Well this will be my last PlayStation. I only buy discs so I can trade them with my friends.
“Fiduciary responsibility”
Thanks Milton Friedman!
The PS5 probably won’t see any noticeable decrease in game sales, because pretty much everyone who wants one already has one, but I’ll be interested to see if gamers call Sony’s bluff for the PS6 or not.
I don’t have much faith in them turning down the PS6 if the calls to boycott Hogwarts Legacy is anything to go by.
We’ll see. Boycotting a $1000+ digital only console will be easier than boycotting a $70 game. Will millions buy it? Of course. But shareholders don’t just want SOME of the money, they want ALL of the money. It needs to sell many tens of millions.
I think a lot less people care about consoles now. People are moving over to mobile, not necessarily solely Android or iOS, but stuff like Switch or Steamdeck.
It doesn’t even have to be a morals-based boycott like Harry Potter.
Practically, just as an amoral consooomer, there’s no reason to purchase a non-upgradable, barely-customizable gaming device which is confined to Playstation’s walled garden when you could buy an upgradable, highly customizable gaming device that you can do whatever you want with.
My primary console since my teenage years has always been a Playstation. That will change probably before the PS6 even comes out. I have a PS5, I probably won’t sell it just in case of any interesting exclusives. (Lmao, I know, magical thinking, considering there are still only 6 such games, none of which appeal to me enough to buy them). I’m planning to get a PC and buy everything I can on there instead.
Some reminders of Playstation’s bullshit other than just physical media:
- Removed the ability for you to back up your PS5 game saves to USB, forcing you to buy PS+ or risk losing your save data permanently if something goes wrong.
- Discontinued free multiplayer services, ostensibly to improve the security of their network after North Korea hacked their shit for releasing a movie about assassinating Kim Jong Un (or Kim Jong Il, I don’t remember). Morally, idgaf about mocking North Korea, but economically, I do give a fuck about paying a corporation $80 per year to cover their operating expenses for doing so.
- Discontinued most forms of customization. PS3 and PSP could install full-on user-made themes, or you could make your own, even customizing things like the sound the interface makes when you scroll through it. Now you literally cannot even set a proper background.
- Refused to manufacture their controllers with hall effect joysticks (which prevent controllers from developing stick drift). Both ridiculously-expensive PS5 controllers I bought developed stick drift, and I’m not particularly rough with them or anything, not at all prone to gamer rage lol. I bought a third-party controller (SZ-5005B) with hall effect joysticks and haven’t had any issues since.
I’m sure there’s tons more too. Also the PS5 interface just generally sucks shit, like sometimes my Media Gallery is on my homepage and sometimes it’s not despite me not changing any settings, or just other stupid design choices.
Stand-down August 23rd-30th. Want to send a fuck you to Sony? Fuck their profits, then they’ll understand.
Nobody has explained how simply not using the console you already bought would affect their profits negatively at all. If anything, it will lower their server costs from the reduced bandwidth for a month.
Just stop buying anything from Sony until they get the message. No music, no games, no subscriptions, no movies, no media players or proprietary media (ie BluRay disks regardless of what they are for; even Xbox games), no hardware, etc.
^ now that’s a boycott
As long as you keep using the console you’re still in the walled garden: you’re giving them data to harvest, being exposed to their ads, padding their MAU numbers… Server costs are negligible - it’s what allows F2P to work as a monetization model.
Gave it a go this week. Did some Gardening made a friend :
At least someone likes my cauliflower 👍
Felt pretty okay with it tbh. Will give it another go on the 23rd.
This game looks boring. Graphics are weak. How much XP did you get for the bird friending quest?
Edit: shit, that’s not a bird, is it? Well, don’t I look foolish now?
That just strengthens your claim that the graphics are weak.
Not saying don’t do it, but it’s a blip on the radar. As someone who works in tech, a week blackout looks like a bunch of people going on vacation. Especially during August, which is during many summer vacations.
Never buy a digital title for a console. If you need to buy digital, buy it on the open hardware platform.
If you really want to send a message, deleting your account or cancelling PS plus if you have it does more. That shows a decline in MoM retention.
Timed boycotts are an assimilation to corporate control. If the goal of a boycott is to affect change it must be indefinite as the change it wishes to bring about is required to end it.
No tangible amount of people are going to put their money where their mouth is. Gamers have time and time again shown that they can be screwed over. I mean look at the state of the big games now and games as a service taking over, people are happily paying $20+ for a skin in a game, something that used to come included with the game as an unlock.
Not saying you’re wrong but the backlash to this Sony decision seems to have most gamers up in arms. Maybe even waking up a little bit. Maybe I’m too hopeful though.
If your friends agree, just spread the word, there’s no need to spend on those skins when there’s soooo many indie titles out there. Hours and hours of content to keep us busy and direct money away from Sony, Microsoft, etc.
Get some drm free games on GoG.
