Sony Heard Backlash Over Dropping PlayStation Discs, Plans to Press Ahead (pcmag.com)
- Reference: 0184793396
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/07/31/2016250/sony-heard-backlash-over-dropping-playstation-discs-plans-to-press-ahead
- Source link: https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-heard-backlash-over-dropping-playstation-discs-plans-to-press-ahead
> After Sony's recent earnings call, an investor Q&A session saw analysts ask about [5]its controversial decision to end disc production across all of its consoles. The company hadn't publicly commented since its announcement and had reduced activity on social accounts and other marketing channels. Sony's chief financial officer, Lin Tao, broke that silence during the Q&A. "There are various reasons we made this decision," she said through an interpreter. "The biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing. That's the big factor. It's not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, [6]digitalization is progressing . "And so when we think about the future, and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we're going to cautiously move this forward," Tao said.
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> "We have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us," said Tao. [...] Tao says Sony wants to "consider" the emotions of disgruntled customers, especially as titles are "connected to people's fond memories in many cases." Tao also alluded to the possibility of future measures to lessen the blow for anyone unhappy with the decision, but it appears Sony hasn't yet finalized what those may be. "In the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore," she said.
[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-heard-backlash-over-dropping-playstation-discs-plans-to-press-ahead
[2] https://www.change.org/p/don-t-kill-the-disc-tell-sony-to-keep-physical-playstation-games
[3] https://www.resetera.com/threads/gamerant-playstation-fans-arrange-boycott-over-digital-only-approach-calls-to-keep-ps-consoles-offline-from-august-23-to-august-30.1591312/page-8
[4] https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/07/03/1652234/video-game-history-foundation-says-piracy-remains-the-only-viable-preservation-method
[5] https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/07/01/1734219/sony-playstation-will-stop-releasing-games-on-discs-in-2028
[6] https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/07/23/1825217/sonys-decision-to-ditch-discs-was-practically-inevitable-data-shows
Some of you (Score:2)
"Some of you may stop buying Playstation, but the death of the resale market is a sacrifice Im willing to make. I expect the sales of 20 year old games sold 20 years later at $30 each will continue"
Nintendo proved this point, enjoy your decisions.
85% of all sales happened digitally now (Score:2)
Although I would like to see the breakdown between actual game purchases and buying DLC it's still clear people are mostly buying games online and downloading them.
As for ownership gog.com is right there. I have not seen a single person mentioned gog. So honestly I think that all this talk of doing away with physical games isn't coming from a groundswell of opposition to the idea but it's just the usual content Mills looking for something they can shovel into our eyeballs. This is something it's easy to
Re: (Score:2)
how does this relate to playstation?
Maybe it'll spur digital resale changes? (Score:2)
I can't remember the last time I got a game on disk that didn't wind up downloading the whole damn thing again as an update. So, for that part, I don't know if this really matters. Fancy boxes and maps and accessories can still be sold.
Resale should be the discussion point here, not the disks/media. Maybe backlash from this will be enough for the next next version to implement something that would enable that. How hard could it be to share a license key anyway?
Huh? (Score:2)
"The biggest being that the digitalization of content overall..."
Do they think what's on those discs isn't digital?
Re: (Score:2)
If it's in your physical possession and out of their reach it's not "digital"
Re: (Score:2)
> If it's in your physical possession and out of their reach it's not "digital"
Server-based, would have been the accurate term from the company charging so damn much to access theirs in perpetuity.
One would think they'd be quite familiar with the concept they dare not speaketh..