from the and-it-goes-down-down-down-to-the-ring-of-fire dept.
Some gamers are concerned about the future of game ownership after Sony's announcement today that it won't produce physical discs for PlayStation games as of January 2028. On that date, "new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only," Sony said in a blog post.
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"We'll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that's at retailers or PlayStation Store," the blog said.No companies other than Sony subsidiary Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation make PlayStation discs, so today's announcement signals the end of physical copies of PlayStation games and marks Sony's evolution toward a licensing-only sales model.
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buying a digital download is not the same as owning a game. Per PlayStation's terms of service:When you order or purchase a product from PlayStation Store, you buy a personal license to use that product for private, non-commercial use. That license is not transferable unless your local applicable laws say it must be. This means you can use a product in the ways described in the license, but do not own the product.
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Sony also announced today that it will close the PlayStation Store on PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, with the US losing access in July 2027.
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"To ease the transition, players will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date for the foreseeable future," Sony said.Both blog posts have comments decrying Sony's announcements and their implications for ownership and long-term access to PlayStation games.
One user going by Mosquito53, for example, commented:
Another disappointing decision made in the same day. No matter how many users still use these stores, they should remain open. So much content released digital-only, even on these platforms, these games will be lost to time.
Imagine what will happen in the future when this same decision is made for PS4 or PS5 or even the eventual PS6, which now looks to be all digital with the announcement of no more physical disc production.
We will own nothing, it's truly sad.
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in 2024, Sony deleted customers' Funimation digital libraries despite Funimation previously claiming that customers would be able to access these digital copies "forever but" with "some restrictions."
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Sony has also shown a wavering commitment to its digital stores. In 2021, it stopped selling movie and show rentals/purchases. Leaving the door ajar for customers to potentially lose access to digital games they bought for PlayStation 3 or PS Vita doesn't boost confidence around the digital-only future.Further, the removal of storefronts could mean beloved games released only digitally become virtually impossible to find.
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"This is why physical media matters," a user named Radgatt commented on Sony's PS3 and PS Vita announcement. "More and more proof that you're just buying a license that can be taken away whenever companies feel like it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday July 04, @12:29PM (4 children)
If you don't like it, then stop giving them your money....
[sound of money being thrown in exchange for violent ass rape]
Idiots.
I have no idea why proprietary gaming platforms are still even a thing.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday July 05, @04:12PM
My daughter texted me this image [nooze.org] she got from Instagram a couple of days ago referencing this insanity.
The Epstein Memorial Golden Presidential Ballroom: Let them eat cake.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 06, @05:21PM (2 children)
We had a PS1 growing up (technically my older brother's), I purchased my own PS2, and then PS3. Around the PS3 era is when Steam really took off. Especially comparing steam store sale prices vs essentially any disc based sales, it was no-brainer to switch back to computer gaming. That said, at the time, consoles were the undisputed king of local co-op games. Which I made fairly heavy use of at the time. Having grown up and friends moved away, local co-op is not as needed. Also, from a local co-op perspective, computer gaming has come a long way. There are a lot more local co-op games for computer than there were in the PS3's era. While it could be interesting to have newer consoles (aside from the 2 Switch consoles that I got for wife and kiddo). The cost of having a nice computer and a modern console is pretty high.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by corey on Wednesday July 08, @11:38AM (1 child)
I had a PS3 for a while. Enjoyed it at first. But after a while I played less often and then whenever I turned it on to play a game, it wanted to do a system update. It would log me out of PSN until I did the update. That’d mean I couldn’t play the game. But the system updates were always tens of GB in size so it’d take 15-20 mins plus multiple reboots to do it. I sold it after that. My kids love playing our old Wii which isn’t connected to anything.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 08, @04:23PM
We still have or old Wii, but the pair of Nintendo Switches that I got for my kiddo and wife get quite a bit more use. I tried getting kiddo interested in Little Big Planet on my PS3, but they're not into it. They did get into Skylanders, but they love swapping between characters a bit too much. I've always wondered, if I could just swap the HDD for an SSD in my PS3. That said, the HDD is more shelf-stable. Which is probably a really good thing at this point of the lifecycle. Also, I really don't use it enough now to care that much. Plus, most of the slowness related to the PS3 is down to the Optical Drive read speed. There weren't all that many games that you could buy on the store and install directly on the PS3. At least, that's not how I used mine. I did get one or two, but for the most part Disc based was the better deal.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Touché) by looorg on Saturday July 04, @02:08PM (2 children)
As the old saying goes -- if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing. I'm not going to be renting any games. Certainly not from Sony (or Microsoft or Nintendo or ...). My STEAM library is quite small. I have not bought anything there for eons, I think the last one I bought was Slay the Spire (great game). I guess I'm just not really a AA or AAA type gamer anymore, not sure if I have ever been. Nothing that I see in the pipeline of things to come appeal to me.
