Games Inbox: Why is Sony going digital-only with the PS5?

The Thursday letters page worries will happen to video game prices when PS5 goes digital-only, as a reader also wonders about the impact on CeX.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

All change
Gutted that Sony are going to stop the sale of physical games in January 2028. This will mean a change in the way I buy games. I’ve written recently how I delay in buying games rather than buying them new. I think this might mean I’ll be more cautious when buying them digital rather than physical as they can’t be traded or sold.

I bought the recent Mafia game physically a while ago, completed it then traded at CeX. Could not have done that if it was digital.

I also wonder how this will affect CeX. They sell other items than games, but a fair amount of their business must be games.

All in all though a sad day.
DB

No Mr Bond, I expect you to download
With the news of the end of physical discs on the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 5 will be my last ever PlayStation console.

How are Nintendo doing with the key-cards on Switch 2? I thought I read that they had started to do away with them, but I am guessing I am wrong.

The ‘you will own nothing and be happy’ future, courtesy of Mr Bond villain and co., is coming for gaming like everything else.

Sad times.
Simon
PS: It is utterly crazy that in the same post about physical media they say they are shutting older digital storefronts! I’m speechless at the whole thing and the future isn’t very bright for gaming. I will just go retro and begin picking up all those games down the years on more recent consoles I never bothered with.

The good old days
So, hot on the heels of GTA 6 being a code in a box, Sony’s announced it’ll stop producing physical discs by 2028. Then an additional slap in the face of announcing they’re shutting down two online shops too.

Effectively announcing you’ll have no choice to buy digital, and they’ll take that away from you whenever they fancy it. See their removal of all those films for further details.

You can practically imagine the suits at Sony chuckling to themselves, ‘What are they going to do? Buy an Xbox?’

They’ve come a long way since this video.
Euclidian Boxes

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

External contractors
I find some of the discussion around the current Switch 2 software line-up overly negative. Don’t get me wrong, I want a new 3D Mario, Zelda, and Animal Crossing as much as the next person. However, this year already, Mario Tennis Fever, Pokémon Pokopia, Yoshi And The Mysterious Book, and Star Fox have all been great. Yoshi and Pokémon Pokopia are even in GameCentral’s 10 best games of the year so far.

I am a bit worried about the line-up going forward but Nintendo rarely announce games too far in advance. Nevertheless, I think if people focused more on the quality of the games Nintendo has released, rather than what they haven’t, the feeling would be a lot more positive.
Pigfish2 (NN ID/PSN ID)

GC: The problem is Nintendo didn’t make any of those four games, they’re all by external developers. The Switch 2 does have some great game but support from Nintendo’s internal developers has been underwhelming, especially this year.

Early verdict
In response to Host’s email, surely that’s what the point of Digital Foundry is? They analyse video game graphics. It’s quite plausible that they can break down what graphical techniques, etc. a game is using and know with a certain degree of certainty if a PlayStation 5 could run them at 60fps. They generally know how much time techniques like ray tracing or global illumination will use up in terms of milliseconds in a given rendering pipeline.

Also, there was plenty of information available about hair rendering, ray tracing, etc. that could be divulged from the promotional screenshots last week. These are guys who have been studying this stuff for decades now. They can often glance at a game and tell you what graphics engine it is running on and what kind of upscaling it uses just from a few seconds of footage.

It’s a bit like asking why Match of the Day is focusing so much on how teams are doing at football and how they can gain such insight just from watching the game.
PjDonnelli

GC: They were random promo images, with not even a pretence of showing anything related to gameplay.

Let’s (not) get physical
As a gamer in their 40s, I’ve seen my share of controversies in the gaming world. However, the decision by Sony to abandon physical media (and shutter two of their own digital stores at the same time) feels like the final kick in the teeth to gamers like me.

I’ve always thought my taste in games was fairly simple; story-led, single-player experiences with shiny graphics that don’t outstay their welcome. Yet it’s been clear for some time that developers/publishers (I don’t want to tar all with the same brush, but we know who they are) see me increasingly as an anachronism.

Games are released unfinished or at least with significant DLC to upsell. They’re released increasingly far apart, such that we’re yet to get a new experience from the likes of Naughty Dog almost six(!) years into the PlayStation 5’s lifecycle. And more often than not those that are released are padded out to 30+ hour slogs that don’t respect my free time and long outstay their welcome.

I can’t even say I’m surprised at Sony’s decision; digital sales are on the up, and they’ve had no real competition in the console space for at least two generations now. Maybe that wouldn’t have been enough to stop the digital onslaught, but it might at least have made them temper the change with new commitments to refunds and/or re-selling of game licences.

With gaming hardware expected to continue ramping up in price, this genuinely feels like the end for me: the product simply doesn’t give me enough joy to justify spending £1,000+ on hardware and £70+ a pop on games that I can’t resell.
laj105 (PSN ID)

The only way is up
I do have to wonder, now they’ve scrapped physical discs in favour of code in the boxes, if they will lower the prices on games? Or will they still keep them the same prices and wonder why no one are buying new games anymore?

Will this mean that they will be on sale, more often if the developers keep most of the profit? Or will it be a case of keep the price higher and be greedy?
Mark

GC: There’s not a chance in Hades of them lowering software prices. Maybe there’ll be some small change in how sales work but in any case developers generally don’t get any cut of profits from game sales. Most are paid only a flat rate by publishers (or are owned by them), with a few bonus conditions if they’re lucky.

Bad news comes in threes
Tim’s letter (a bit tongue in cheek, but also more than a ring of truth to it) about Sony copying Xbox and GC’s response a couple of days ago did make me chuckle a bit. Take the Xbox Achievement system as a prime example. One of the best ideas in the last 25 years. Longevity and replay value for a game increased big style when that came into existence on Xbox 360. Plenty of incentives to go back into levels and play through them in different ways. And whaddaya know? The PlayStation Trophies miraculously appeared a short while later.

One thing Sony never copied, though, was the ergonomically superior Xbox pads. The original PS1 pad was great, but when they added the analogue sticks I was never a fan. They felt tacked on, almost as if they hadn’t really tried hard enough. The left analogue stick and the D-pad should have been swapped around, in my opinion. Sony stuck with the same template for PlayStation 2. When OG Xbox came out that’s when I jumped ship and I’ve been an Xbox fanboy ever since, primarily due to the pad. The Xbox Series X pad is the best. Some great consoles and games from Sony over the years, but their pads? Not for me.

And on the subject of Sony, they’ve just given notice to PSN account holders that a shed load of digital films are to be deleted from people’s accounts. Those pesky ‘terms and conditions’ that everybody agrees to, but nobody ever reads, eh? A story that you may well cover shortly after I send this letter in.

Lawsuits on the way, no doubt!
Paul C.
PS: First the deleted films (films paid for by the customer, I might add) and now the announcement that physical games are no more from January 2028. Might as well get all the negative stuff out of the way on the same day.

GC: You’re forgetting closing the PlayStation Store on PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.

Inbox also-rans
Talking about Sony always copying Xbox. Are they trying to help them bury bad news, when they have all their layoffs, by distracting people with all this all-digital news?
Bootles

I guessed that Arkane were not long for this world months ago and I’m not surprised to see they’re on the suspect list for who’s being shut down next. It’s sad but they’ll never be allowed to make a game like Dishonored again.
Regal Knight

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