@YoshinoLover08 Honestly, I don’t get why ditching physical games automatically means moving to PC. I care a lot about the living room and TV experience, and I have a high-end PC myself — it’s just not the same as a PS or Xbox.
I'm talking to people - Sony is currently being inundated with emails and messages behind the scenes from smaller publishers and devs voicing their displeasure over the end of physical games.
I'm actually kinda shocked just how much internal backlash there has been to this.
Doubt it'll make a difference, this was apparently a decision made by the money men within the last two months, is 100% influenced by component costs & manufacturing (AI ruining everything again)
They know nobody will buy a $1000+ PS6
They have calculated that the only way the PS6 makes business sense for them right now in terms of margins is to kill both the retail and resale market. Furthermore, they figure people are invested enough in the ecosystem that they're locked-in for life.
They fully expected a huge backlash and took it into account, but they think the anger won't amount to much in terms of real financial losses and are willing to take the PR hit.
Of the 15% of the current PlayStation audience that buy physical, they expect only 2-3% of people not to move over to fully-digital upon being forced.
The money saved by getting rid of the retailer cut, and lost on the reseller market eclipses that 2-3% and makes up for their miniscule profit expected per PS6 sold. (they will not sell it at a loss, but are willing to only make as little as $50 per unit sold)
The only way they'd ever reverse this decision is if the 2-3% of physical audience they expect to lose is instead around 8-10%+
As much as i'd love to see everyone come together and somehow force their hand with a mass boycott, I doubt it will happen.
They have been wanting to kill physical since around 2020, the AI RAMpocalypse has forced their hand.