That said I doubt they'll be going under. Enough "gamers" around that want to fork over $100 (or whatever it is these days) for GTA6 and God of War whatever edition is coming down the pipe next.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday July 04, @02:25PM
Lost in the noise is the underlying problem, that of digital restrictions management (DRM) technologies. What's left of the trade press makes a point of avoiding mention of digital restrictions management technology [defectivebydesign.org] even a little, especially in the context of restricted boot.
Lately, with M$ restricted boot keys expiring, those with older computers are having a hard time, but that too is getting little to no coverage. Over the years, intentionally, m$ and the parts of the hardware and gaming markets which it controls, have been cutting papercut after papercut against digital freedom. Each time, people are confronted with a choice: short term convenience which paints them into a corner in the long term, or short term inconvenience which leads to continued flexibility. Sadly, people choose, or let themselves be pushed into, the former. However, the main market is at work and there people have no choice because the IT departments have been replaced wholesale with m$ resellers using the company budget to advance M$ agenda against the users and the companies.
Anyway, I am now ranting. Back to the topic.
The press and the market needs to keep the eye on the ball and go after and crush the DRM which is the core problem here, physical media or not.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bentonite on Tuesday July 07, @05:03AM
Piracy is theft and murder with the help of a boat, so it is stealing.
Making unauthorized, or even prohibited copies of games clearly has nothing to do with boats, or theft or murder, so why smear such activities by referring to it as piracy?
The only problem with such copies being made, is that such games are proprietary software and therefore such distribution is negative in the freedom dimension.
Although, there exists plenty of free software games that are quite good, that you are free to share, run and/or modify as you wish - sometimes you may have to pay to get a copy, but once you pay and get a copy of the binary and source code, it can't be taken away from you and you're free to exercise the 4 freedoms with it, including sharing it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04, @03:16PM (5 children)
Everything I've read is suggesting the end of the console-based gaming industry:
- delayed next-gen console releases
- closure of entire studios by Microsoft, massive staffing cuts at others
- end of discs with PS, and the public backlash thereto, and the unwillingness of some to continue with consoles that don't have them
- Consoles having standard PC architectures and current-day PC hardware/performance (ram/CPU/GPU/disk), to be outclassed in 1-2 years
- the necessary closure of gaming stores (in malls, shopping centers, places that people go and look around)
This, especially the last one, and the consumer backlash, seem to suggest that the top two or three gaming companies are just on their way out. Especially not being able to see a rack of games - maybe just a rack of gift-cards - people won't even know what's available on the "gaming consoles". Top that off with the fact that current-day PCs are as strong as the gaming consoles themselves. (The original Nintendo was different; N64 used a 64-bit processor; PSX used *three* (they advertised) 32-bit chips; PS2 had very high-end graphics, and ps3?)
There's very much saying that the real irrelevance of gaming consoles is fast upon us (in favor of e.g. Steam), and Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo are on their way to... whatever.
Comparatively, low-end gaming is something that I see very, very frequently on the train. People find small games and give them a play. Who'd have thought: Gunkle might be one of the two major gaming publishers left! Perhaps Xbox and PS and Nintendo will start publishing for Android and iPhone.
