I won't likely finish this until it's no longer a timely topic, but I
have opinions about the recently-announced decision by Sony to cease
production of physical discs for Playstation games beginning in January
of 2028.
You
might think this is surprising coming from the company who effortlessly
won the battle for consumer goodwill by clowning on Microsoft when they
originally tried to make the Xbox One an online-only console, famously
making a slide that read "how to share games on PS4" before one
spokesperson simply handed the game to the other. I, however remember
that Sony was the first major company to try a digital-only system with
the PSP-Go (and the fact that you just now remember that existed, if you
ever knew at all, is exactly how that went.)
I guess if I
had to sum up how I feel about it, I'd just say I'm disappointed, but
not surprised. If you've followed the game industry for any length of
time, you'll know this was always where we were headed. Particularly
after Sony released a version of the PS5 without a disc drive, and
notably, did not release a version of the PS5 Pro with one.
They've wanted to not bother with physical releases since the PS3 days
and I think the testing of the waters with the PSP-Go proves that.
The
reasons I, and others are upset about this should not need explaining,
but I'm going to anyway, just in case it does. The lack of an option for
physical games, means the death of the used game market (another thing
the industry at large has wanted for the better part of two decades.)
Videogames are expensive, £60 minimum is a lot of money for one of anything let
alone an entertainment product specific to a system that already cost
you hundreds up front. Many people buy their games used from stores, and
trade in those they are done with to take down the cost. This option
disappears with a digital-only system.
That's the big one, but
it's not the only one. I, personally, happen to like having a collection
of physical games, trophies for the shelf, I'm not a collector by any
means, but I do happen to have a collection, the volume of which
fluctuates because I also trade in for new games sometimes and like the
option of doing so.
But okay, let's forget the collection
thing for now, it's a first-world problem. The fact is, a lot of people
simply cannot afford new games at full-price. A lot of children ask for
games for birthdays and Christmas as their only means of getting them,
and, strange as it may seem, some parents do like to see their children
open their presents. This would of course require the presents to
be...well, present.
None of these things are options anymore
without physical discs. The Playstation Store as yet does not have the
functionality to gift games to others (which is doubly odd, because the
PS5 implemented a wishlist feature without also giving us the ability to
do the one thing a wishlist is useful for.)
I'm going to
assume you're not naive enough to think they'll
lower the digital price-point because they're no longer paying production costs. Of course they won't, companies
don't lower prices with costs. It is true that digital store-fronts run
sales, in fact, the PS Store always has something on offer, but you think it'll stay as good once it's your only option?
All of this is not
even mentioning the erosion of the concept of ownership. You don't own
digital goods, you have a license to use them. The company can revoke
that license at any time, for any, or no reason. Sony themselves
recently delisted about 500 movies from people's accounts, meaning
people couldn't watch movies they'd already bought and paid for.
Licenses expire, this will happen again.
I'm not saying there aren't upsides to digital, obviously there are, people have always paid for convenience, and this is no different, but killing the option of physical ownership is bad for everyone whether you happen to choose that option yourself or not, monopolies are illegal for a reason.
Thankfully,
as I type this there has already surfaced a loud backlash against this
announcement so there's hope. Vocally dissatisfied customers got Microsoft to back off on the
aforementioned Xbox One policies, after all. There's a reason I keep
bringing that up, and it's now time to get to the point of this post.
It
seems, that with every generation of consoles, one of the "big three" gets too big for their britches and makes a blatantly
anti-consumer move. Invariably this is whichever one of the three has
been doing the best of the last generation, and invariably they are
humbled by the next one.
So, let's recap.
about 20 years
ago, the sixth generation of consoles was coming to an end. Sega's
Dreamcast had underperformed to the point that it would be their final
console (shame, I liked that one) They would be joined, and subsequently
replaced in sales contest by Microsoft, with their
debut console, the original Xbox, which appeared late in the game, and
thus was left scrambling for an audience,which it found with the
innovation of online play, which, for consoles was a new thing at the
time. Nintendo's Gamecube, despite being the most powerful on the market
at the time, never quite captured the global audience outside the
Nintendo diehards (Like teenage me!)
