It has been eight days since PlayStation announced it will be leaving physical games behind starting in 2028. The company is yet to address the elephant in the room despite ongoing widespread backlash. Sadly, no matter how loudly we virtually yell, it’s incredibly unlikely Sony is going to back down.
Analyst Explains What’s Going Through The Heads Of PlayStation Bosses Right Now
That’s according to Dr. Serkan Toto, an analyst from Kantan Games who broke down the realities of the situation to IGN. “I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision,” Katan said. “They, of course, knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass.”
Sure, PlayStation knew people would be annoyed by this. I’m wondering whether that’s why it announced plans to close its PS3 and PS Vita stores at the same time, to take the heat off the physical death knell news. If so, it hasn’t worked, although silver lining for Sony, everyone seems to have mostly forgotten about the store closure half of its big, unwelcome announcement, a move it tried to pull before that was met with so much backlash, PlayStation quickly backed down.
Will Canceling PS Plus Really Hurt Sony?
That U-turn is likely why those inundating the reply section of every single PlayStation post are hopeful it will back down on its decision to ditch physical games, too. Some are even canceling their PS Plus subscriptions in protest, trying to hit Sony where it clearly hurts most – in its growing mountains of cash.
It’s here where Toto really hammers home why there is almost certainly nothing we can do to stop this. “Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users. Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let’s say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just one percent of that business gone – of course not enough for Sony to start rethinking.”
Considering how much Sony stands to gain by moving to an all-digital future, while it naturally won’t like anyone canceling their PS Plus subscriptions, the additional revenue it’s chasing from forcing people who want their games to buy digital versions far outweighs anything the PS Plus protest is going to cost.
PlayStation makes roughly twice as much from every digital game it sells compared to a physical one. It isn’t that cut and dry since there are sales, and it makes more from first-party titles as it doesn’t have to pay another studio their cut, but more or less, it’s making twice as much every time it sells a digital game over a physical one. Not to mention, one of the factories where it manufactures its discs is already in the process of being repurposed. Keep being loud, keep adding your names to that petition, but sadly, we may already be beyond the point of no return.
- Brand
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Sony
- Original Release Date
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November 12, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499, €499, £449, ¥49,980 (Base) // $399, €399, £359, ¥39,980 (Digital),
- Operating System
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Orbis OS
- Processor
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Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2
- Resolution
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720p – 8K
