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— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 1, 2026

Making a thread for discussion so it's no longer junking up the GTA VI thread.

Trying not to ruin people's experience of an otherwise low activity thread.

Can we cut and paste the 3 pages of discussion from GTA VI thread over to here? I'll reiterate my position here to help get us going:

I don't care about this change. I haven't purchased physical media in (the more I think about it) in at least 20 years. It's a dead medium. I've said this for at least 10 years and have been proven wrong way longer than I ever thought possible with its resiliency via GameStop(?).

Regardless, my opinion seems to finally be becoming reality. I don't rejoice in it; I just don't see the point in it.

Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

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I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

My opinion is that people are only upset because it's a change to how console gaming has always been, but we've all been living in a digital only world for years now. Cell phones, TVs, even our cars are all loaded with digital content that we pay for but do not physically own.

I'm not saying it's the best solution for consumers, but gaming consoles are probably the last BIG technology platform out there that is going all digital. This should not be a shock or super upsetting IMO.

YouBet said:

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jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

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I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

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LOL... that would be like the damn soccer people taking over the "Football Other" board back in the day during the World Cup.

Sure it was the offseason and the Cowboys/Texans threads were pretty dead, but it was SUPER annoying and we would all fight about it. Probably part of the reason why staff renamed it to "NFL & Fantasy Football" board.


I would be perfectly happy if the staff would either rename The Nerdery or give us a dedicated Gaming board. Feels like there are a LOT of TexAg users that don't even know gaming talk is here.

YouBet said:

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jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

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I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

---

You'd ruin several people's lives with this.

There's two types of people upset about it. There's the people that think Sony is now going to abuse the marketplace, even though they still have platform competition and publishers set pricing, not Sony, and the Pokmon card collectors upset they can't collect Pokmon cards to show how big of a Pokmon fan they are.

For the former I don't feel bad. Their concerns aren't grounded in market incentives. Pricing is set to maximize profits. None of those incentives change. It's one thing when the product they're selling has incremental costs to produce the next good, but digital games are a near pure profit increment once released. Increasing sale x price by reducing price and increasing sales is good business.

For the latter person I do feel bad even though I can't relate to it. I'm sure there will be some kind of game enthusiast collectible producer that replicates the look of physical games. Sell a case with artwork inside and a copy of a digital keycode that you can put on a shelf.

25Lighters said:

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YouBet said:

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jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

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I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

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You'd ruin several people's lives with this.

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Gaming is Entertainment. We deserve to be there.

Yes sir, I can't argue with much/any of that.


I think there is a big nostolgia aspect to all of it that can never be quantified (tanigbly & socially). For Gen X / Millenials... we will forever love and miss the days of Arcades, Blockbusters, Record Stores. And yet, none of those places exist anymore outside of novelty shops. I suppose Gamestop is next.

Better tech at home and the eventual digital delivery method killed all of it. As much as I want some of that stuff back, the reality is I would rarely use it.

jr15aggie said:

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Yes sir, I can't argue with much/any of that.


I think there is a big nostolgia aspect to all of it that can never be quantified (tanigbly & socially). For Gen X / Millenials... we will forever love and miss the days of Arcades, Blockbusters, Record Stores. And yet, none of those places exist anymore outside of novelty shops. I suppose Gamestop is next.

Better tech at home and the eventual digital delivery method killed all of it. As much as I want some of that stuff back, the reality is I would rarely use it.

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For sure and I'm right there with you. However, for whatever reason I never got hung up on physical media for games, specifically. As soon as I could download a game and just play it, I went all-in and abandoned physical media.

Games have always been digital (as opposed to books, for example) so evolving to 100% digital distribution just always made sense to me when it ultimately happened.

Agreed. I did some digital stuff during 360/PS3 and went all digital during the XB1/PS4 era and haven't looked back.

And I must say (Xbox is better about this than Sony) that having access to 3 generations of digital games available to play on my latest device is VERY consumer friendly. I do enjoy replaying old games and, right now, that's never been easier if you own a digital copy.

