This is yet another nail in the coffin of physical media. Or, in other words games you actually own instead of long term lease.
It’s not like physical media makes any difference anyway these days.
Actual disk often gets just a glorified installer, and even if it includes the entire game you’re likely to have to activate it online anyway.
The “own your games” ship has sailed long ago, unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups.
unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups
Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer. I try to buy games there instead of Steam, purely for this reason.
Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer.
Note that this is a major selling point for GOG and available on most of their library, but unlike their early days, not everything is DRM-free.
The difference is the price of buying discs vs. buying from a digital store that has no competitors.
I’ve bought almost exclusively second-hand discs for my PS5, because they’re like half the price for the exact same content.
Sadly it’ll probably be just a matter of time before those will be phased out as well, one way or another.
I’m glad some companies are going full media and the younger Gen is buying physical media. It’s creating a counter culture that smart companies are using to their advantage.
This in my opinion is one of the valid use cases of a blockchain/NFTs: they provide provable ownership of digital goods. This means that if implemented, in the future we could actually own games music movies ebooks etc. The only remaining step would be a decentralized torrent-like system that allows the users to download the licensed content that they own via their nft.
I mean, I can actually own a bunch of stuff as long as it doesn’t have some sort of proprietary DRM bullshit attached to it.
The problem isn’t that there’s no way to obtain media in a non-bullshit way. The problem is that distributors don’t want to provide media in a non-bullshit way.
Sure, you can still own digital media, but you can’t sell or trade it like you can with a physical copy.
If you can’t modify it, sell it or know what it’s even doing then calling that “ownership” of software is rather lacking. I mean in terms of traditional ownership, not the modern definition: “page 69 of the EULA defines “purchasing” (the software) as a limited, non-transferable lease which can stop working at any time due to dependency on a proprietary server code we will never share I fucked your mom”.
How would that support “First Sale Doctrine”?
Is it possible for modern games to fit on a disk?
I think it would be an interesting change if brand new games had a hard limit on file size so they can fit on and play from an actual disk.
Absolutely. It just depends a lot on the game of course. A blueray disk can contain over 100 GB. But a game could be split over several disks too. It was rather common to do that with CDs on the original PlayStation.
They still have to install.
Disks are too slow.
Maybe but look what happened to Stellar Blade
It does if you rent
I’ve been using gamefly for a while, I can’t rent digital only games
Death by a thousand cuts
Or, in other words games you actually own
Newer games rarely have the entire game on the disc. Usually there’s mandatory patches that must be downloaded to play it. I’ve seen games where there’s only a few hundred MB on the disc while the whole game is maybe 15 or 20 GB.
This means you don’t really own the game, since if Sony take down the downloads for the game, you won’t actually be able to play it any more.
Essentially your choice is between a physical license key (the disc) plus a download of the game, or a digital license key plus a download of the game.
IDK. Between the price tag and lack of the disc drive IDK how many people are gonna buy this thing. It’s probably just for people who HAVE to have the highest graphics, to keep them from getting a gaming PC until the PS6 is ready for them.
One big reason people still play on consoles to this day is because they own a physical copy of their games and can play on their consoles even offline.
Sometimes
At $700 you could build a pretty decent PC that would last a lot longer, and build a steam library that you’ll have 20 years from now. I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10; controllers don’t last that long. They’re reaching a point where there’s less and less of an actual argument for owning one.
build a steam library that you’ll have 20 years from now
How do you know that Steam will be around in 20 years?
Use GOG instead. The DRM-free game installers will outlive Steam :)
How do you know that Steam will be around in 20 years?
Use GOG instead, since the DRM-free game installers will outlive Steam :)
How do you know Windows will keep compatibility in 20 years? Valve money partially goes into Proton/WINE development and an evolution of that will absolutely be around in 20 years, just WINE was around 20 years ago already. CD Project doesn’t put any GOG/Cyberpunk money into breaking the Windows monopoly. (Also plenty of titles on Steam come without DRM because DRM is optional.)
It’s kinda rich to plug Steam, where you also don’t own your games.
And something that can run PS3, PS2 and PS1 games!
I’m sorely disappointed that none of that fancy AI-powered Sony upscaling can be put to use to any of those old games.
I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10;
I guess it depends on frequency of use, but I’ve never had a mouse last ten years. I wear through the switch on the mouse button in less than that, starts to act unreliably.
I think Sony never wanted a physical media PS5 console. The design made it seem like an after thought. Like a growth on the side of sleek lines.
they weren’t completely wrong now. on thier own financials, its mentioned that only 30% of game sales are physical. physical buyers are now the minority.
I still jerk off manually.
Sony has been on a roll with the boneheaded products nobody wants.
799€ here, 920€ with a disc drive. That is stupidly insane for a console. We’re almost breaking the 1000€ barrier for an “upgrade”, not even the new generation.
I’d bet my money Sony is just testing the grounds to see if they can set PS6 price in a few years over the 1k barrier.
700 is insane. I guess I’ll wait for the PC release of Wolverine instead of playing it on the base PS5 then. Sony really shit the bed this cycle.
It was pretty much a given that this would happen, since there were already options with and without disc drives.
And obviously sooner or later gaming will probably move to an entirely online service like streaming.
It’s just a matter of time until the internet and worldwide coverage is ready for it. I always imagined that in a distant future we’d basically only buy a controller, that connects to an app that’ll let you stream. And every game will be in a subscription service like a Netflix.
