r/technology • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • 6h ago
Software PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi says discs became "metaphor for 'owning' games", and that upset at their discontinuation is a "mentality issue"
https://www.eurogamer.net/ken-kutaragi-playstation-discs344
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 6h ago edited 6h ago
im guessing Kenny never went to Gamestop on a budget.
edit: I found a quote of his relating to the PS3's ridiculous price tag: "for consumers to think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one'. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else."
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u/qorbexl 6h ago
If you you don't own, you can't steal
This is a though process that is going to maybe backfire
The disc was something given
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u/TheHoleintheHeart 5h ago
This sounds very similiar to the most downvoted comment on Reddit from EA during that AMA.
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 5h ago
could i trouble you for a search term or something so i could look that up? I missed it!
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u/TheHoleintheHeart 5h ago
Oh it’s a must see lol. Here you go:
This one (a picture of the comment): https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/s/rLvzU24CUi
In this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/s/Zz0NpfIVcv
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u/Robot-Zombie-RHCC 5h ago
ah, haha. thank you! I do NOT miss pay-to-play, that drove me to retrogaming.
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u/brixton_massive 4h ago
I don't see what's so hard for these supposed arbiters of art to understand that people want to buy something, have it in their home and never need to depend on anyone else to have permission to use it.
You buy a console, a game, and if you take good care of it, it's yours for decades as a physical copy, no need for a server, and ready at your disposal whenever you please.
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u/The_Infinite_Carrot 4h ago
I think this happens when they work in an echo chamber surrounded by yes-men. Their stupidity is reinforced constantly, and they aren’t brave/clever enough to peek outside to ask the customers what they want for fear of hearing something that goes against what they believe.
Plus, if people are still buying their product that also makes them think they’re right, so some of the blame has to fall on our shoulders too.
Everyone talks a good game on social media but don’t vote with their money.
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u/ACasualRead 6h ago
I understand the desire to move to digital as it reduces physical waste from physical media. However, the spirit of physical media should have followed into the digital age.
I remember buying DVDs and receiving codes in the case for a free digital copy. Movie companies figured the easiest way to avoid piracy was to just give us a free digital copy when we bought physical.
Now look where we are at. Games never went down in price after cutting the costs of disks. In fact, prices have risen to like $80 a game. Now all it takes is one pissed off Sony employee to cancel my PSN account and I’ve lost everything I’ve paid for.
Give us the ability to save our games for offline storage on our own backup drives.
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u/Sockoflegend 5h ago
It's all part of this slow move towards subscription model everything. No one is even slightly interested in if consumers want this.
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u/RedditTechAnon 5h ago
Games Pass was a disaster. Subscription gaming got supplanted by F2P and microtransaction models.
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u/furyextralarge 5h ago
they'll keep pitching it over and over until ppl are too tired to care. same thing happened with paid mods
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u/ShakeAndBakeThatCake 47m ago
Game pass was very popular but the price was too cheap. Make games cost $100 a pop people might consider paying more for subscription. Or eventually don't sell games at all and you can only play if you pay for a subscription.
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u/Jodid0 5h ago
The movie companies gave us the digital codes but then made the services shitty, made it so you can't actually download the movie file and play it offline at will, oh and they can and will remove access to those movies if and when they so please. Warner Brothers also has the honor of being the biggest pieces of shit by making their digital codes expire within 2 years of the disc release, so basically fuck you if you want to buy older movies brand new with the code. And even though my internet speeds are orders of magnitude faster than it needs to stream uncompressed 4K video, the MoviesAnywhere player still makes everything look like a fucking potato even when you have the "4K version".
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u/18randomcharacters 4h ago
Let's not kid ourselves that companies give 2 shits about physical waste.
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u/telperion101 5h ago
The price to produce those discs is very very small relative to the game. It’s probably less than 50 cents I’d guess for the variable cost to print and package that disc.
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u/Think_Positively 3h ago
Capitalism: same as it ever was.
If governments don't force companies to do the right thing, companies will never consider anything that isn't profit-focused.
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u/Maladal 4h ago
GOG can solve the ownership problem for you.