I'm at the point where I accept "it is what it is". I'm 39. I went 100% digital with my music about a decade ago (meaning no more CD purchases). I went 100% digital on movies/TV about 6 years ago.

For gaming, I have been digital on PC for the last 15 years or so. Console gaming I went 100% digital about 3 years ago. I was still happy buying the physical games for longer, but that was generally because of buying used games at Gamestop.

The only negative I see is the eradication of the future used game market. Ultimately, I think this hurts companies like Sony because they are forcing parents to pay full price for games without knowing if their kids will even like the games enough to play them.

Growing up, we would rent a game from Blockbuster at least 2 times. If we still loved the game and hadn't beaten it, our parents would let us go to Gamestop and buy a used version of it. I don't even remember buying a new game for our N64.

Now days, there is no real way for someone to try a game out before buying. I really like what Nintendo is doing with their virtual cartridges being shareable within your family. But the parents still ultimately have to pay full price for the game. Subscription services are really the only similar situation to Blockbuster game rentals. If there is no backlash from the consumer market, that will be the new norm.

I have no issue with the subscription-based market for gaming, but I still want the ability to purchase the game key for myself. If they ever were to delete my Steam library, or any other digital library, then I'm going back to 100% pirating games. Simple as that.

Lathspell said:

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I'm at the point where I accept "it is what it is". I'm 39. I went 100% digital with my music about a decade ago (meaning no more CD purchases). I went 100% digital on movies/TV about 6 years ago.

For gaming, I have been digital on PC for the last 15 years or so. Console gaming I went 100% digital about 3 years ago. I was still happy buying the physical games for longer, but that was generally because of buying used games at Gamestop.

The only negative I see is the eradication of the future used game market. Ultimately, I think this hurts companies like Sony because they are forcing parents to pay full price for games without knowing if their kids will even like the games enough to play them.

Growing up, we would rent a game from Blockbuster at least 2 times. If we still loved the game and hadn't beaten it, our parents would let us go to Gamestop and buy a used version of it. I don't even remember buying a new game for our N64.

Now days, there is no real way for someone to try a game out before buying. I really like what Nintendo is doing with their virtual cartridges being shareable within your family. But the parents still ultimately have to pay full price for the game. Subscription services are really the only similar situation to Blockbuster game rentals. If there is no backlash from the consumer market, that will be the new norm.

I have no issue with the subscription-based market for gaming, but I still want the ability to purchase the game key for myself. If they ever were to delete my Steam library, or any other digital library, then I'm going back to 100% pirating games. Simple as that.

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Understandable. I would likely do the same and I'm as anti-pirating as you can get.

Don't think they're going to ever drive enough revenue from subscriptions to have gaming be an exclusively subscription based model. Xbox has already demonstrated there's not enough appetite for it/revenue derived from it.

What I think will ultimately happen is Xbox and Playstation will release first party games for sale. Withhold them from their subscription services for 18-24 months with the same discounting pattern they currently get and then reduce purchase price to $50, and then routinely discount it to just above the cost of their top subscription fee.

hph6203 said:

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Don't think they're going to ever drive enough revenue from subscriptions to have gaming be an exclusively subscription based model. Xbox has already demonstrated there's not enough appetite for it/revenue derived from it.

What I think will ultimately happen is Xbox and Playstation will release first party games for sale. Withhold them from their subscription services for 18-24 months with the same discounting pattern they currently get and then reduce purchase price to $50, and then routinely discount it to just above the cost of their top subscription fee.

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Likely. There could be a model where they offer a more expensive top tier / premium sub option that gets you a choice of first party games on day 1. We shall see.

I'd be somewhat surprised if Sony doesn't announce backwards compatibility emulation for PS3 and the PS6. Hardware is going to be good enough by then to actually pull it off. If Xbox does what they've been rumored to do, just a Xbox overlay on what is essentially a windows desktop that allows custom software then Sony would have to deal with Xbox being able to play PS3 games and the PS6 not being able to.