I’ve already primarily moved to PC over the last year or so but this whole incident has opened my eyes to the jailbreak scene. I have a PS5 for the exclusives but they will no longer get a dime from me and I will not be buying any of their consoles going forward.
🤝
Most playstation gamers. Most gamers do not use playstation. It’s a small drop and most won’t care. Unfortunately, of course.
I don’t play on modern consoles and I don’t buy skins. I preach it, but everyone can make their own decisions.
You are 100% right, there’s so many good indie games out there to enjoy. I hope more people avoid predatory models and buy the good stuff instead.
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If I were an investor, I’d be worried they aren’t listening to the
wallets with legsconsumers.Most of the ‘‘smart money’’ is just in it for the short term. Get all the value possible out of their position and be the first out. The bagholders will be the same wallets with legs, us, who hold all that shit in our pension funds, IRAs and whatever.
We are very much in a post sustainability mindset when it comes to the investment market. Enshitification is just scrapping the bottom of the barrel to keep the numbers good for another quarter.
Sony didn’t really “double down”. The decision to wind down their physical games category was made years ago. Everything after the initial public announcement is to manage public relations.
Not sure many outside Japan realise but Sony are a conglomerate that dip their fingers into unrelated industries. This to them is clearly just a line through a smaller category on the balance sheet.
There’s a discussion to be had about ownership and physical games but i think that market is going to re-emerge in the future in perhaps a more bespoke way, like the resurgence of music vinyls.
To me, Sony seems to be interested in just managing the distribution of IP opposed to “gaming” itself. They’re not true custodians in that space or if they were, then they’re not now.
2 clarifications:
1 - because of Sony’s requirements for printing physical discs, it requires permission and effort from Sony itself. A company cannot simply burn blurays for playstation games, they MUST engage Sony. This isn’t interest in “just managing of the IP,” this is specifically to increase profit by removing physical needs altogether (shipping, manufacturing, distribution, etc) as well as snuffing out the second hand market which, in theory, would drive more profit towards Sony, and finally it provides control. Access can be revoked, products become fluid, and the store can remove your access to older versions if a remake or remaster comes out that you would then have to buy on the new storefront. No new market can spring up with a resurgence in terms of Sony as Sony would have to allow it, being a closed console platform.
2 - they directly respond to shareholder questions around the backlash to the announcement, which they refer to as “various opinions.” They did not retract their statement, and choose to push forward. How is that not doubling down?
“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing. That’s the big factor,” he said. "It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content; 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 added, “And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us.”
i was referring to physical games as a whole and not necessarily tied to Playstation games or their discs.
They’ve been transitioning this specific manufacturing division since 2024. It can’t be a “double down” because they’re not going to revert two years of already re-trained staff and re-purposed equipment because of online forum talk.
Messages to shareholders like this is pretty standard. They’re basically saying:
- decision is final
- components manufacturing is more lucrative than disc manufacturing
- we will distribute our IP
So they’re hedging their bets on what their future could be. If they lose out on gaming they’ll make back on microlenses.
I’m shocked
Well… That goes against the theory of economics, Sony will learn the hard way, like they did with memory stick.
Guess Im done with Playstation moving forward.
I’m starting to think consoles are cooked. The massive jumps in technology between console generations have turned into small incremental steps. The game quality has dropped (independent games and a few others are exceptions). PC’s used to be slow to boot and load a game vs consoles and also required updates to download, but now PCs are quick and updates are mostly automatic. Consoles used to be nice to just turn on and play without thinking about all that other stuff, yet now they require downloads and updates as well. Loading times aren’t much better either. Consoles used to also be very cheap compared to PCs, but now with the “next gen” being around $1000 the price difference isn’t that huge anymore - especially when you factor in modular updates that can be done to a PC to cheaply extend it’s life. One of the last hold outs for consoles were physical games and now they’re taking that away too.
I built my first PC 6 years ago, before PS5 was released.
My PC can still play new release AAA games at high quality graphics and probably will for a number of years still… when it starts to slack a couple hundred $ and it will be good as new.
Was pricey up front but in the end better quality, more choice, and longer lasting.
While I don’t think that the next console generation will flop entirely, I do strongly suspect that it won’t be as successful as previous ones have been and will lead to a shift where consoles are just cheap streaming boxes that support a subscription to a cloud gaming service, which will eventually be replaced by a single device that can connect to whichever services you want.
PC gaming will be similar for most AAA titles (and in fact will be one of the devices that can support these services), though indie devs will hold out until the requirement of owning a PC leaves only a tiny market.
That’s an interesting take and I can see things moving in that direction. The problem for the console makers is at that point, anyone can make a dumb box to stream with very cheap hardware.
That means the fight will be over exclusives. It’s going to look like streaming services, huh? $15/mo for PS network, $15/mo for Xbox network… Yuck. At that point I’ll stick to indie games locally on PC.
Not to forget obligatory subscriptions.
I think you’re underestimating the number of people who just don’t want to take on the secondary hobby of building a PC in the first place.