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u/miguel_is_a_pokemon 4h ago
Steam already lets you borrow your friends games and transfer them between machines
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u/Maladal 4h ago
That's a nice feature but, like Nintendo's game pass or w/e they're calling it, it doesn't give you control over the game files.
GOG does because you can put them offline and do whatever you want with them.
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u/Rhewin 5h ago
I've just about faced to physical media and the high sead again. I actually find myself watching more movies again. Something about putting a disc in makes me feel committed, and Jellyfin has my own curated content. No more indecisive scrolling through endless junk.
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u/ACasualRead 5h ago
Hopefully the industry flips. With how everyone is now using AI to recompile video games for PC and how AI has helped improve emulation, I can see a lot of these media companies having a similar shock to their system that Napster caused.
They will be forced, hopefully, to comply and make digital media easier. Look at how Spotify is trying to force family plans to reverify users with QR codes. Paying users will seek other, and easier ways.
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u/NoPossibility 5h ago
I’d be interested in the environmental cost breakdown of producing physical media vs maintaining ever growing data centers to provide play access and downloads in perpetuity.
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u/justmitzie 5h ago
"You're nuts if you think buying something means you own it" is a weird selling point.
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u/FarukAlatan 4h ago
How is it a metaphor? I literally own the game. I can sell it, trade it, give it away, or drop it in the trash.
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u/mrbrucel33 5h ago
This bares repeating, but it sounds an awful lot like what Ken Kutaragi is trying to say is that the Playstation brand hates its users and he encourages them to pirate their software?
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u/chuang-tzu 3h ago
This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I read today, and Trump is President.
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u/KenUsimi 3h ago
It wasn’t a metaphor. We paid money, they gave us disc, we play game. A very literal transaction.
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u/Person0OnTheInternet 5h ago
God damn it’s exhausting having these rich out of touch assholes gaslight us about everything.
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u/Halfwise2 5h ago
Probably didn't help that Sony deleted a bunch of movies people had purchased from their libraries not a few weeks prior, showing they are perfectly willing to prove just how little you "own" their games.
They brought the backlash on themselves, and people wanting to own their purchases is not unreasonable. Digital or not.
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u/ThankuConan 5h ago
I give you money, you give me a thing, that I now own. That's all. It's that easy. It's been like that since there's been money & things.
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u/Lazerpop 5h ago
Except its not a metaphor. It is the reality of the situation. I can sell or lend my disc. I cannot sell or lend my digital license. Period. Fuck off Ken
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u/After_Alps_5826 2h ago
All that someone needs to see to understand why they are doing this is to look at game prices. Call of Duty MW4 comes out in a couple days for $70, call of duty MW3 (a game that came out in 2023) is still $70. They completely eliminate the competitive market of used games since you can only buy them from one place and they never have to lower the price.
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u/starlauncher 5h ago
Ken Kutaragi could have kept his mouth shut and kept farming aura as PlayStation founder.
But he had to open his mouth and out himself as a stupid person.
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u/OwO_0w0_OwO 5h ago
Was probably paid to say that shit part of Sony's genious plan to convince people of their shitty idea that ownership isn't ownership.
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u/Procrasturbating 5h ago
Not one disc based game I’ve bought in the last decade will operate without a phone-in to a server. Physical media died a while back,
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u/Electronic-Craft2611 4h ago
"Digital" is just a metaphor for the ability to make people give them money for nothing since a physical copy is also digital.
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u/bakibakFIVE 4h ago
Here’s a mentality for him, I simply won’t be buying a PlayStation 6. I’ve been a customer since PlayStation 2.
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u/Livio88 3h ago edited 2h ago
There are a lot of Nintendo fans that can attest to the fact that physical cartridges on older consoles were the only legal way for them to play some of their favorite games for the longest time. So, it's not a metaphor or a mentality issue, it's a real thing and a real issue that players might face if they can no longer access their digital libraries someday.
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u/gqmma 6h ago
hes not wrong but thats because discs shouldnt be glorified license keys in the first place. why not make discs true ownership again, the way they should be?