This battle of
sales was ultimately won by Sony's Playstation 2. Which remains the bestselling console of all time to this day with 160 million
units sold Back then, the fact of it also
doubling as a DVD Player (a highly sought-after item of the time.) was a huge boost for potential custom.
Even people who didn't play games wanted one in the house
for the DVD functionality, and many of those people would've had kids
they could distract with the games.
So, with the PS2 sat firmly at the top of the mountain, Sony was the one to watch for the seventh generation of consoles.
Enter the Playstation 3.
I still have one of those, I loved it in the end, but at
the time, this monolithic slab of a console was announced to cost $600,
or £400, in 2006, which, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to $949
or £711 today (or 829 Euros)
That, is a frankly ridiculous
amount of money to expect for a console, even if it had a strong launch
library which, frankly, it didn't. The PS3 was also one of the first
commercial Blu-Ray players on the market, but the jump between DVD and
Blu-Ray was significantly smaller than that from VHS to DVD, and so
had people proportionately less excited to try it.
When the idea that
the price tag was too high was floated, the suggestion made was to get a
second job to afford one.
So, we have, a huge lump of a
console, promising to be really good at some point in the future when
something worth playing comes out on it, an obscenely high price tag, a
multimedia gimmick that worked before, but was much less a selling point
this time, and the arrogance to tell the peasants to work harder to own
one.
I'll give you one guess how that went down. Arguably Sony's
greatest accomplishment here was boosting the sales of the Xbox 360,
which had a year's head-start and a much more reasonable price.
The PS3 would, eventually claw back the
customer's goodwill, eventually marginally outselling the 360 by the
time both were officially discontinued. But it was rough there for a
good stretch of time, I think Sony had to sell them at a loss for a
while. But they were both, ultimately, competing for 2nd place.
The Gamecube, mentioned earlier, while a great console in its own
right (I'd buy one again today if I had anywhere to put it) was the
unfortunate also-ran of the sixth generation. It had neither the
all-in-one media functionality of the PS2, nor the exciting lure of online
multiplayer boasted by the Xbox. It did well among Nintendo fans for
it's IP, but it was always going to. Nintendo then seemed to go the
opposite route for their next outing, being the most powerful and a
dedicated system for videogames hadn't helped them, they needed
something to attract more casual audiences.
Yep, here comes the Wii.
I hardly think I need to explain to anyone what a Nintendo Wii is, statistically there's probably one cluttering up your
house. Suffice it to say, Nintendo
abandoned cutting edge hardware to make a play for the casual
living-room audience, and it paid off spectacularly. if I remember correctly, the Wii broke into the top 3 in all-time sales at one point.
The
Wii wasn't a traditional console, though it could work as one, and it
didn't play DVDs or even CDs as most hardware was expected to be able
to. It marketed itself much more like a toy than a piece of technology.
The Wii motion-controls were front-and-center and made everyone want to
try this new thing. "I can play games while exercising!" was the general
flavour of excitement as I recall, and it worked.
Everyone I knew had at
least had a go on Wii Sports. I was lucky enough to get one for my
birthday of that year when they were impossible to find, and I seldom
got off it for the next few days. If I wasn't using it, someone else in
my house was. This living room party vibe had
served Nintendo very well where sales were concerned. The advent of the
Wii, did however have a couple of unconventional effects on the wider
game industry for the subsequent half decade.
Firstly. The Wii
was not much more powerful than the Gamecube had been, it was the only
contemporary console to still be using a SCART lead and not support HD.
Also, while it did have, and support more conventional controllers, the
"waggle-stick" motion controls had gained it a sort of eye-rolling scorn
from the more 'hardcore' crowd.
