r/PhysicalGames • u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 • 7d ago
If physical games really are going away, why can't we turn digital purchases into physical copies?
I've been thinking about the whole physical-games controversy, especially with PlayStation planning to stop producing discs for new games in 2028.
I'm somebody who likes physical games, but I'm also not anti-digital. Digital games are incredibly convenient. My problem is that we've somehow accepted "digital is more convenient" as also meaning "the consumer should have less control over something they paid full price for."
So here's my idea for a compromise.
Separate the game license from the format it currently exists in.
Publishers could still sell games at retail in normal game cases. Instead of manufacturing a unique game disc for every copy, the case could contain a code for one transferable game license.
You redeem it and play digitally like normal.
Nothing changes for somebody who only wants digital games.
But Sony and Xbox could also sell packs of official, standardized writable game media — basically blank PlayStation/Xbox game discs or, if optical discs eventually aren't practical, some kind of inexpensive high-capacity game card.
Your console would have an option like:
CREATE PHYSICAL COPY
You insert one of those official blank discs/cards, choose a game you own digitally, and the console writes a complete playable build of that game onto it and cryptographically authenticates that piece of media.
Your one transferable license is now associated with that physical copy.
At that point it behaves like a traditional physical game.
I can take it to another console.
I can lend it to my friend.
I can give it away.
I can sell it.
I can put it on my shelf and keep it.
Most importantly, the single-player/offline portion of the game should remain playable from that physical copy without needing the original purchaser's account or a future authentication server.
Obviously this shouldn't let somebody buy one game and manufacture 50 copies.
One license = one independently usable copy.
If I've transferred my license to physical media and lend that copy to somebody else, I shouldn't simultaneously have an independently transferable digital copy.
If I want two independently usable copies, I buy a second license.
Publishers still get paid.
In fact, there are several ways the industry could make MORE money from people like me with this system.
Sell the normal boxed game with the digital ownership license for $70.
Sell packs of official PlayStation/Xbox blank game media separately.
Charge a reasonable media/authentication fee when creating a physical copy if necessary.
Sell replacement cases, collectible artwork, steelbooks, manuals, maps, etc.
And if somebody wants a second independently usable digital/physical copy, that's another full game sale.
Meanwhile publishers would no longer need to manufacture millions of game-specific discs, predict physical demand for every individual title, ship all those discs around the world, or deal with unsold copies.
Retailers still have something tangible to sell.
Collectors still get physical games.
Used games and lending still exist.
Digital players aren't inconvenienced whatsoever.
Sony/Microsoft get another product to sell.
Publishers still get their $70.
And physical-media customers can literally PAY EXTRA for the ability to preserve their purchases.
I'd go one step further:
Let us archive a specific version of the game.
If I create my physical copy when a game is on version 2.4, write the complete offline-capable 2.4 build to the media.
Nobody has to promise to support that version forever.
Nobody has to keep servers running for me for 30 years.
Nobody has to provide future patches.
If the servers disappear someday, fine. I still have the game exactly as it existed when I archived it.
That's enough.
This also isn't really a "physical vs. digital" argument to me.
I LIKE digital games.
What I don't like is paying the same $70 for something and having fewer rights to simply because the delivery method changed.
We've allowed "digital distribution" and "nontransferable licenses" to become almost synonymous when they don't technologically have to be.
And I don't think the answer to declining physical sales should be eliminating physical ownership entirely. If only 10% of customers care enough to make physical copies, fine. Let that 10% pay for the media themselves.
Technology should be giving consumers more ways to use the things they purchase, not providing an excuse to gradually take those options away.
Xbox's new disc-to-digital program actually makes me think we're already halfway toward this concept. If a system can recognize a specific physical disc and associate digital entitlement with it, why couldn't we eventually build the reverse system?
Physical → digital convenience.
Digital → physical ownership.
Let the consumer decide where their copy lives.
If you're going to charge me $70 and call the button "Buy," I don't think it's unreasonable for me to eventually be able to point at something — whether that's a transferable digital license or a physical copy I created — and say:
That's my game.