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u/SirkutBored 5h ago
Why make the distinction when it comes to discs? Discs came along to hold more data than cartridges which today would be comparable to putting a game on a solid state plug-in drive. It's splitting hairs.
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u/Dreaminginslowmotion 5h ago
Dude.. since the history of console gaming it has been physical media. Right. from. the. start.
The only change in mindset is you.
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u/WillM3s 5h ago
Dude lives in an echo chamber
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u/Ok_Helicopter4276 5h ago edited 4h ago
He probably doesn’t own the echo chamber though. He just rents it.
One day he might drive home after a long day of being a corporate stooge to find the locks are changed and his stuff is at the dump (according to the lease the owner was entitled to his stuff to offset his cost for changing the locks).
Then as he is slowly walking back to his car contemplating where he will sleep tonight, his car will get towed right in front of him because the bank didn’t process his payment on time so they repossessed their car (it was also a lease).
He will find out someone stole his identity and drained the account of all funds - which he should get back in 8-12 weeks after the bank completes its investigation.
Just then he’ll get a text that he’s been fired to improve the Sony stock price by 0.001%.
And his phone will perform an auto-update that fails due to a software error that bricks it.
Finally, at that very moment when his world is completely erased and his light cannot be dimmed any further, Ken will finally feel complete in his nothingness and drop dead.
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u/DavePeesThePool 4h ago
A matephor that your company literally fostered and tried to capitalize on...
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u/Laughing_Zero 4h ago
No, it's a profit & control issue. More money in 'rental' & services; more control with ever changing Terms of Service and End User Agreements.
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u/bankfraud1 45m ago
They’re talking like we’re negotiating with them or something.
You already didnt implement full backwards compatibility when jailbreakers figured that out in a few weeks.
You prevented PS5 owners from using Dualshock 4’s when those are more comfortable controllers.
You misrepresented the facts to suggest physical media ownership is dead because people buy more $5 virtual indy games and sports rehashes than physical $80 games.
Now allegedly next gen consoles are going to cost the same as a used honda civic.
Its over.
You had a good run, but its finished.
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u/headphonesXX 6h ago
not wanting to spend money on physical production is a GREED issue.
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u/DrKeksimus 4h ago
physical media is not the issue... it's the fact that we can't we have to depend on an online check in, for playing single player games we "bought" ( and inevitably, years/decade later server get shut down )
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u/brmarcum 2h ago
Hey Ken. Why are you trying to change the definition so it’s convenient for you? The disc is the physical embodiment of ownership. It doesn’t get more non-metaphor than that. So no, it isn’t a metaphor.
Anyway, I’ll be looking at PC parts later.
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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts 2h ago
Read his actual comments, not just the headline. He’s not downplaying the players’ concerns, he’s expressing sympathy for them while also acknowledging the nuance that continuing to press discs may not make much economic sense for Sony. Also he hasn’t even worked there for close to 20 years - this is something he was asked about as a notable figure in PlayStation’s history, not as a representative of the company or brand in the present.
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u/TheRKC 2h ago
So digital copies cost less to buy because of the cost savings, right?
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u/Street_Anxiety2907 1h ago
Well, no. That was seized as profit Bob, and price went up 8 times for more profits.
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u/F1shB0wl816 1h ago
Well of course it doesn’t make economic sense when seizing all dollars is the goal. Like they’ve been the shepherd leading the flock to give up their ownership to reap the maximized gains. There’s still a shit ton of cash to make off disc, they’d just rather have the whole pie.
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u/hadzz46 2h ago
Wait till you find out you own nothing on pc either... I blame gabe
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u/ItsSadTimes 2h ago
Unless you buy games from GoG. You can even install those games offline. You own everything from there.
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u/SwarfDive01 5h ago
I purchased a movie on Sony years ago, digital media.
That license transferred to Netflix.
Now I can not ACCESS MY PURCHASED MEDIA.
That means I paid the same price for a temporary license, as a physical disk.
I will NEVER purchase digital media again. I pay streaming because no ads. The price is fair for the content. $20 a month for hundreds of titles. Why does it make sense to pay PSN $100 annually, and get nothing but multiplayer access, then $50 a title, for possibly losing the access later? Disgusting corporate greed.
