventing the use of hardened epoxy shells instead of low quality abs plastic, or the use of higher longevity emmc flash chips, except penny pinching.

The point is that a suitable tech exists that has all the needed features required to prevent replication, remain portable/resaleable, do per-device analytics, and is sufficiently fast.

what would the standard be? usb C? will it work with xbox only or PS only? will a game work for anything or will be locked for a certain device?

is there enough demand to sustain a production run for this? will a game be locked to a account? or will it be transferable? 90+ % of games these days connect to the internet. will that still be needed?

what would stop SONY (for example) to lock the game from the cartridge to your account? then the game is pointless. because if you cannot give it to your mate to play , what is the point?

Again, SDCard, *as it already exists*, has thrse features as part of the spec.

A better-built sdcard.

There's your already-exists, wide-adoption format.

'Low durability' comes from penny pinching during mfg.

theelf wrote on 2026-07-10, 13:41:

maybe is time cartdriges come back then!

Come back? The Switch still uses them...

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. 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

Like I said, it doesn't matter, both consoles are hacked.

Consoles forfeited the enthusiast userbase a long time ago so I'd hope that anyone that genuinely cares about this has moved to PC and set up a NAS

I know a single website isn't representative of gamers as a whole, but the GameFAQs daily polls consistently show that people still prefer physical games. Example: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/10104-how- … ng-digital-only

ixfd64 wrote on 2026-07-11, 00:44:

I know a single website isn't representative of gamers as a whole, but the GameFAQs daily polls consistently show that people still prefer physical games. Example: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/10104-how- … ng-digital-only

but will it be enough to move sonys stock? probably not. Sony is dead on sunsetting physical media, its only a matter before they sunset the console and we all play ps6 in VR/AR in some blackbox room. I gave up hope for ever feeling like i did back in 2000 when i got my ps2 and still had my SNES. Physical media has been substituted with Emulators Virtual Machines and Interpreters.

Well, nobody stopped PC from streaming PC games than everyone getting a physical copy.
Can't sell or transfer digital rights regardless of digital game download industry.
I have so many PC games I never play and regret paying so much that I’d love to get some money back but at least my PC
is mine not a console companies expiry period.

It's a bit naive to think this is only about killing the second-hand market.

Publishers don't like, and have never liked, physical game sales because it puts a ton of risk on their shoulders. They must pay up front for manufacturing and distribution costs and must try to estimate demand accurately, and then they are at the mercy of retailers. On top of that, the typical retail margin for games is 30%, which is enormous.

With the massive budgets of today's games (another serious problem), publishers are trying to control as much of the revenue stream as possible. Digital distribution cuts out not only the second-hand market, but also manufacturing costs and retailer margins.

Yes, consumers will still be able to buy empty boxes with redemption codes inside at stores, so retailers won't be entirely removed from the process, but it's obvious that fewer consumers are going to waste the time of buying an empty box at retail. Sony still has to appease retailers a bit in order to get them to stock the hardware, after all, but much less money is going to be going to retailers and much more to publishers this way.

Digital distribution is an enormous boon for publishers, especially smaller ones who cannot easily cover the risks of physical product sales, and it results in more money going back to publishers, which is a good thing. I have more than a few unpleasant memories of trying and failing to track down minor releases at retail back in the 1990s and would have given anything for digital distribution then.

The obvious problems here on the consumer side are: the ownership issue with digital downloads, the death of the second-hand market, the loss of retail spaces (although they're mostly dead already), and other issues talked about in this thread.

But from Sony's perspective, this is less a "let's be evil" thing and more a "the pressures of the business are driving us in this direction" thing. And although Sony is receiving all the hate for the decision, it almost certainly deserves to be shared with third-party publishers, who must be joyous at the thought of finally cutting out physical retail releases.

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-07-11, 01:24:

I have so many PC games I never play and regret paying so much that I’d love to get some money back but at least my PC
is mine not a console companies expiry period.

Yeah, this is a big deal for a lot of people. I praise Steam for its 2 hour refund policy (PlayStation has nothing like that), and it works great if a game is super buggy or just runs poorly on someone's PC. But for certain genres (e.g. RPGs), I sometimes need to play the game a bit more to figure out whether it has a slow start, or if its gameplay actually sucks. Granted, that's not a technical issue, but a matter of personal preference.

Nonetheless, being able to resell physical games is a great option in such cases. Unless they implement something similar for digital purchases (highly unlikely) everyone is going to be stuck with at least a couple of games that they will never touch again.