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and then there's the cultural eraser that is being taken to this whole swath of the current day. All of these non-disc games will never show up in history, any more than a few videos that might survive, or a handfull of screenshots. None of it will be playable, none of it will be preserved (20 years - Playstation store is closing for older consoles.) You can still play your Atari games, but so much for your kids picking up Atelier games of today and giving them a run.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aafcac on Saturday July 04, @07:06PM (3 children)
TBH, I don't really get what the point of these consoles is at this point. I get the mobile ones, but the ones that are intended to be hooked up to a TV make little sense considering how powerful desktop computers have gotten and that you can generally use them for other things. If you don't even get physical media to own, might well just use a computer that likely will be able to play the same games for decades. With a few exceptions like Games for Widnows Live where the store went under, you can still play games going back to the '70s on a modern computer, it's just that you might need an emulator for some of the older software. But, it mostly plays the way it did when new.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Sunday July 05, @04:18PM (1 child)
TBH, I don't really get what the point of these consoles is at this point.
How big is your phone? Your tablet? Your computer monitor? Your TV screen? Besides the television, my biggest screen is a laptop. I use my TV as a monitor, but I'm not normal.
A TV is a FAR better monitor for a videogame today, now that our TVs are huge, digital, and ultra-high resolution.
The Epstein Memorial Golden Presidential Ballroom: Let them eat cake.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Sunday July 05, @04:45PM
I generally game on my computer unless I need to be out and about. If I really wanted to, I could easily hook my computer up to my TV. But my tsblet has roughly a quarter the area of my 13inch crt, so it's not really that small when you account for viewing distance.
The point though is that consoles these days don't really do anything that desktops don't do well enough. It's not like during the '80s when dmooth scrolling was a problem.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 06, @05:30PM
Consoles have been a lot more user-friendly than a PC and don't typically get viruses. In my opinion the reason the likes of the Steam Deck and Steam Machine selling well is due to Valve greatly improving the user experience. The average gamer doesn't want to need to think a whole lot about getting their game to work, etc. They want to launch a thing and for it to "just work". Windows and typical Linux desktop environments are too much for the average user. The advantage of SteamOS is that it gives a curated user experience which is supported by a full fledged Linux system, if you want to dive in further.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05, @05:59AM
The gaming industry was taken over by vulture capitalists. As per usual, they ripped out the valuable furnishings to sell them for an immediate profit. Shortly afterwards they started selling off the emptied-out shell while it still held value. The end result is the gutting of the AAA gaming industry.
Of course, indie developers are having a field day thanks to reduced competition.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05, @07:26AM
"You will own nothing, and you will be happy." That's one of the real problems here.
But this also makes it harder for people to borrow or resell games. Right now, my local library has dozens of games on physical media that can be checked out. If there are only digital copies, it is far more difficult for libraries to allow patrons to borrow games. Even if a game has limited replay value, it prevents you from buying the game and then, when you're bored with it, selling it to someone else. No doubt, the greedy corporate types see this as a way to increase profits by forcing more people to buy their own copies of games.
The only reason we have libraries is that they're effectively grandfathered in. Eliminating physical copies is a way for publishers to circumvent libraries while their lawyers ensure that no digital equivalent will ever be tolerated under copyright law. It's capitalism without a conscience. Another word for that is greed.
I'm sure we'll hear the same excuses about how placing limits on copyright and what publishers' lawyers can put in licenses will stifle innovation and harm consumers. As if the ability of publishers to remove purchased content from users' accounts and preventing libraries from lending content will somehow inflict great harm on consumers, and we just have to accept things as they are. It's BS propaganda from industries that spend tremendous amounts of money
bribingdonating to legislators. Ain't it funny how when there's actual bipartisan cooperation in Washington, it's usually to pass laws that do things like expanding copyright and sticking it to the people? Thanks, Citizens United.But make no mistake, a big part of this is to target libraries and the used games business.