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u/BrianScottGregory 4h ago
Companies weren't discrete in transforming the disk away from being physical property ownership INTO digital property ownership. This wasn't a metaphorical change, it was a shift in what the asset actually was - the compiled code and software itself. The customer had no real choice in this shift. This wasn't a metaphorical transition - companies still portrayed us, the customer - as owning the asset - which was the digital production.
Regardless of the method of transference.
Sony - and asshats like this - are TRYING to claim they never said or suggested we - the end user owned anything, trying to strip the customer of having ANY ownership rights.
This is an ideological battle being waged here. Real property rights.
And while I love Sony and the Playstation - this is why Sony WILL fail moving forward.
A very specific and directed attack on western values and property ownership.
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u/sutroheights 3h ago
Even worse, I just decided to put the original Garden Warfare disc in for some nostalgia. I can't play it at all, not even split screen or solo offline mode without paying for a Playstation Plus subscription. It's a disc that I bought 14 years or so ago that is now effectively bricked even though I have no intention or need to play online. Cool cool cool.
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u/cosaboladh 3h ago
Paying for games became a metaphor for consumer satisfaction, and being against piracy is a "mental issue."
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u/dropthemagic 2h ago
Lol why are they so resistant to saying we didn't realize it was important. We fucked up
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u/Arpadiam 5h ago edited 10m ago
This bullshit is why the emulation of ps5 and the recompiled games / "pc ports" are booming massively this year.
thank you Ken Kutaragi, I'm gonna play bloodborne (bbport) on pc.
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u/Sea_Perspective6891 4h ago
RPS3 also lets you use physical disks now if you have a disk drive that can read them. I expect PS4 & PS5 emulators eventually will too if they don't already.
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u/GreenDogTag 4h ago
Okay but they could still make it that we own the digital copy instead of it just being a licence that's subject to change at any moment.
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u/Colover32 6h ago
Lmao I can literally buy games that aren’t available digitally, and have the ability to sell it, draw all over it or never look at it again, that is what ownership is lol
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u/BricksFriend 2h ago
It's glaringly obvious, and it baffles me why nobody except Valve has figured it out:
Only a small section of people actually care about a physical disc. They care about a company just deciding that, one day, you no longer own the thing you bought. A physical disc makes that impossible.
If Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft just made a Steam equivalent, many of those fears would vanish. You buy a game once, it's tied to your Playstation account. Forever. Even if you have a PS8 you can still download your PS1 copy of Final Fantasy 9. True Sony could go bankrupt tomorrow, but the same could be said for Valve.
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u/2damsels1chalice 5h ago
I guess when Sony was region locking consoles and doing other firmware shenanigans I can see someone thinking that in their org, but that person needs to be taken out back and beaten by the PR team...
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u/AstralElement 4h ago
I like to remind that Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy fucking hated Ken Kutaragi.
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u/ElectroHiker 4h ago
There is no metaphor about being able to buy a used game, that is currently real and it would go away with digital only.
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u/LevelFix83 4h ago
I speak corpo. What he said, essentially, is “money, money, give me more money.”
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u/ForzaAllez 3h ago
Sony is just encouraging people to download ROMs to play PlayStation games on their gaming PC. What’s the big difference anyway? When you have PlayStation game controller on a PC.
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u/MantisEsq 3h ago
Makes sense, the first sale doctrine is a "common" "mentality issue". gmafb. They just want to kill the used game market.
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u/Technical-Banana574 2h ago
Sony is doing everything in their power at this point to tank their public perception.
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u/Saint--Jiub 2h ago
I'm going to pirate so many Playstation games just out of spite
/s in case the admins are looking
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u/TurboOwlKing 2h ago
Crazy, I think buying a Playstation became a metaphor for being able to play Playstation games, and them being upset that's no longer the case is just a mentality issue
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u/FJopia 2h ago
A disc was never really yours (as pointed out in the back of the box), that always striked me as weird. But since now they're taking away the physical format, they gave themselves away and let the whole world know, even those who weren't aware. I guess that message had to do with piracy, but in exchange it would compromise your ownership. In the end it's a good thing they did it, now laws must be passed protecting customer's ownership.