Definitely could happen.

I was off the Sony consoles for a few years... when I got back in with the PS5 a little over a year ago I was very surprised and disappointed to see that I had no access to my PS3 digital library. I had some cool games on there, even some retro games like a great arcade port of Ultimate MK3.

The competition across the digital space is a real thing. I'm currently emulating everything through PS2 on my SteamDeck (most of what I have is Nintendo/SNES/Genesis era games). I have the ability to emulate every old school TMNT game from Arcade to consoles... and I have them... but it also didn't stop me from buying the recently released Cowabunga collection because it was so well done and a better way to play those games.

There are many paths to support consumers in new/better ways while also making a crap ton of money.

YouBet said:

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jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

---

I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

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Dude, without the entertainment board, we wouldn't have the epic Odyssey thread! So you just leave the E-board alone!

FL_Ag1998 said:

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YouBet said:

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jr15aggie said:

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Yeah I get it. The Nerdery is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago at the height of our Halo, CoD, BF, etc threads. The console war threads were super fun too.

The GTA thread is way off course, but at least people are here talking about gaming so I'm enjoying it.

---

I've always thought we should take over the Entertainment Board. The gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry.

Who's with me?!

---

Dude, without the entertainment board, we wouldn't have the epic Odyssey thread! So you just leave the E-board alone!

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That thread should be enshrined in the Entertainment Hall of Fame.

I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Why are they ashamed of it?

YouBet said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Why are they ashamed of it?

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Because it's apparently a terrible game, but it has something of a cult following since it's so unlike the rest of the series.

BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Guess who owns a physical copy

Señor Chang said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Guess who owns a physical copy

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Y'all should totally hook up.

Señor Chang said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Guess who owns a physical copy

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It's not backwards compatible so I'd still need a PS3

YouBet said:

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Señor Chang said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

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Guess who owns a physical copy

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Y'all should totally hook up.

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Maybe we will. Wanna join?

Señor Chang said:

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YouBet said:

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Señor Chang said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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I wish they'd temporarily open up the PS3 store to PS5 players before it closes. Yakuza: Dead Souls is imprisoned behind the PS3 store and I never had one. It's the only Yakuza game I haven't played and it will likely never be released again because even the creators are ashamed of it apparently.

Which makes me want to play it even more. Is there anyone on here with a working PS3 they'd sell me for cheap? I seriously just want to play that one game on it.

ETA; heck, I'd even borrow one for a few weeks just so I can experience Dead Souls and I'll return it.

---

Guess who owns a physical copy

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Y'all should totally hook up.

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Maybe we will. Wanna join?

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So hawt.

Beefy computer and PS3 emulator. I win, and I do so at 60fps and 4K resolution. Did this with Bloodborne and was so happy (obviously PS4 emulator).

Doesn't run on RPCS3. Only way to circumvent buying/borrowing the disc is buying a Fat PS3, flashing firmware, downloading and playing the game. Can probably buy the PS3, flash the firmware, play the game, flash back to commercial firmware and sell the PS3 for <$50 in transaction losses pretty easily.

If it's too much of a moral failing to "steal" a game not being sold commercially they can buy a DLC for a Yakuza game from $5-20, because that was the recent price range for Dead Souls. My attitude is if there's no moral way to compensate the rights holder there's no immoral way to steal from the rights holder.

hph6203 said:

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There's two types of people upset about it. There's the people that think Sony is now going to abuse the marketplace, even though they still have platform competition and publishers set pricing, not Sony, and the Pokmon card collectors upset they can't collect Pokmon cards to show how big of a Pokmon fan they are.

For the former I don't feel bad. Their concerns aren't grounded in market incentives. Pricing is set to maximize profits. None of those incentives change. It's one thing when the product they're selling has incremental costs to produce the next good, but digital games are a near pure profit increment once released. Increasing sale x price by reducing price and increasing sales is good business.