This comparative lack in raw power meant that 3rd-party games needed an entirely separate Wii Version to be
developed because it couldn't handle a port from its contemporary
consoles, further insulating it from them, and creating a bizarre situation where the Wii, despite being undoubtedly the most successful console on the market at the time, is somehow not considered to be in the same race.
And so the
"console war" was silently reframed, at least by audiences, as a duel
between Sony and Microsoft, with Nintendo off doing its own thing,
however much more money it was raking in. The arrival of Playstation Move and Kinect was proof that
from the industry side of things the other two were still very much
chasing that Wii money.
The motion control craze eventually passed as such
things do. Not even the Wii could ride high forever. Sitting pretty on
over 100 million sales is great, but hardware was evolving, and so
Nintendo decided to re-enter the console race proper, despite having
essentially won it by not doing that.
Enter the Wii U.
I
liked the Wii U, I still have mine in fact, it's about 5-feet away from
me as I type this, on my windowsill collecting dust on the off chance I
might want to play Wind Waker HD again. I had a copy of Twilight Princess HD too
but that has gone missing, unfortunately. Anyway, the point being, those were the only two games I
cared about that weren't later ported to the Switch, which should tell
you all you need to know about how the Wii U sold. Did you happen to
know that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was originally a Wii U game? Not even that could save it.
To
this day, I'm not sure what was more responsible for the Wii U's
underperformance. It worked much more like a traditional console, but
the tablet-controller gimmick was nevertheless cumbersome and
unnecessarily complicated. We're all used to controllers needing to be
recharged at this point, and Nintendo experimenting with 2nd screens
worked well for the DS, which sits at number 3 having, in it's unusually
long production run outsold the Wii and Wii U combined and more than
doubled the sales of its successor with 154 million units, but for some
reason the talk of the industry is never about handhelds for some reason.
In
practice though, it wasn't the most comfortable thing to hold, jarring
to look down to when the other screen is your TV, and not to mention bloody expensive.
God forbid you wanted to play local multiplayer with someone, which,
believe it or not, some still did, especially in Nintendo circles. Who
among us hasn't sat in a room full of people destroying their
friendships over Mario Kart? A more traditional pro controller did exist, but it was expensive, and felt cheaply made, as I recall.
The
Wii U did feature backwards-compatibility with the previous console,
making it unique in that regard as the PS4 and Xbox One both had
abandoned that feature, but everyone already had a Wii. In fact I
distinctly recall reading that many didn't realise the Wii U was a new
console, assuming it was an upgrade like Wiimotion Plus.
The Wii U was under-marketed and overcomplicated. It was more true to what the
core audiences idea of a console was, but still a generation behind on
hardware. (I would personally argue that this wasn't the problem others
state it as, the games looked as good as they needed to, and scale was
already sufficient, but that still doesn't compete on paper.) The Wii U
sold miserably for a Nintendo console, the worst-performing
mainline console in the company's history, it failed to equal the
lifetime sales of the Gamecube, never mind the Wii.
Meanwhile , as Nintendo limped back to the drawing board, Microsoft and Sony switched
places in the eyes of many customers. The PS3, despite it's rocky start,
had managed to accrue a large following with its library of exclusive games, the God of War, Yakuza, and Infamous games are the ones that come to my mind, but there was also Killzone, and Ratchet & Clank. I remember LittleBigPlanet being
popular too, though I never actually got around to those. I should also
mention that most of these are no longer Sony exclusive, but they were
then. Playstation Plus was a boon for me too, games included in your online subscription? If you must suddenly charge for online play, that is how you sweeten the deal.
In the end, the PS3 managed to, by a narrow margin,
actually outsell the Xbox 360. I had both, but I ended up pretty much
exclusively on Playstation (and Wii for first-party only after being
burned by the Wii version of Smackdown vs Raw 2008) since two
separate 360s Red-Ringed on me and died. (The idea that your console
could just stop working for no clear reason one day had never entered my
mind until it happened.)