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u/Upper-Title-4033 2h ago
Hey Ken,
I don't know what kind of brain damaged you suffered but no one has broken in to my house to take back any of my physical media and there's no subscription attached to them.
So for all intents and purposes, I owned that physical media along with the licesen to view it.
I almost always buy consoles and this will be the first ever generation I don't ever buy a Playstation because of Sony's mentality.
If you don't believe in customers owning the products they purchase from Sony then they are simply a overgrown rental service.
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u/john_weiss 1h ago
Now why would Kutaragi run his mouth and risk tarnishing his image after all that legacy.
It's not like Sony is giving him royalties and sh*t.
Can't believe the old brass is drinking the Kool-aid as well.
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u/TheStrongestTard 1h ago
I wonder why these businessmen think that the term "ownership" means anything else other than "I can use, sell, or destroy this disc".
Do they think the term is being extended to "ip ownership, making illegal copies, modifying the code to make it say my name and sell millions of copies"?
What's the disconnect?
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u/Silly_Off 6h ago
This would be true if they didn’t then manipulate their storefront to get rid of older, better titles for the new one coming out this year with a host of bugs as well as having complete control over the pricing of said products. This is a blatant display of denial for profit.
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u/liarandathief 5h ago
Fine. I agree, as long as I do actually own my games and I can back them up somewhere locally, and reinstall them at will.
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u/121gigawhatevs 3h ago
On the one hand it sucks that discs are being phased out. On the other hand, I have a steam library of like 40 games none are on physical media.
Who knows, maybe one day it’ll bite us all in the ass
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u/jeremybeadleshand 3h ago
I think the problem with this as it pertains to consoles is that Sony control the storefront and what code can run on the device, meaning they have a monopoly?
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u/ayypecs 3h ago
“Piracy is a service problem” seems to continue to ring truer than ever. As their service continues to be more anticonsumer, it only makes sense that they just end up shooting themselves in the foot
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u/F1shB0wl816 1h ago
It’s inevitable on a long enough timeline. I’ll always support the devs I think are worth supporting, hence why I buy games despite having them on gamepass. But if I’m forced to buy none other than through a closed garden store front then I’m not going to be spending nearly as liberally as I have. If neither console had disc going forward, the current would be my last, a pc would eventually be bought and some games will be pirated. Two can play this dirty business.
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u/yuusharo 2h ago
Unless their plan is to come up with a middle ground like Nintendo’s Game-Key Cards, the most we can expect going forward are one-time use codes in a box that cannot be resold or transferred.
People give a lot of shit to Nintendo for this (and it’s not undeserved), but they didn’t have to go through these technical hurdles in order to provide some kind of physical retail space and ownership to customers. They could be like Sony and not give a damn about us at all.
The future of the medium looks bleak.
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u/scheppend 30m ago
Yes, and your your LG TV can only read code that is controlled by LG. They must be a monopoly
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u/drjenkstah 2h ago
The difference here is that Valve doesn’t manufacture your PC and force you to buy games only through their service. It’s essentially a monopoly and Sony is giving players less options so they can get more of the profits and give consumers different pricing based on their internal profile of the customer.
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u/Hironoveau 2h ago
I know they’ve deleted music and movies on itunes and streaming app in the past. Question is when will they start deleting your games?
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u/bankfraud1 43m ago
All my steam games cost $10 or less. Entirely distinct from my behavior in purchasing console games
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u/NervJMSL 38m ago
I'm guessing Gabe will eventually kick the bucket, and whoever gets his assets will get swarmed by every conglomerate in the world looking to purchase them and flood the platform with the most toxic and dark policies in existence at the time. Lets just enjoy it for the time being.
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u/darwinanim8or 23m ago
If it’s any consolation, valve has set it up so that his employees take ownership IIIRC
So we don’t need the golden throne to keep GabeN alive eternally so long as the people who work there are culturally deep enough into valve
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u/digitalgearz 1h ago
So….by that rationale, should people just stop all the “mentality issues“ of supporting all the broken systems of the modern world, because they’re all obviously catered to the rich and powerful?