For the latter person I do feel bad even though I can't relate to it. I'm sure there will be some kind of game enthusiast collectible producer that replicates the look of physical games. Sell a case with artwork inside and a copy of a digital keycode that you can put on a shelf.

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The reality that PSN digital sales are by and large beaten out by physical sale prices flies in the face of this argument if you ask me. The fact that they don't need to clear shelf space is an incentive to be patient and not risk lower "pure profit" levels than they can otherwise get is clear incentive to not lower the price as it doesn't cost anything additional to stock.

And the idea that a company who has already removed third party competition for retailer involvement, moved basic functionality behind subscription paywalls, increasing subscription cost while simultaneously removing subscription benefits, paid for third party companies to exclude competitors, attempted sabotage of third party controllers via software updates, and altering in-game economies after reviews were published to drive microtransactions is somehow not going to push boundaries is just an example of intentional ignorance.

Xbox is at least rumored to be pushing a physical to digital program, so far Sony is just letting you know that you're out of luck.

Fenrir said:

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The reality that PSN digital sales are by and large beaten out by physical sale prices flies in the face of this argument if you ask me. The fact that they don't need to clear shelf space is an incentive to be patient and not risk lower "pure profit" levels than they can otherwise get is clear incentive to not lower the price as it doesn't cost anything additional to stock.

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They are not over time. The asymptotic low point for digital sales is lower than the asymptotic low price for physical sales, because the physical sales carry costs that prevent companies from routinely buying inventory that reaches the price of digital sales. You are just wrong. You are not going to see physical sales for $5 for new games. Sony does not care about used sales. Nor should they. It does not benefit them. Even given that the profit generating low price of a new digital game is lower than a used game.

The reason God of War Ragnarok is cheaper as a physical sale on Amazon for a significant proportion of time out of the year is because Amazon has costs of buying and inventorying God of War Ragnarok and the cost of inventorying God of War Ragnarok for Playstation is nothing.

Playstation also does not set pricing on third party sales. The primary competition for games on a platform is not God of War on PSN vs God of War on Amazon. It's God of War vs. GTA VI. Spider-man 2 vs Wolverine.

Discounting and prices below what you could even get as a used price will still happen. They will just not exist as a perpetually present price, because they know if they list at $29.99 and then discount to $10 they will get more conversions/awareness than if they perpetually held it at $15 or $10. They are attempting to induce purchases whereas Amazon/Walmart are trying to clear inventory while minimizing losses.

You can, as an example, buy God of War 2018 for $10 on PSN while it's priced at $14 at Gamestop used. Same prices on Ebay. A patient price conscious shopper is not going to get taken advantage of the way you claim.

Quote:

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And the idea that a company who has already removed third party competition for retailer involvement, moved basic functionality behind subscription paywalls, increasing subscription cost while simultaneously removing subscription benefits, paid for third party companies to exclude competitors, attempted sabotage of third party controllers via software updates, and altering in-game economies after reviews were published to drive microtransactions is somehow not going to push boundaries is just an example of intentional ignorance.

Xbox is at least rumored to be pushing a physical to digital program, so far Sony is just letting you know that you're out of luck.

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They will absolutely do everything they can to maximize revenue/profit that they can get away with. Key qualifier is get away with. They can get away with ending physical releases, because the demand for physical releases has been dropping by 10% per year. At the start of the PS5 lifecycle the demand for disc based consoles was 80% of sales. It has fallen to 50% of new console sales, and the proportion of disc based consoles that buy a majority of their games physically is likely less than half that volume. Physical is dying.

The reason Xbox is pursuing a disc to digital process is not because they intend on supporting discs in the future, it's because they aren't. If they intended on supporting discs it would be entirely unnecessary for them to invest in converting a disc based license into a digital based license. Xbox's current data on disc value of sales is ~1/8 of what Sony's is. They are not going to do disc based sales. Whether Sony follows a similar procedure or sells a disc based peripheral remains to be seen, but to argue that Sony should support disc based media into perpetuity is to argue for a tech debt that persistently makes the norm consumer's experience more expensive.