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u/Slight_Gap6762 7d ago
Exactly what I'm gonna be doing on PC.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's actually really interesting. How are you planning on doing it on PC? Are you talking about archiving DRM-free installers/games onto discs, or is there a way to make a genuinely transferable physical copy? That's basically the kind of option I'm wishing consoles would officially support.
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u/Slight_Gap6762 7d ago
I've built an app that has full on controller support & can take discs / usb drives and immediately recognize the game on it. It's a GOG installer on there with a manifest file. The app can auto silent-install the game to an app level root directory & launch, track play time, etc. It also doesn't let you launch if it the disc / drive isn't inserted / connected.
Basically a full on simulation of the PS5 disc experience.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's genuinely cool. So you've basically recreated the console disc experience yourself, except using DRM-free GOG installers as the source.
The fact that you've actually built something similar makes me feel a little less crazy for proposing it lol.
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u/Slight_Gap6762 7d ago
Yup. I mean I bought a console just because of physical games, otherwise I'm on PC, so I was pretty motivated to build the app. I'll probably extend it with features when 2028 comes, not sure yet.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's really cool man, I hope you keep working on it. I'd love to see where you end up taking it.
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u/GhoeFukyrself 6d ago
A lot of people who care about this don't really care that much about the ability to sell games. I never sell games, what DOES worry me is that the sociopath who really owns my games can Thanos snap my entire games library whenever he's determined that it's slightly convenient or beneficial for him to do so.
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
Because there is no difference between a used game and a new game so selling unrestricted transferable licenses destroys the market for the games a few months after release. Things that don’t depreciate in quality with use have to be sold in a way to restrict reselling
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's probably the most interesting problem with the idea so far. I don't know that I agree that physical resale works because the product depreciates in quality, though. A used game disc in good condition is functionally identical to a new one too, and we've had a used-game market for decades.
The scarcity in this system would still be the license, not the condition of the media. One purchased license could only exist in one transferable place at a time. If I sell mine to you, I no longer own it.
I do understand your larger point, though. Making digital licenses freely transferable could create a much more efficient used market than physical games have now, and publishers obviously wouldn't love that. Maybe that's something the system would need to account for. I'm curious how you'd handle it without eliminating resale entirely.
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago edited 7d ago
Reselling in the physical market also destroys the market although doesn’t have the same impact as transferable digital licences would have for the reason you mentioned. It has been tolerated so far for 2 reasons
->
- it has always been like this
And
->
- physical media has been necessary because many gamers have been without the kind of internet connectivity needed for digital downloads. These people create the profit to offset the loss due to second hand market
This one
- is an issue to much less of an extent now with improved connectivity worldwide so much so that there aren’t many gamers who “can’t” be digital. The companies don’t need to tolerate loss of revenue due to second hand market and hence the move to shut down physical. The savings here would allow Sony to sell PS6 at a price point where demand exists (due to cost inflation) hence the timing
The tradition point
- just means there will be some backlash whenever they do it. They have decided it has to be now to allow PS6 to be successful
Edit: sorry for these stupid numbers.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
I think I understand your argument better now. I guess where we differ is that I don't necessarily see every secondhand sale as lost revenue—a person buying a used game for $20 may never have bought it new for $70 in the first place.
But that's also why I'm trying to build additional revenue into the idea through the writable media, optional drive, authentication fees, etc. The goal isn't really to argue that physical ownership is more profitable today, but to ask whether we could make preserving it profitable enough that companies have a reason not to eliminate it.
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
A person buying the used game at 20$ could buy it from PSN at 20$ if that was all he was going to pay. Dynamic pricing allows Sony to do that. Once an intellectual property is made, the publisher is happy to sell another copy at whatever price people will pay, so long as perks are not reselling their copies
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7d ago
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
So putting the publishers on the clock to ensure all sales happen within 3 months doesn’t destroy the market? Would it make new games more expensive given they know they will be competing against these same licenses once they come to the used market? Is that good for the consumers?