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u/rudebii 4h ago
Legally speaking, software and games were always a license, not ownership. There was no practical or legal way to enforce that for physical media, however.
Of course, now that there’s a way of shipping copies of games digitally that makes it easy to enforce that license, Sony and everyone else wants to do away with discs.
But from a goodwill standpoint, it’s a stupid hill to die on.
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u/Financial-Swim-5884 5h ago
It’s not a metaphor if it lets me own, transfer, or sell the thing, Ken.
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u/formermailboxhaver 5h ago
Oh please. They cannot produce a single fragment of evidence that their entire business model was predicated on their products being a metaphor. It's FRAUD.
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u/TrashAcnt1 5h ago
Why do these muthafuckas keep playing Semantics in our faces like they don't understand that we mean that we own a copy of the game when we say we own a game?
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u/copperblood 5h ago
If people don't own a product they buy, then by that logic companies don't own the IP they pay to develop.
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u/Ouibeaux 5h ago
Crazy how real that "metaphor" of ownership seems when you have a tangible object that can't be deleted.
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u/Ok_Dust_3896 4h ago
These big game companies have been chomping at the bit to do away with the secondary market for decades. It was just a matter of time until broadband build out made it possible.
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u/Puzzled-Leopard135 3h ago
It is about the thing itself having its own life - use it, buy it, sell it let someone else use it. Don't make me subscribe to your exclusive service at top dollar
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u/LeRobber 2h ago
Copyright needs to allow there to be a reduced sphere of protection for electronic only licensed only products.
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u/SgtNeilDiamond 2h ago
Thats crazy, because I can totally still play my disc games to this day. Sonys not walking into my house and taking them back so what exactly is the "metaphor of ownership" here if its literal?
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u/The_chosen_turtle 2h ago
I have told my family I will not purchase a digital movie unless the code comes with the physical DVD. Fuck these greedy bastards
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u/Substantial-Chest847 2h ago
I own all Nintendo SNES and 64 games, ps 1-3 games, Xbox Xbox 360 games. They all still work. I guess these digital games I can't own should be rented at 2.99 a year, it's fair
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u/Cheap-Key-6132 2h ago
Actually, I thought giving you money meant I owned it. There’s this idea that they can take our money and eventually the product back once they’ve had their pockets overfilled.
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u/mental_patience 2h ago
There are a few major missteps Sony has taken even before making this massive, legacy shattering decision to end physical media that should cause every Sony Playstation user still thinking about continuing buying your digital games from them to rethink that. 1) Their customer service absolutely sucks, and has historically always been a shitshow. They often don't know anything about your account and don't get paid to care. They will likely not put any amount of time into resolving your issues with a game. Imagine how much worse its going to get. They are planning on automating all customer service jobs, because people don't want to deal with the deluge of customers. 2) They are not ever going to be able to guarantee that you are going to access the Playstation Network. How many times has it been down this year? They have no plans currently or for the future on working to make it anymore stable, even faced with all of their customers going all digital in 2028. The estimated demand on their network would triple, and the extra traffic would put even more strain on an already compromised network. For them that's a feature, and not a bug. 3) They don't care if you have a cap limit on data with your ISP, or if you might have spotty internet. With game sizes dramatically ballooning, and all their patches and updates, your one game could go well over 150gb. Sony could give a flying fuck if you and your family watch streaming shows and your kids need the wifi for school and unlimited broadband isn't ever going to be available in your area. 4) With their marketplace being where the games they will be exclusively rented, they plan on charging us more than a $100 for each game. There will be no other option than buying from them, and absolutely no second hand market for finding a better price. They have an all digital market with dynamic pricing, all for their profit gouging pleasure, because you as a customer don't mean a damn to anyone in Sony's current management.
These jokers thought they had us over a barrel and that we would spread wide open for the massive rogering they plan on giving us. They are so out of touch with the stress everyday folks are under trying to make ends meet.
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u/FuckingTree 2h ago
That’s actually the most accurate take on the situation. Licensing is broken because they are too easily revocable. Nobody can make a real case for ownership. Licensing needs to be regulated so people don’t lose their license without compensation.
