No, this is just playstation continuing to hate their customer base.
They’ve always hated their customers. Between Sony, and Nintendo, I dont know who hates their customers the most… but they both certainly try.
and it doesnt matter, because they both have enough fanboys that strip off their clothes and gleefully dance naked and joyous in the rain of shit both companies sputter out of their assholes and down onto their customers.
Bad notice…. I like phisical disc, not is good for ever this system, and one question: you pay the game, but not is you own, not?
If buying does not equal owning something, piracy can’t equal theft. At this rate, what’s the point of consoles?
Not really end of an era, you’re just witnessing a monopoly forming since Xbox is pretty much dead in the water. I guess it’s technically a duopoly since Nintendo is fine, but Nintendo kinda does its own thing without regard to what others do. Basically, with Xbox out of the picture, Sony is free to do whatever it wants.
End of an era for just about everything. Streaming is all enshitified. The job market is shit. Democracy is falling apart. Decades of progress being undone. It’s just the way it will be until people get sick of all this shit and start doing things differently and move on. All the great old companies are dead. Either turned to zombie brands or run by zombies. I remember how excited I was to buy my first Sony Trinitron, my first walkman, my Sony component stereo, first PlayStation.
I don’t understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this. The only draws of consoles was the turnkey hardware, which you can generally get with Proton now, and access to physical games, which won’t be a thing soon. Now it’s just a locked-down PC with a DRM storefront that makes you pay a subscription to pay online games and which may or may not have backwards compatibility from system to system.
Maybe that’s just the PC gamer in me talking. Are there any advantages to console anymore? Like, a single benefit?
Can anyone come up with a single example of an industry that’s not getting simultaneously worse (and/or smaller), and more expensive?
It’s like corporations don’t know how to do anything but enshittify anymore
It’s the ultimate push to turn everything into the perfect Capitalist (not market-oriented) business solution: Getting paid for nothing
If your goal is to accumulate capital, and there are not outside forces regulating your worst impulses, you ultimately will create a class of legal-protected thieves, since the absolutely best and most risk free way to accumulate capital is to be given it in exchange for quite literally nothing.
Gambling is about as close to the platonic ideal as you can, but conquest by military force of political capture is also a very, viable route. Use the law to force people to buy your nothing and be protected for it, rather than being lynched when you steal someone’s products.
Mandated insurance that isn’t a crown corporation beholden to ratepayers is a perfect example. If you have mandated insurance for something, and that private insurance has a shareholder requirement to see growth every quarter, and the same amount of things are being insured, only one thing can happen:
Rates go up with denials
Payouts go down
Eventually you’re paying for insurance you know is worthless but it’s mandated by law.
Not really, a lot of insurers make the majority of their money from their investing.
United healthcare
I agree with you, but then isn’t it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.
Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.
Not when you realize that the “something” they’re charging you for is:
a) bastardized cargo culted knockoff of “something” so insubstantial that it’s very nearly “something-shaped nothing”
b) the “something” is made of stuff that isn’t even theirs.Not only is it giving you a bamboo and thatch sculpture of an airplane when you ask for an airplane; it’s made of STOLEN bamboo and STOLEN thatch.
Yep let’s take entirety of user submitted content to the internet over 30+ years and repackage it and sell it back to you as if it was our product.
I hope you don’t misunderstand me by my saying “something” to imply it’s anything substantial, significant, or even good. I’m very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I’m coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don’t improve our lives in any way. But they can’t exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU’s, GPU’s, SSD’s, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that’s what I mean by “something.”
That’s a lot of work they’re doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC’s generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.
I just don’t think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?
the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models
Any proof that that actually happened?
But it does provide nothing. Whatever AI gives is a hallucination, that’s practically nothing since it’s not information you can rely on and you have to verify it anyway.
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Compared to insufferable automated phone systems, which have existed for decades and employ exactly no one, they are a vast improvement.
any company born after 1993 can’t make good products… all they know is exploitation, fire their workers, enshittify, be pink capitalist, eat hot cash & lie
(yes i know sony was founded before 1993 thank you)
So was Enron? I’m not sure why you chose 1993, companies have been shitty across all of time and space.
Welp, I’m the fucking idiot today lol. Thanks!