By the time my second Xbox died on me, my dad had bought me a PS3 for my birthday that year, which I wanted to play Metal Gear Solid 4 but then I found that all those other exclusives I mentioned were much more my thing than Halo and I honestly couldn't name another 360 exclusive without googling, so I stuck with that from then on.
Anyway,
it was a close race, but Sony had narrowly avoided disaster with the
'3, and I think that lesson was still in their minds, because it would
be Microsoft, who made the next blunder.
Who remembers the Xbox One announcement?
So,
Microsoft take the stage to announce their new console,
successor to the 360, the Xbox One. not to be confused with the original
Xbox which was also sometimes called that colloquially. The "One" in
this case, was meant as a reference to how many machines you would need
below your TV with this in your house, at least that was the idea.
See,
Microsoft went all-in on "all-in-one entertainment box" gimmick with the Xbox One. So much so that there exists a supercut on YouTube of
the phrase "TV" being said no less than 51 times during the reveal
presentation. The emphasis on TV, and not games for this console didn't
have to be a dealbreaker. Clearly, Microsoft were thinking of the boost
that DVD functionality gave to the PS2, "Xbox One will be the next water cooler" they said. They wanted to replicate the
universal appeal that the Wii enjoyed as the main living room entertainment device that people gathered around.
As much as that presentation was clowned on back
in 2013 for the neglect of games by this games console, there
is an observable logic there that one can believe led them to think
this would go down well...provided you completely ignore things like the
wider context of the market at the time.
Unfortunately for
Microsoft, that was not the worst of their decisions. If their failure to read the room was the only problem perhaps their
all-in-one system idea might have worked. But I doubt it, for several
reasons. Firstly, media functionality was already expected of consoles
at the time, in fact, the PS3 is how I first got Blu-Ray and Netflix, which was on the rise at the time, and live TV was ceasing to be the
draw that Microsoft assumed it was for their console, so I don't think
there exists a timeline where the emphasis on TV has the desired effect.
But even if it could, there was a much more sinister design philosophy
at play.
If you were paying attention back then, you know
exactly why the Xbox One would colloquially become known for a while as
the 'Xbone'. If treating the videogames the core audience cared about as
an afterthought was not enough, Microsoft also announced that
the console would be online-only, and require daily check-ins on pain of
losing all game functionality, which sounds excessive even today.
This
was to say nothing of restrictions placed on playing used games, which
boil down to all games, physical and digital, being tied to a users'
Xbox Live account, and therefore non-transferrable except at the
discretion of the publishers and 'participating retailers.' digital
ownership could be transferred to registered "family" accounts but only
once per game. As I recall, resale would be the decision of the
publisher, which was obviously just a way to open the door for refusal while
weaselling out of responsibility for that decision.
The backlash was faster, and more furious than Vin Diesel's entire filmography.
So intense was it, that Adam Orth left Microsoft due to the backlash to his tweet
telling customers to "deal with it." and then-spokesman Don Mattrick,
(who is listed on Wikipedia as being known for 'Developing Xbox Kinect'
and the 'failed launch of the Xbox One) Had only to say to critics that
if they disliked the always-online requirement, and wanted an offline
console "we have a system for that, it's called Xbox 360." Effectively
telling the critics to fuck off.
Less than a month later these
blatantly anti-consumer policies were categorically reversed, less than a
month after that, Don Mattrick left Microsoft to become CEO of Zynga,
for less than two years.
I couldn't tell you whether or not the Xbox One eventually became worth buying, I never bought one. What I can tell you, as I mentioned at the top of this post, is that off the back of their blunder Sony walked into an open goal simply by not changing anything for the PS4, to the point that their abandonment of backwards compatibility wasn't even a deal-breaker, as salty as I remain about it.
(I just think that should still be a standard, it was assumed right up until the PS3, I don't care how different the architecture is, as a customer that's not my problem and emulation exists.)