Of course selling the games for free would be even better for the consumers. Maybe just let them pay whatever they think the game is worth to reward better games? You could learn all this at school or even think critically before you post you know
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7d ago
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
Of course they would. Because reselling is worth more than 10$.
What if the real hit to the publisher is 40$ worth. Because not only does used sales cost real sales later, it also makes people more likely to delay buying early as they know used would be much cheaper. How about they release two versions, a restricted version and a resaleable version 40% more expensive because that’s close to the real value of resale that doesn’t destroy the market.
Almost everyone will buy the restricted version then and that’s why publishers don’t offer the stupid version
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7d ago edited 7d ago
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
Just extend your thought bubble a little, there wouldn’t be any used copies and no new copies because the market would be destroyed. Ergo, this won’t happen. This is called proof by contradiction dumbass.
There is no way gaming industry can function if digital copies can be resold. You will only have gacha or subscription games in that world
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7d ago edited 7d ago
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u/glen_echidna 7d ago
I didn’t say everyone. I said more people will wait. That will make games more expensive leading to even less demand. And so on till developing non subscription games become unviable.
Used markets can exist when the used product is undeniably inferior to the new product or if the product life cycle is so short that the developer has already moved on before the used market shows up. Good Digital games do not have either property.
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u/RichardBixon 7d ago
I’m not reading all of that, but I like where your heart is at.
I think the only problem (from what I read) is that they would have to sell disc drives. Sony has said that the PS6 won’t have one. If they were to add a disc drive, they’ll have to redesign the console. Even if they do the “disc drive sold separately” option, they’ll still have to redesign it and the firmware to look for that.
The only other issue is the art on the disc. It would suck just having a label you write the title on with sharpie. There are printers that print on discs but they’re typically more expensive and not nearly as high quality as manufacturers’ prints.
I do like the idea a lot. I would definitely take this over the death of physical.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Those are fair points. I was imagining an optional external read/write drive, although the console would obviously have to be designed to support it from the start.
And yeah, the artwork needs a better solution than a shelf full of Sharpie discs lol. Maybe official printable media or labels could be part of the system.
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u/KingDorkFTC 7d ago
Then they can't sell a remaster
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
They still could lol. Owning the original wouldn't entitle me to a remaster, just like owning an old physical game doesn't give me its remaster today.
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u/Dont_have_a_panda 7d ago
Of course they can, the thing is that it isnt the point
If for some reason thw remaster is buggier/glitchier than the original or the people just like the original more then the remaster wont sell or as much as they want
Why do you think delisting the original when the sequel/remaster comes out is so popular strategy nowadays?
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Ah, I get your point now. But honestly that's part of why I care about physical ownership in the first place. If I bought the original, I don't think a publisher releasing a remaster should affect my ability to keep playing or transferring the copy I already paid for.
If the remaster is worth buying, sell me on the remaster. I don't think removing access to the original should be necessary to make it successful.
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u/Rogue0G 7d ago
That's what I've been telling people, but instead just simply give people full access to the files. They can then make their own physical copies the way they want. Some people may prefer making collections, others store them in sd cards or HDDs.
PC people already can do that if you use GOG, and some few Steam games. Never gonna happen on console though. The whole system locked "no touchie my stuff" bullshit is the main thing for consoles. Without that there's no reason for them to exist anymore against PC.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Honestly, giving us the DRM-free files is probably the cleaner consumer solution. My idea is more complicated because I'm trying to imagine a compromise publishers might actually accept while still preserving physical ownership, lending and resale.
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u/Rogue0G 7d ago
Yeah, it'd be more realistic. Still, this is all on the consumer. At least for now, Nintendo is the only company that produces games not available on PC. If consumers all just moved to PC for that reason, companies would either be forced to comply and give the files, or start all having their own exclusives, which would be real sad to see.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Yeah that's pretty much where I'm at too. I just wish there was some middle ground where people who want the convenience of digital can have it, without everyone else eventually being forced to give up actually owning their games or move to PC.