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u/somesthetic 1h ago
Discs represent options for game license holders. They don’t want to lose those options.
Specifically, the option to trade or sell the license at will. If their digital store let you trade game licenses in for store credit, or trade game licenses to others, that might help.
Physical objects can help you feel like you own something, I get what Ken’s saying, but it’s the options it gives you that people care about.
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u/HelloFellowMKE 1h ago
Weird, look at this pile of PlayStation games I own.
Also, how about we redefine all the money Ken “owns”
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u/gayitaliandallas92 1h ago
What in the mental gymnastic Olympics is he on about? Those gold bars in the treasury? It’s just a metaphor for owning wealth. WTF?!?!
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u/Efficient_Buffalo444 1h ago
Ken can go fuck himself. Metaphor my ass. I realize some game have an online component that can’t be maintained, but I buy a physical game so it can’t be taken from me when the online library runs out of space.
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u/Captain_N1 1h ago
lol, shit, not even Nintendo is that ballsy.....Sony showing the true colors....
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u/JONFER--- 1h ago
The big difference with buying digital games on PC is that there are multiple storefronts, great value bundles, different launchers and genuine competition.
The only place to get a game on the PlayStation six will be through the PSN store, naturally the only launcher will be PlayStation and the ultimate publisher will be Sony.
Right now if they take the piss with how they charge for an older game in the PSN store people can just go to eBay et cetera and get a physical copy for a fraction of the price or indeed where possible they can just borrow it from a friend.
The second Sony gets everyone in their digital ecosystem that will squeeze people for every cent that they can.
I don’t think they care if they lose 30 or 40% of their current installed base, so long as they can be more profitable with the remaining 60 or 70% then they are right now.
I think that the other shoe is going to drop soon regarding what Microsoft will do with physical games going forward. I imagine that they will drop them to or perhaps they will make provision for people to be able to get an external disk drive if they want to play older stuff.
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u/_Infinity_Girl_ 1h ago
There are very clear differences between now and then. You didn't have to download a whole client just to play the game most of the time, you didn't have to deal with ads or microtransactions, there was no premium version of a game you had to subscribe to to get unless you were playing an MMO. You just put the CD in the computer and it plays. It's the same for music, a major reason why I started collecting vinyl and CDs, I don't have to pay a subscription fee or listen to ads I can just put the music on and enjoy it. For free.
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u/Charrsezrawr 1h ago
Pirating became a metaphor for "stealing" games and publishers being upset at imagined ""sales lost to piracy" is a "mentality issue"
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u/Alucard256 56m ago
In the same vein, "piracy" because a "metaphor for 'stealing' something", and that upset at their never-ending continuing obvious need and purpose is a "mentality issue".
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u/ArcIgnis 55m ago
Ah yes, the mentality issue that said owner of physical media can suddenly get their license to consume products revoked and not get their money back. How unreasonable. /S
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u/Aeonera 54m ago
To give context as someone more exposed to japanese mentality around games: game design in japan is seen as much more akin to art and in general artists are given much more cultural respect as to their intentions with the art (if not actual like, support for it).
As such the japanese social mentality is that games are an art piece that "belongs" to their creators, and you playing them is akin to seeing a painting in a museum: it's not yours, you're just paying to experience it.
This is also why the japanese have such negative feelings over modding and piracy: it's not so much about theft so much as disrespecting the creators.
That all being said i think that mentality and the sources of it are all very backward.
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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts 40m ago
ITT: sooooooooooo many people commenting solely on a misleading headline. Commenting without reading the article ought to be against the TOS, even if it could only realistically be enforced in cases like this where there's zero room for doubt.
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u/plasmadood 29m ago
That's a funny thing to say considering the latest console has just been cracked wide open and they seemingly can't update their firmware quick enough to avoid more exploits before one of if not the most major game release ever happens in less than a month, but pop off I guess.
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u/MilitaryBeetle 16m ago
It's not a mentality issue when you can take down the storefront and remove purchases from peoples account
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u/Future-Turtle 6h ago
Maybe ownership shouldn't have become a metaphor and should have just stayed ownership? Maybe that's the thing people are upset about?