Sony scored a lot of points in 2013 by just keeping things largely as they were, and the "how to share games on PS4 shade" being legendary. That is not, however mentioning one of my favourite features on PS4, and eventually 5, that I use several times a week for streams, the Share-Play function, where you can let someone in a party with you take over control of your game for up to an hour. I've had a lot of fun with that feature, and friends of mine have got to experience games I had without having to buy them first, which I see as an absolute win for customers.
I know for a fact this has resulted in several friends of mine buying games they might otherwise not have because they got to try them properly first. There's also share-screen, which lets people watch in real-time, also great for virtual hang-outs.
So yeah, unequivocal W for Sony there, I don't know whether or not any other console has this feature, but I use it all the time. The PS4 did really well, partly because they didn't try taking the piss, partly because Microsoft did.
But remember Nintendo?
You'll remember of course, that Nintendo was beaten bloody in the last round by the poor sales of the Wii U. So back to the drawing board they went. It would be tempting to throw out the entire design of something that sold so poorly, but they didn't do that, they took what worked, ditched what didn't, and the result sits comfortably in the number 2 slot Right behind the PS2 with nearly 156 million sales
Yep, it's the Switch. I don't need to describe it, you know what a Nintendo Switch is, but just in case you don't;
Nintendo appeared to take the portability and touch-screen functionality of the DS, the Wii U's tablet control design, and make it the whole console that you could dock with your TV or take with you as you saw fit. Not only that, but the controls were flexible in a way I'd never seen before, they detached from the screen and could function as one or two controllers for local multiplayer. Also, apropos of nothing the Switch Pro controller is the most comfortable controller I've ever held and I wish I could use it with everything.
Was it as powerful as it's contemporaries? Still no, but that wasn't going to be a problem this time, it was powerful enough. It could handle 720p, and graphics had hit the point of diminishing returns a generation ago anyway.
It was doubly a non-issue because this is Nintendo we're talking about and their in-house IP thrived on art direction that they were already more than powerful enough to utilise to better effect than any amount of raw power. The comparative lack of which also meant the Switch was noticeably cheaper, which, let me tell you, made a difference. A handheld that was also a console? Proof if proof be needed that the PS VITA WOULD'VE WORKED IF SONY INVESTED IN IT!
YOU HAD IT YOU FOOLS!
Add to that the fact that it was just about strong enough to run ports, (less visually impressive, but well-handled more than not) and Nintendo was no longer a First-Party only console in the race. and with the advent of cloud gaming this generation that becomes less of an issue if you have good internet. Not everyone does, which is unfortunate, but the point is solutions exist.
But all of that pales next to the "take it out and play it with friends" marketing, Nintendo had done it again, the "Get everyone involved" console was reborn. I can personally attest that people I know who didn't give a crap about games came over asking to play Mario Kart 8. Such was the success of the Switch, that Nintendo waited the longest time in their history since the NES to release a successor. It had previously been every five years, like clockwork.
The Switch reigned supreme for eight glorious years. (One of which, it must be said, was 2020, when the world broke, and everyone was stuck inside, right at the time Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which I have at least 250 hours in and I will not be the only one.)
The Switch would go on to outsell even the Wii by over 50%. Think about that, think how ubiquitous the Wii was, I know you remember. So once again, Sony and Microsoft were left battling it out for the silver medal. Won quite handily by the PS4 with approximately 117 million sales to the Xbox One's approximately 58 million. But now something interesting happens. Basically, they all lose the plot in their own unique ways. Sony arguably comes out the better, but only in hardware terms. They were the only console to not allow cross-play in Fortnight for example.
The next, and current generation of consoles seems to have settled into the old ways of making, basically the same thing, but stronger. I think this was a good idea, though I also think we don't need another one because when it comes to raw power we're basically as good as we need to be. Maps are already ridiculous, graphics are as good as they're worth making, and loading times are basically gone, we're there, I think.