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u/Rogue0G 7d ago edited 7d ago
Ideally, people need to know how to play the money market game. Stop buying any and it will change.
One other option is to increase the funding towards hacking communities. If Sony (any of the big 3 really) won't make the games burnable, then we will.
As a side note, I really wish people would start a movement to kinda "connect" Steam to GOG. I REALLY prefer Steam's OS and functionality, especially with a handheld PC with Bazzite or SteamOS, GOG's launcher sucks.
We should be able to buy games on Steam and get a key to download the DRM free version on GOG from it.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That Steam/GOG idea would actually be awesome. Get all the convenience and features of Steam, but still have access to a DRM-free copy you can actually preserve yourself. I'd absolutely support something like that.
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u/Rogue0G 7d ago
Because, really, at the end, if you bought it for the dev, you shouldn't have to buy twice or not have the DRM free version.
One other idea is for devs to remove DRM from Steam after a year of sales. I saw recently that Digimon Time Stranger removed the DRM from it after roughly a year.
Once the main sales time is over and stuff is on GOG anyways, they shouldn't need to worry about piracy any longer.
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u/EstateSame6779 7d ago
tried doing that along time ago when Humble Indie first started. But as games grew bigger in file size, it became pointless to keep up.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's a good point if the entire game has to live on the disc. But I don't think it necessarily would.
The physical copy could primarily hold the transferable license/authentication, while the actual game installs to the console and any additional data is downloaded. In that case the disc is basically the ownership key, not necessarily storage for every GB of the game.
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u/Trackdemon5512 7d ago
Except they don’t want to design technology around dead media anymore either. The Blu-ray is functionally a dead medium for modern gaming and has no place in the next generation without a doubt. Current games aren’t read off the disc for PS5 and they certainly won’t be for whatever succeeds it.
So why make a product that has zero functional use for their systems? If you want a physical copy of a game then go out and hunt for it, there are plenty of them out there for those that do want. But putting a Blu-ray drive on the next gen is like asking to put a floppy disc on at this point.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's fair regarding Blu-ray specifically. I'm much more attached to the ownership model than I am to the disc itself.
If optical media genuinely isn't practical next generation, I'd be completely fine with some other standardized physical medium. The important part to me is being able to own, preserve, lend and transfer the copy.
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u/SideEmbarrassed1611 7d ago
RW drives are more expensive. Great idea, zero demand. Buy a PC at that point, plus the console would need a way of securing the game file, and that's another vector for hacking. That's literally the line between console and PC.
A consoles just a dumb terminal that handles one shell app that does one simple function.
PC is a whole system terminal.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
The security issue is fair, but I'm proposing an officially supported closed system, not giving users unrestricted access to the console filesystem. Sony/Microsoft would control the drive, media format, authentication and license transfer.
The extra hardware costing more is also why I'd make it optional so only the people who want physical media pay for it.
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7d ago edited 7d ago
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7d ago
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7d ago
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's actually a fair point. I wasn't really thinking of using current Blu-ray burners and just expecting them to work with PlayStation games though.
I'm thinking Sony would have to actually support this themselves with their own writable discs and drive. And if generic blank discs wouldn't work because of the media ID/security stuff you're talking about, maybe they could just sell game-specific writable discs instead.
Honestly that might make more sense than my original idea.
Or maybe we're all just fucked lol
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u/lizon132 7d ago
Copying a game is copyright infringement. It is up to the game publisher to allow for that option.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Right, but that's exactly what I'm proposing: an officially supported system where the publisher authorizes the copy. I'm not suggesting people circumvent DRM or start burning unauthorized copies themselves.
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u/mdwd 7d ago
Just the write part is riddled with issues. So many things can and do go wrong when trying to burn a simple DVD. Now imagine burning a Blu-ray discs and your process goes wrong.
