A couple of days ago, PlayStation announced that it’s killing physical gaming.

No more printed discs.
PlayStation 6 won’t have a disc drive, and, for backward compatibility, one could probably be purchased at an insane price. But if a person has a PS5, there wouldn’t be a need.

The companies that make the discs and boxes will lose business. Shipping, of course, won’t be needed or will be in very limited quantities if they choose to place codes in boxes like Nintendo does.

Everything will be internet-dependent.
Hard drives will be filled and have to be bigger, unless it’s clouded. Which, it probably will be, as Sony would have more control over the content than the player.

There’s no more of ‘sharing the game with a friend.’

GameStop, Disc Replay, and others probably have about a year to go, plus another year of goodwill, before bankruptcy (again) or a drastic change in their business models.

It’s quite possible that the person won’t ‘own’ the game, but simply a licensed right to play the game. So, when the game becomes too old or unprofitable, it’ll just disappear. Changes, like inserting advertisements, will be seamless.

Sony will have massive information about the players’ habits, locations, preferences, and biometrics.

Sony is just paving the way for Xbox and Nintendo. Those companies have been dabbling in removing physical media for years, from codes to game passes. Sony is just jumping the shark and taking the bite.

There’s a lot of gamer outrage. Some will abandon Sony out of spite and hypocrisy. Digital sales of games have dwarfed physical sales for years. Boycotting a company for something that the person has endorsed for years (and will continue to do) is just butthurt.

Once the shock wears off and more GameStops close, it’s unlikely anyone will give it a second thought outside of a “remember when.”

On a timeline, this is just predictable.
Physical media has been quietly creeping away for generations.

Walkmans, which relied on tapes and eventually CDs, were replaced with iPods.

Pamphlets in games and cassette tapes that provided song lyrics and character blurbs were replaced by QR codes.

Kindles and other tablets killed physical books. Physical newspapers were replaced with websites.

Ownership of anything is being removed.
Microsoft’s Word empire isn’t owned; it’s rented. Oracle has a monthly maintenance fee.

In some situations, if we treat companies as people, it’s trauma. I would like to think that Sony is traumatized. The amount of work, risk, and time that goes into a game was derailed over Sweet Baby. The constant threat of tariffs, inflation, and rising cost of electronic parts because of AI, has induced PTSD on person-Sony.

This is how they react – by removing physical – by removing what’s real to live in an environment that they control.

Business-wise, shit rolls downhill.
Food and products have been silently cheapened out for years and years. What was once steel becomes plastic. Tallow becomes seed oil. Game devs are being replaced with soul-less AI.

Greed sets in.
I think Microsoft’s subscription is just a flex. They’re greedy and taking in all they can – but what can Big Business do when their entire communication structure is primarily based on Microsoft? Google is like that too, but maybe to a lesser extent.

So – yeah.
People will eventually get over the rabble rabble and wait to consume the next product.

No one likes it.
Everyone will protest.
But it’s the path of least resistance that wins – and it’ll just be forgotten – much like the Avatar films.

All hype for nothing – a bit of chance to release some frustration about the world and the helplessness that comes with it.

It’s just a shame that it’s like this.