The only one I'd argue screwed up their actual console, was Microsoft, by releasing two of them, the Xbox One S, and the Xbox One X. I couldn't tell you the difference between them, I think one of them is cheaper and has a smaller hard drive? Either way, that's needlessly confusing, and to someone who isn't following, doesn't clearly communicate a generational upgrade, similar to the Wii U's unclear marketing.
The PS4-PS5 transition was a good deal smoother, as necessitated by scalpers buying them all up before anyone who wanted one could get their hands on them. I was lucky enough to find mine in a GAME shop, and lucky me, it happened to be one with a disc drive. Oh, yeah, remember, not all of them had disc drives. Sony subtly angling for all-digital again.
A few years later, the PS5 Pro comes out. There is no disc-drive version, you can instead buy a bulky expensive add-on to this already PC-tower-sized, expensive console if you want to play disc-based media. Dick move Sony.
At least it's backwards compatible with PS4. In fact, it took people so long to get a hold of PS5s that they kept releasing PS4 versions of games for years. Couldn't tell you about the Xboxes, never bought one, I didn't have to either, because in a rare pro-consumer move, Microsoft launched Xbox Game Pass, which allowed people with PCs to download and play their games on that. Until they tripled the price and lost a ton of subscribers, myself included (wasn't using it much anyway)
Nintendo rode high on the Switch, as mentioned, for eight years, before finally begrudgingly releasing a successor, the Switch 2, Which was basically, the Switch, but more, which was all I wanted, it has been stated to be comparable in power to the PS4 Pro, which I think is plenty. I don't have one yet, but I will by the time the generational Zelda game comes out. It's sold about 20 million so far.
Now, a couple of things Nintendo has done, I don't know whether to put at the feet of the cycle of arrogance I'm talking about today, or put down to Nintendo operating on moon logic, but there are some decisions I find quite baffling. One story in particular has me questioning which it might be.
I read once of someone who's Nintendo account got banned, because he played a Switch game on it that he bought used. I looked into it, and here is, as best as I could find, what happened.
So, how Nintendo detects piracy, is with unique product codes that every copy of every game, physical or digital, is issued with. If they see the same code in two places at once, that means someone has pirated that copy, and they ban both accounts. (The fact that one of those accounts was the official code is, apparently, not important to that decision.)
Soon after the launch of the Switch 2, there was released, a kind of data cartridge, that one could copy the data of their original Switch cartridges onto for the convenience of not having to swap cartridges to play a different game.
Yes, exactly that, incredibly predictable scenario, is the one that occurred.
Someone buys the data cartridge, copies a bunch of Switch games onto them, doesn't need the original copies, so sells them on eBay. Someone else picks one up, no idea it's been copied, plays it, their account gets banned. In fairness, as soon as they got in touch with Nintendo and provided proof of a second-hand purchase, the account was restored, but that doesn't alter the fact that they were banned for no wrongdoing in the first place.
Dick move Nintendo. Especially since it was your product that enabled this thing that somebody at some point was obviously going to do. Add to that the fact that Nintendo as an entity has long held a certain aloofness that only they could get away with due to their owning much of the most beloved IP in gaming.
Just to remind you, they haven't lowered prices on first-party games since the Gamecube if I remember correctly. A Switch copy of Super Mario Odyssey costs the same today as it did in 2017 give-or-take maybe a fiver at most. All fairness, it is a bloody good game, but no matter the quality, a nine-year old game should not still cost as near as damn it to full price. I bring that up, because, frankly, I can forgive this of Nintendo of 2017, I could've forgiven it of Nintendo of today, if not for one thing.
They were the first to raise game prices even higher.
I don't want to get too fanboyish on you. But for me, part of the charm of Nintendo being about a generation behind the others, is that this frequently meant that they were also about a generation behind on the other's bullshit.
They weren't supposed to be the ones to lower the bar! They were supposed to be the ones who only recently begrudgingly acknowledged the existence of the internet and kept making a game console like they always had! They released an instruction demo for the Switch 2 as a $10 game, and charged the same for upgrading to the Switch 2 version of Switch games.