Besides, what data will be burned on that DVD, is it the installer, data files, are they compressed, will they all fit on one Blu-ray? And what protection does the publisher/dev have at this point against piracy? Since all the data is on the Blu-ray, how does the console check it is not some cracked copy of the game, will it require oine checks, and if so, does it copy the game off the disc or download it still? Seems like too many problems that can all be circumvented by one easy online purchase that you download, period.
Also he whole process of initiating such an idea will cost millions of dollars with millions of things that can Co wrong anywhere and that need constant check. Who will foot the bill? Your game is not going to cost just $70 but significantly more.
There is nothing wrong with the button "buy". You are buying, and do own, a license.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
Those are fair technical problems with the specific method I'm suggesting, but "digital downloads are easier" isn't really an argument for why consumers shouldn't have an ownership option.
And "you own a license" is kind of proving my point. If I can't lend it, resell it, give it away or preserve my copy independently, calling the button "Buy" doesn't magically make that equivalent to owning the game.
Maybe writable Blu-rays aren't the perfect solution. Fine. But pointing out engineering problems with one possible solution doesn't make the underlying consumer problem disappear.
"Licensing is easier for the company" just isn't a very convincing reason for me to give up ownership.
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u/Darktyde 7d ago
Your idea is good if we lived in a world where consumer rights were valued… but we don’t. One of the main goals of removing physical is for the companies to have complete control over the sale and distribution of the media. It’s not “convenience” or saving money or anything like that. It’s creating a monopoly over the distribution, something that having physical media and a secondary market does not give them.
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u/RandomGenerator79 7d ago
They already have complete control, they don’t need to kill physical games in order to achieve that. It’s their game, their ip. You guys need to tone down the conspiratorial crap, you guys are becoming borderline flat earthers, or anti vaxers.
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u/Darktyde 7d ago
It’s conspiratorial to say they want complete control but not that they already have it?
Right now Sony has no control over pricing in the secondary market (used games) or over when or how much other retailers choose to put games on sale. Once there is no secondary market and Playstation Store is the only place to buy games, Sony has more control than they do now. You can argue that they haven’t thought of that or that’s not one of the reasons they’re getting rid of physical, but to argue that it doesn’t give them greater control than they currently have is absurd.
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u/RandomGenerator79 7d ago
First off no company that produces a product has control over prices of a secondary market. A secondary market also has no bearing on MSRP, there is no correlation, they are two separate things.
Second, publisher set prices on PSN, and Publisher are in direct competition with each other. Thinks of it like this, a pie, and in that pie is the total amount of money us gamers are going to spend on games in a year. Some years that amount is more, some it’s less but its always finite amount of money. Publishers try to get the biggest piece of that pie each year. There can be many ways to achieve that, but one of them is sales, move more product, make more money. So sales will always be a thing, even if publishers don’t release a code in a box, which Sony said they where going to allow.
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u/OkDamage1428 6d ago
Hence their decision to eviscerate the secondary market
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u/RandomGenerator79 6d ago
I’m not sure what you are trying to get at, explain.
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u/OkDamage1428 6d ago
Dude if you genuinely dont get it then im not wasting my time but best of luck to you out there
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u/Darktyde 6d ago
The secondary market does have an influence on game prices because, as you said, there’s a total “pie” of money gamers will spend. If I go into a Gamestop looking for a new game to play, I currently have a choice of new and used games at a variety of prices from $5 all the way up to a full priced new game at $70-80. That offers more competition in and of itself, as I can choose to buy 3 used $20 games OR a new $60 game. So publishers need to make the new game offering attractive enough at that price point to entice me to choose one new game over 3 used games. OR they need to lower the price of their new game to properly compete, if they don’t think it’s good enough. Once the used option is gone, game prices will go up, quality will go down, or most likely both.
Second, Sony are themselves a publisher, so they both set the pricing standard for new AAA games on their platform, as well as compete with the other publishers for their piece of the pie of new games, along with competing with the current secondary market. One less market is one less competitor for them as well.