@jh80 What’s actually stopping Sony from launching a survey?
They could easily display a notification about it on the PlayStation at any time.
Instead of guessing what players want, Sony could simply ask them what they’d like—you know, regarding things like, er, exclusive digital distribution.
I know—a totally crazy idea! 😅

Jo22 wrote on 2026-07-11, 16:07:

@jh80 What’s actually stopping Sony from launching a survey? They could easily display a notification about it on the PlayStatio […]
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@jh80 What’s actually stopping Sony from launching a survey?
They could easily display a notification about it on the PlayStation at any time.
Instead of guessing what players want, Sony could simply ask them what they’d like—you know, regarding things like, er, exclusive digital distribution.
I know—a totally crazy idea! 😅

You don't own anything you never owned anything because if you did you'd be able to repair the shit you bought like ps2 blows up oh easy fix. Ps1 disc tray stops working oh there's a fix for that. Ps5 mines crypto sorry your sol. I can't fix my ps5 despite the whole optical media tray because any tampering and the console is bricked. Ownership is the ability to repair without impedence

Honestly, does it really matter anymore? If I want to play a game, I can download it from eMule, torrents, or whatever. If I get a physical copy, it is only for collecting purposes.

But has anyone looked at modern physical releases? Cheap plastic cases, no manuals, barely any extras... they are pretty disappointing. The whole package feels like it has lost its value.

In my case, my collection basically ends at Dreamcast, with some GameCube and original Xbox stuff at most. After that, physical releases started getting more and more stingy. I have seen some PS4 collections from friends and, honestly, they look pretty sad compared to older generations.

For me, modern physical games are simply not worth paying for. The collector value just isn't there anymore.

nothing comes close to my retail big box of x com apocalypse3 with manual , easy guide set , proper pasticky cardboard and the nice colourfull cd...

did i mention that i own a few of them in different versions? but i also own the game on Steam 😀)

if a game is worth it , people will buy it. i have several copies of it... and trough out the years I have several pirated versions... does it matter? no , offcourse not. all this obsesion with DRM's is crazy... make a good product , people will buy. nothing more.

bitzu101 wrote on 2026-07-11, 19:16:

nothing comes close to my retail big box of x com apocalypse3 with manual , easy guide set , proper pasticky cardboard and the nice colourfull cd...

did i mention that i own a few of them in different versions? but i also own the game on Steam 😀)

if a game is worth it , people will buy it. i have several copies of it... and trough out the years I have several pirated versions... does it matter? no , offcourse not. all this obsesion with DRM's is crazy... make a good product , people will buy. nothing more.

I buy a PS4 SNK fighting Legends game.. and i dont have a PS4 machine... even a PS3!!! jaajja

But i find so nice box i want to have

As a developer, i ended physical media when selling my craps in 2002.

At that time bigcorpo quickly overtook everything.
You needed to have an established company and whatnot, to be able to put your stuff to shelves, which was impossible for me because i was a kid + it would required a lot of money.
Alternatively, when doing it with homemade methods: writeable cds, or floppies, with the price of postage shipment were quite high, and would have destroyed every possible profit, it was a dead end for a hobbist.

Early methods of SMS based downloads, then online payment services, finally, cryptocurrency, was the proper path of distribution.

Nowadays, established online shops such as steam, google play, whatever else is what people mostly do, but i havent followed to this final trend, and kept myself with crypto.

For my, physical shipments are being killed by:
-postage fee (extremely expensive for international postage)
-expensive disc+disc holder + printing costs
-extremely high costs of pay on delivery, lack of international standardization for pay on delivery-type postage in international context

Basically physical delivery of games were the playground of the big money, and no one else could afford it, it even killed mid-size companies in the early 2000s.

This is what i think as a developer.

What i think as an user? I am extremely outraged. I feel these digital-only copies violate my rights to truly have a game, a movie, or a software, as it can be gone from the website any time they want. For craps which have active DRMs, if the developer goes down, no guarantee the application can start afterwards. You can get banned for some random reason by some retarded ideology driven gate keeper, and you can't run your software or game any more. You can forget your password or lose your emal, and you lose all of the games and software on your account. Absolutely unacceptible. But this is also due to the users not giving a crap about freedom and even physical media. People don't put DVD drives to the computers any more. And due to this, the PC cases don't even include 5.25 bays any more.

They even stopped putting card readers on PCs (most laptops still have sd card readers at least), people don't even use memory cards or pendrives any more, they just link the files from some online storage, even storing there, risking to lose their OWN files. They dont visit each other to bring data back and forth to friends, which has a huge social impact - which is even more dangerous than anything above.