Cyberpower. iBuyPower. Even Starforge. There’s a bunch of builders out there to remove that “scariness.”
It’s a personal choice, but if they were willing to spend 5-10 minutes to download something like Bazzite and click the 10 total clicks to install it, you’d achieve a console-like experience too.
The information is out there, it’s just not forcefed to you because of a massive marketing budget.
Considering building a PC is too much, how do you figure that they will week out Linux, choose a distro, and successfully install it.
I’m not sure if you ignored both but:
As the original commenter said, pricing of next gen consoles will be $1000+. Which puts pricing into PC ballpark.
I said there are system integrators, always have been, to buy a prebuilt system.
So “too much” both fiscally and laboriously aren’t true anymore.
And I mentioned it, but choosing Bazzite is a locked down system. Installing it takes about 10 clicks of your mouse.
They could ask a friend. Or google it.
How braindead do you think people are? If they talk to anyone they’ll easily come across these ideas. Linux just jumped from 4% desktop usage to over 10%. So people aren’t completely gone. Enough friction and they’ll look for alternatives.
If they play sports games I can’t help them though. They’re already on life support.
How braindead do you think people are?
I experienced IT help desk.
Thus my answer is: Very.Me too.
I learned if things affect their wallet/affects them personally, they’ll learn.
Good ol republican ideology.
Eh…You’d be surprised how braindead some of my clients are…
I’m curious what PlayStation fans would think about changing from a disc plus download, like it is now, to a cartridge like Switch uses?
I think it would be a thousand times easier to get Sony on board with that idea.
What difference would it make?
I’m struggling to understand what this would achieve as well. They’re objectively more expensive to manufacture.
Well there’s an argument that plays right into their hands. Nothing at all is even cheaper.
Whose side are you on here, anyway?
I’m pro physical media, but real physical media, not not key cards, not code in a box, not requiring an always on connection, not full base game but DLC is a code.
I think all games should be able to work in perpetuity without any external validation or activation across it’s entire life.
Hope that clears things up.
If that’s the case then I hate to tell you that the war left without you, like 15-20 years ago. And we, consumers, lost.
There is/was a time that game size was way bigger than media could conveniently handle. I think we are or will be past that soonish.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just think all the outrage could be better applied.
only responds to their investors…
Did you know this is legally enforceable? The shareholders can sue a publicly company if it doesn’t prioritize ‘shareholder value’. For example a company that cut profit instead of doing layoffs.
It’s not spoiled leadership, but a rotten ecosystem that breeds amphibian avarice as the dominant culture.
No, a company cannot be sued for failing to maximize shareholder value. The business judgment rule protects any company that wants to raise wages, refrain from layoffs, donate to charity, offer sick leave, etc. What they can’t do is not pursue profit at all. Now, will shareholders vote them out if they do those things? Maybe, but that’s a totally different mechanism than a lawsuit.
As I understand business judgement rule makes the assumption that the company did its decisions in good faith. It doesn’t mean a shareholder derivative lawsuit can’t happen. The shareholders can still sue, and there have been instances where it has been done, but in addition to suing the shareholders would then have to prove loss of profits alongside negligence or bad faith or whatever led to the loss of profits.
Realistically this shouldn’t happen as it probably costs more to prove the company didn’t make every penny of profit it could, but we live in weird times where things that shouldn’t happen do happen so let’s not count out the improbable.
They know you won’t leave, you’re all junkies at this point.
What would really grind Sony’s gears is if everyone stops updating their system and waits for the PS5 Linux hacks to catch up to their firmware version. Then, they install Linux and get Steam working and only buy digital games from Steam and GOG, or emulate older games, on their Linux hacked PS5.
Likely won’t happen. Consoles these days are getting almost impossible to jailbreak.
Don’t underestimate the human spirit so much. There’s already been inroads made on early firmware versions of the PS5 where the hacker was able to play GTA5 at full settings on his PS5. The PS4 has a great jailbreaking community now too. There’s also been steps in getting PS5 emulsion off the ground. It’s only a matter of time. Seriously, check it out. I hacked my PS4 earlier though month and I can watched a hacked YouTube with no ads, and emulate games using retro arch. It’s pretty sweet.
The human spirit makes no difference when it comes to jailbreaking hardware.
I know all about the hacks that exist. None of them work on anything remotely close to current firmware, because the early firmware that was coming in hot with some exploits has long ago been patched - and you can’t downgrade.
Emulation is a different beast too.
Even cracking it to play ps5 titles would be amazing. Otherwise, idk what I’m doing with it.
PS5 emulators I saw recently were able to get games to boot for the first time. So, getting there already!
Yeah but at around 1 fps per second.
Ps5 emulation will happen, but not before a few years.
Still, it’s good as it means I’ll be able to fully leave that ecosystem that I used to love.
I guess Sony might lose a lot of money at one point if they don’t release their games on PC since a few former Playstation players are in the process of moving to PC and not coming back.