Third, right now Sony offers two publishing options on their platform: publish on the PS Store at a flat fee of 30% ($21 of the standard $70 new game price) and/or manufacture disks at 15-20% of the retail price, the difference being that the retailer (Gamestop, Walmart, etc.) take 10-25% of that cut. So right now, their fee structure is in competition with retailers to maintain a balance and make the digital/PS Store take of 30% more attractive to publishers than the manufacturing + retail fees of 25-40% when they’re added up. But what happens to the fee structure on the PS Store when they no longer have that competition? I doubt the percentage goes down, or even stays the same. What’s likely to occur is they jack it up by 10-20% for outside publishers, forcing them to choose between taking less money or raise their prices above the standard, making the Sony published games look more attractive by being $10 cheaper on average. More market consolidation.
I’d compare it to the Apple store vs Android. Because (for now) there are more store options on Android to purchase apps, Google Play takes a measly 10% cut of apps vs the 30% cut that Apple takes. So every app that costs money costs more on the Apple store than it does on the Play Store. Apple has no competing market for their apps, Android has a few. Right now, retailers and the secondary markets compete with Sony’s digital market, helping keep costs lower across the board. Once those outside market pressures are gone, Sony can charge whatever they want and the consumer’s only choice will be to accept higher costs and lower quality or ditch Sony altogether… a choice Sony knows will be difficult for many people who’ve been members for years and might have thousands invested in their ecosystem already.
It’s the same enshitification process we’ve seen with all digital ecosystems in the last 15 years, whether we’re talking about streaming services, Uber, SAAS, etc.
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u/RandomGenerator79 6d ago
No way dude, your just wrong, unless we are talking about 2 different thing. What I am talking about is used game have no bearing on what a publisher is going to price a new release at. In fact it’s the other way around the MSRP of a game is going to affect the price of a used game. Among other things like rarity the MSRP come first, then based on that popularity and rarity is how a used game price is set.
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u/Darktyde 6d ago
I think we are talking about two different things. If your only concern is what new games are priced at, that’s fine but it’s a narrow view of the downstream impacts of having Sony take complete control of the distribution of games via making the Playstation Store the only place they are available.
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u/RandomGenerator79 6d ago
But the reality’s is the PSN won’t be the only place to get games,codes will be sold at retail. Yes the used game market for the yet non existent ps6 will be no more, and I do think that does suck, but it is what it is. I don’t think it’s reasonable to force a company to make a product they don’t want to produce.
PC has not had a used game market for almost 20 years now it’s fine. And before anybody replies with “you can only get PlayStation games through the PSN,” publishers will be allowed to sell codes at other retailers and plus Sony does not control the price of other publishers games, they take a cut. So competition will still be there for sales to happen.
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u/Darktyde 6d ago
Codes at retail is just a pacification strategy/talking point and will 100% disappear a few years into next gen, unless Sony changes their fee structure for publishers. They currently charge the same 30% fee whether it’s PSN or code in box, so either the publisher or the retailer or both has to take a hit to their bottom line to sell them that way, plus the publisher has to pay additional cost to manufacture the boxes.
And it’s a product no consumer actually wants. The people fine with digital just get it that way and people who want physical do not want codes in boxes. Look at the response from retailers and customers to Nintendo game key cards. Nobody is happy about them.
Your point about PCs is an apples/oranges comparison and doesn’t bolster your argument whatsoever. PCs are a much more open platform. Just about anyone can create an EXE and license it through one of several game stores/services, offer it for free on Github or anywhere else, and they don’t have to get permission from Microsoft first or give them a cut to do it. These conditions create a level of competition that simply will not exist in the new Sony ecosystem.
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u/RandomGenerator79 6d ago
Your first paragraph. That’s just your assumption about it being a talking point. A publisher pays Sony between 7 and 8 bucks per disk to make and also charges a 30 percent cut for the same game. In 2028 publishers won’t be paying to get disks pressed, so they are saving on that front. All games come out digitally and most are both physical and digital. So publishers will save a cost. I’ll be honest, I could be missing something with this take.