“Eat hot chip & lie” was my favorite saying for a long time after that tweet went viral
Ever since fucking Trump came to power, he basically defanged the agencies that were supposed to curb corporate abuses and enforce laws and regulations, and allowed corporations to do a lot more anything they want to make more profit.
Yeah but until their bullshit hits their bottom line they won’t change, and most people are on autopilot through life and either don’t notice or don’t care.
To reduce costs on printing and to reflect Sony’s vision, they are dropping the L from the name of the console.
They’re not dropping it, they’re hoping you take it.
But leave them with the L.
By not including the extra plastic L on the console, Sony realized it could save 7 cents per console.
You joke but that’s why stick drift is an issue now.
And with projected sales of 14 consoles after these decisions, that’s almost a whole buck of savings!
lol
I’m an Xbox fangirl (a resentingly disappointed one, of course), and the recent industry shenanigans made me get apprehensive about whatever is going to come out next from Microsoft’s direction. They could turn the direction around. Not sure if they can.
I liked Nintendo Switch, but Switch 2 was pretty much “yeah, I’ll probably get a Steam Deck at some point, sorry”.
This PlayStation stuff basically switched my opinion of them from “Nnno” to “Oh hell no”.
I will be back to PC gaming! And will be building a new PC once the industry quits being stupid for a moment. Until then, my 2020 laptop will have to do.
definitely end of an era.
I’m not buying a console without physical media.Sony can kill the second hand market if they want, but that was the last thing that differentiated them from Steam. Good bye Playstation, i’ll remember you fondly.
Rest in piss
Its like they saw how much Xbox has been sucking and thought “hold on, instead of building on this market lead, I bet we could beat Xbox in enshittifying!”
Ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360, it’s like the console wars have just been about them trading whose turn it was for the next PR disaster. Racing to the top was too expensive so they race to the bottom instead.
It helps when you get that their goals and ours are not really the same. They want to earn more money, and don’t need to provide a perfect service to achieve that. They just need to be (slightly) less shitty than Xbox.
probably going to complain when steam/valve is the only competitor making bank. MS wasted all thier money on trying to make AI work.
They are also lobbying to make hosting your own videogame server illegal: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/esa-bafflingly-declares-private-minecraft-servers-illegal-in-stop-killing-games-hearing-we-consider-it-piracy-we-have-lawsuits/
Sony is part of ESA.
So is Microsoft who owns Minecraft who definitely presents private servers as dangerous (which for children may very well be true).
Having the possibility to setup a server allowed me to setup one for my sons and I. I’d rather have that then them going online…
You would think that’s what every parent would prefer…
Both because it’s more safe and secure. Plus I have very fond memories of LAN parties and without private servers and local multiplayer kids won’t be able to experience that :(
Don’t worry, they’ll still be able to drink a bunch of cough syrup and think they’re really hanging out chatting with random people on forums and Pink Floyd and Abe Lincoln, and then get genuinely lost in a game for what seems like eternity but can only ever be vaguely recalled later.
So are bicycles and kitchen knives. Ffs
That was kind of my point?
That just because it’s “dangerous” for children doesn’t justify banning it wholesale. Sorry I wasn’t more clear.
Yet Microsoft allows people access to host a private server while also putting up scary warnings for kids telling them to stick to the “safe” realms servers or whatever (are they even still called Realms? fuck if I know). On the one hand, it’s good they haven’t removed it entirely, on the other hand, it seems like that may be their eventual long-term goal with how they treat the private server ecosystem.
I also think Discord and Roblox contributed to people not knowing what the fuck “server” actually means anymore.
They’re betting on consumers being too impulsive and stupid to care, and… they’re probably right. Nothing’s stopped them before, this likely isn’t a new line in the sand for them.
I can’t speak to market trends, but I can say this 100% makes my PS5 my last Sony console. I’ve bought every one, and the only reason I continue to buy them is so I can collect exclusives on disc for my collection.
A digital only console is just a bad, expensive gaming PC. I already have a good expensive gaming PC, so I’ll just buy games digitally there.
After the recent Sony is deleting your movies you bought crap, I decided I’m never buying a digital game from them ever again. So sounds like it’s my last as well. And I was already 90% digital.