I'll freely admit that I was more disappointed in Nintendo for those decisions than I would've been in either of the other companies for the same ones, I expect that kind of thing of them.
The late former CEO of Nintendo Satoru Iwata twice cut his own salary in half to avoid firing anybody when Nintendo fell on hard times. If you want to solve the world's energy crisis, attach jump-cables to the man's coffin, I'm fairly sure the rotational velocity thereof could power every home in the world for at least a generation!
And yet, I'm going to end up buying a Switch 2, I might, for the first time in twenty years, end up going full-Nintendo if Sony's plans for a disc-less future are not changed. Despite their decline, Nintendo may end up being the least bad option. At least they're still entertaining physical sales, even if begrudgingly.
I've noticed Sony has scrubbed my play-time from the games I had on disc by the way. Oh, and also they were talking about enforcing a monthly online check-in on pain of losing access to your games. So they've just adopted a more forgiving version of the old Xbox One policy that they capitalised on the outrage of!
Despite everything, I do have hope that they will reverse this decision. Since I started writing this post, several petitions have blown up asking Sony to reconsider, and many other brands are taking pot-shots at Sony on social media. The decision also seems to have taken a lot of game companies by surprise.
Basically no company is doing well for customer reception right now, but this move by Sony just smacks of it being their turn to be humbled. About 20 years later, here we are again. Even relative to all three of them making baffling decisions, Sony has taken the proverbial cake.
A question you might reasonably ask is, if this pattern of hubris and humbling is as consistent as I'm saying. If it is this reliable a pattern, this, dare I say, predictable...
Then why do they keep doing it!?
I don't think it is any one thing. I haven't kept track of executive turnover for the various companies, but I feel comfortable assuming one corporate exec is as much a short-sighted greedy moron as the next. I do think we've reached a point where it has become the norm to grasp at straws for any extra profit one can make regardless of long-term costs, this is observable across pretty much every business everywhere, so that will be part of it.
But I think the larger point here is that all three companies, regardless of how much they dunk on whoever's turn it is to be incautious, are all pushing towards the same future, and all managing their own brand of enshittification.
They all want this, they all agree with what Sony is doing long-term, they just happen to take turns getting cocky based on who is the most successful at the time. Even if true though, that doesn't explain why they keep forgetting what happened to the last one to try it less than a decade ago.
Personally, I subscribe to the theory that, somehow, every time, without fail, the most successful company of any given generation gets it into their head that the value of their products has been assumed by their brand, and that brand is what the customer is paying for, or at the very least, will buffer them from the consequences of bad decisions.
They believe this despite overstepping and being proven wrong every single time. Were I more conspiratorial, I might point out, that we are currently living in the always-online future that the Xbox One was lambasted for wanting to push on us, or as near as makes little difference. It started with the necessity of installing games onto a console.
The last game I know to have been entirely contained on disc was the original release of Yakuza 0 on the PS4, for my money, a great game that went from uninstalled to playable in seconds, (not to mention of a reasonable file size) but even that required installation onto the console and wouldn't run from the disc. We're already all-digital in all-but name. But for now, physical copies still offer the option of borrowed games and resale, and that's what they don't want us to have.
This is why it's always worth pushing back. It's the classic "foot in the door" approach, we're going towards this future whether we want to or not, one creeping concession at a time. Sony's latest folly is just the most recent example of the industry at large wanting to know where the line is and see how much it can get away with. Even if they backpedal on this one (and I'm confident they will) it's coming eventually unless something fundamental changes.
This year, it's discs, who's to say it won't one day be digital purchases? One day we could be entirely at the mercy of cloud-gaming subscription services at multiple times the price with no control over what we can or can't play on current hardware, don't think they're not thinking about it.
It's been good to see people pushing back against this, but these companies don't care beyond the next month or so, all they'll do is reduce the size of each step.
Give them nothing.