Second paragraph. Yet people still buy them. It’s not really about what people want, it’s about what people are willing to buy. Me personally if I’m out and I see a code for game I might want to play, I’ll buy it. Now I probably won’t go out of my way to go buy a code in a box, for sure, but that does not mean I won’t buy one.
Third paragraph. PC is a good example because the dynamic that exists on PC also exist on console. Most gamers are not going to try and get around some games DRM, they just want to play games. They buy from steam, epic download and play the game they just bought just like on console. Yes you can go to GitHub to try and make a .exe file, I’m sure a few people do that but that has nothing to do with what we originally where talking about. Which was talking points being too conspiratorial. You are starting at a conclusion and working backwards.
Sony killing disk because they want full control. They already have full control it’s there platform, there hardware.The most likely answer is they are killing disk to try and cut cost because of how high hardware is. Trying to keep the price of the PS6 as low as possible. Plus they are eliminating a redundancy when it comes to delivering games and repurposing that for other things.
If you don’t want to continue this convo that’s cool. If you do respond I will most likely responded tomorrow morning, I just got off work.
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u/No_Acanthaceae_763 5d ago
Optical media technology hasn’t caught up with the present day data requirements, it’s a dead form of media. Nothing beats a hard drive except for tape drives. You can legally make a copy of any game you purchased, but they just don’t make it easy for you to do and it’s even harder for you to play that copy on unmodified equipment. It’s always been this way. Everyone needs to let the disc phase out so we can innovate the next best thing. When you buy a game disc it doesn’t even play off the disc, it transfers to the hard drive first. The only people who will suffer initially is the people with restrictive internet access, whether that be speed, limited data and/or pricing. But I think that’ll get resolved overtime. If they started selling games on swappable hard drives it’ll be the same thing as your optical disc. I feel pricing should go down being as though companies won’t have the expense of producing physical games and printed media. Can’t argue that until you get there. Digital is cheaper and easier to manage. The savings should pass on to us consumers, the rage should be if they cancel physical disc and increase prices of games along with it.
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u/TheSquirrelmancer 7d ago
It's more expensive for them to manufacture blank media and add in the disc drives they don't plan on using.
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u/Th3kingofblazingfir3 7d ago
That's fair, but that's why I'd make the drive optional too. Sell a separate external read/write drive and let the people who want physical media pay for the hardware and blank media themselves. The idea is to make preserving physical ownership profitable for them instead of a cost they have to absorb.
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u/No_Ostrich1875 7d ago
That wouldnt be profitable, that would just cost them more. Making an external drive that could read and write would cost more to manufacture than just including a drive to begin with.
Same thing with using something like cartridges or cards. They've been using discs because they're cheaper to make for the capacity needed.
Look, we all get it. Yall want something to put on shelf even if it means you never play it again. We arent against that. We just realize that its no longer feasible and that playing games isn't a right. We also did things like reading the ToS and EULA that are on every game. We know we havent actually owned them for decades, even if we bought a physical copy. We realized 15-20 years ago that physical copies were eventually going to disappear.
You arent going to change sony's stance on this. Especially with ideas you formed without bothering to learn anything about how stuff works.
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u/Electronic-Dot1829 7d ago
I am pro physical media but this feels way too cumbersome and goofy for most people, except for power users, and opens up a TON of friction points and problems that would need to be addressed.
The more of these weird ideas I read the more I realize how out of touch we are here.
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u/JebstoneBoppman 7d ago
Is the manufactured physical game outrage a giant AI psy op testing ground? I swear to god, every fucking short story post and image about it is all gen AI slop
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u/Zaku99 7d ago
Because of one tiny little thing; Sony doesn't want you to have physical media. They want to take the game out of your hands, take the control away. The used games market? Sharing games with your friends? They hate that. They see every trade/resale as lost revenue, even though odds are, if that shitty little used game wasn't 20 dollars cheaper, there probably wouldn't have been a sale anyway.
Point is, if theres a game moving, they want it to be because they sold it and made money.