Especially seeing as they tried to do the same thing before and reversed course due to the backlash, but I guess they just don’t care anymore.
Yep. Same. I’ve been a PlayStation guy since my teens and could start buying my own stuff. If that’s the move they want to go with then I have zero issues in dropping them as a whole.
While I applaud your decision, the market has spoken - 85%+ of all console game sales are digital. The overwhelming majority of people don’t care about physical games, especially in a time when the physical copies don’t even contain the full game due to storage constraints.
I’ve been digital-only since the day they made all games available digitally on the Xbox 360, because I don’t trade or re-sell games, ever, and I much prefer the benefits of digital. Most people are like me these days. It sucks for the people that aren’t, but they’re going to have to just move on or abandon their hobby.
I do buy digital and have for decades, but primarily for PC. I don’t for console because that’s the last thing I wanted a console for. I have no intention of abandoning the hobby, but this is my last reason to buy a PlayStation. They offer nothing that isn’t done better on a gaming PC.
I saw the 85% stat they are pushing. I honestly don’t believe it. I strongly believe they are pumping that number up by counting PlayStation Plus redemptions and smaller games in that total. I would be much more interested to see what the actual Physical vs. Digital sales are for a single new release title on day one. I would guess the split is much closer to 70/30. That might be higher in markets where internet access is less robust. This will also piss off retailers and distributors, which now are expected to sell low-margin consoles without high margin games. They chose such a far off date in purpose, to see the feedback and test the waters. I doubt this will come to fruition. Physical media is seeing a resurgence as trust for these companies to maintain services is at an all time low.
On that note, companies need to be careful taking industry wide trends and extrapolating from them with no nuance. That’s why I worded my first comment carefully. I am not anti-Digital at all, but I buy a console for collecting exclusives. I have hundreds of digital Steam games and some digital PS5 games. You know how many digital PS6 games I’ll have? Zero, because I won’t own one. Like backwards compatibility, the benefit of it can’t be quantified by how much time people use it vs. cost of development. Physical media is a draw, even if it is not always taken advantage of. I’m not boycotting, I’m genuinely no longer interested.
This is the kind of decision that looks great on a balance sheet when you have no competition. But when your hardcore audience stops buying, collectors that buy extra releases and collectors editions stop collecting, retailers stop pushing because they can only sell one low margin box, and your competitors see your weakness and double down on it, it might not turn out so great.
The 85% stat isn’t a lie - it’s in their own financials that they release to shareholders, and they’re actually one of publishers with the least digital uptake. Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, etc all also release these figures and they’re higher. You can go to Sonys investor relations portal and check the figures out for yourself.
Physical media is not making a resurgence. It’s getting lower and lower every single year.
Sony will not abandon this plan because they have no reason to. It won’t affect their sales at all.
Also we don’t know how this will affect retail yet, that all depends on if they allow retailers to sell below the PS Store prices.
I didn’t say it was a lie, I said I think it’s inflated the way I already explained. Also, the fact that they are lower than other publishers indicates they will see a bigger impact from this than others.
Physical media is making a resurgence in other areas. Vinyl, DVD, 4K BluRay. Not a big one, but it’s on a backswing. I’m not doubting video games are lower every year because they are still in their initial era.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the impact. I think the knock-on effect will be bigger than they anticipate. Obviously they agree with you that it won’t impact anything. I think it will, for all the reasons I just went over. It’s not a 1:1 relationship between sale and impact. When people don’t have the console because it doesn’t attract them, they can’t make any sales. So they won’t lose one sale from me, they’ll lose the console sale and dozens of physical and digital games.
This is exactly what Microsoft went through with cutting BC, trying to kill physical media, and trying to play their dominant hand and we all know how that worked out. Turns out it’s more than the sum of its parts. Sony might succeed, it’s a different era. But it certainly gives a lot of weak spots for competitors to target.
It’s not inflated. They’re not counting PS Plus downloads or anything else, unless you’re accusing them of lying to shareholders and breaking many laws.
The amount of people leaving physical media is not being outpaced by those picking it up.
When did Microsoft try to cut BC?
As I’ve explained in other comments, Microsoft was actually the most pro-consumer with their “all digital” plans. They were doing “physical as digital”, with the benefits of physical and digital.
