Preservation and Future of Game Ownership

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Your existing discs will work in your PS five if it has a disk drive, but the PlayStation six will presumably not play discs at all Now the data shows the vast majority of people buy their games digitally today that That's a fact. The twenty percent or so that still prefer physical feel very strongly about it. and there are all sorts of benefits to physical games, such as the resale value, the ability to lend or borrow games and preservation. And even if you've been all digital for a while now, and this change won't even affect you, Sony is taking a choice away from you. So Nick, let's start with you. What was your first reaction to this news? I woke up bright and early this morning, checked my phone and was just immediately bummed out. I just could not think of something that would It just feels like we have crossed this threshold that we cannot turn back from And I think the ways we know it have gone. it feels like one of those Uh, you know, I'm sure Sony has the reasons that they have out in their press release, but I can't help but feel that this is just anti consumer in a way that is taking choices away from the consumer and forcing them to buy and spend on their dedicated platform with, you know the secondhand market driving prices up and down, just forcing people to commit to whatever price Sony wants to charge people is always going to be a tough pill to swallow for many people. And granted, I consider myself in a very fortunate situation in that I live in a major metropolitan city with network infrastructure that is still not up to par with a lot of other metropolitan cities. I think I get five hundred up and five hundred down, but alas You know, as games, as the years come game sizes are going to continue to increase in their overall download needs and things like that. So it's going to be harder for people who don't have that infrastructure in place for their networking to actually download these gigantic games. I shudder to think what it looks like when callall of Duty twelve comes out in a few years and you know how long that's going to take folks who don't have access to high speed internet providers Yeah, we've been hearing about this and talking about this for so long, the all digital future U but it felt strange even to me to actually hear Sony come out and say it Ryan, we were talking about this earlier. Apparently you've you all this time, you've been expecting the next Xbox console project Helix to be all digital. Is that correct Yeah, and there are now reports of that today as we record this in the wake of Sony's announcement that that will exactly be the case. The difference is, not really that I'm defending anybody here, but my hope and and I I would dare I say expectation is that Microsoft will sell a physical and external Blue Ray drive If for no other reason than you know watching Blue Ray movies on the Helix backwards compatible games. you might have, I mean, I've got Yeah That's only one wall. There's a lot more downstairs. There's a lot of, you know, Xbox has been at the forefront of of game back backwards compatibility at least if not preservation specifically, but definitely backwards compatibility. And so yeah, I kind of figured that Hix being PC half console would go the PC route and forego a physical media drive built in But I am hoping and expecting that they're going to sell one as an external add on if you want it. But with Sony's announcement I don't know, mayaybe it's just my interpretation. the way they said the We're done with this makes me think that The actual creators of Blue Ray aren't going to sell even an external attachment for the PlaySation six againgain, I hope I'm wrong But that was my takeaway from it. Yeah, I mean, there is the external or a disk drive that they sell for the PlayStation five P I don't know, maybe it's possible that could be compatible with PlayStation six. That could be one solution there Yeah, going forward, the PS six is not going to get any new physical game releases for it, which is again, we've been talking about this for a long time, but now that it's actually here, it's like I can't help but feel a little bit of the dramatic irony of PlayStation making a name for itself and justifying early adoption with the PlayStation two having that onbard DVD drive for millions of people across the world and suddenly, that's kind of ripped away from them What does that also say about, you know, just physical media in general? No, you know, we're seeing that we're seeing physical disc being, whether it be movies, TV shows or games getting removed from store shelves nowadays. I guess they are going with the trend. It just I guess I wasn't expected to be this quick and this almost violent in its announcement. Well conversely though, there is a healthy market. It's not the majority, but there is a healthy market. for physical media in music. likeike vinyl's is big now as I think or bigger least it's as big now as it's been in decades. Even CD's and cassette tapes are sort of kicking around, but you know, especially vinyl and and then even on the movie side, like bllue ray releases of movies are still very much a thing even in a streaming dominated digital culture because we want to preserve these things. so I just It's it's like a rhorical question Why can't that be the case with games? And the answer is there's no good reason other than corporations wanting you to not Trade in the game, not lend the game to a friend. It's it's purely There's just no. actual consumer friendly justification for removing the option of physical media, in my opinion. Yeah, I totally agree. And we are seeing the famous scene from I think his E three twenty thirteen where just completely owned Xbox and the Xbox one reveal, showing how easy it is to share games on that system. Let's bring Logan in. whereere does this leave Nintendo? Logan? I feel like Uh, if if Physical game sales are only a small fraction of sales on PlayStation or Xbox, they're still quite a bit healthier on Nintendo's platform, is that correct? Yeah, you mentioned an eighty twenty to split, but if you just look at the Nintendo ecosystem, at their quarterly financial reports every few months, it's fifty fifty between digital and physical revenue. That is such a more even split than on any of the other platforms. And I think that Switch two, I expect to be the longest Nintendo console generation ever. I think it's going to easily go like eight to ten years, maybe longer than that And they already have full on booard support for their cartridges. So I think physical is here to stay on Nintendo for a very long time. In Japan, the physical market is pretty big over there as well. that's Nintendo's home market. And so I think I look at something like game keycards, which has been a huge controversy of this generation for Nintendo. And I think for good reason, I don't really like them very much because It's essentially a shell of a cartridge that you then download the full digital game, but you need that key card to unlock it and play it on your system. But you can still sell that back. You can still lend that to a friend. It essentially acts as a physical game that you just need to download doesn't look as bad anymore now with today's announcement from PlayStation. Sos like that's here to stay, but Nintendo first party releases still come fully on the cart. Oblivion remastered is getting a full physical release on Switch two. Like I think that going forward for like boutique indie physical releases, Nintendo's going to be the place for that. I don't see it This really changing their business strategy at all It's just it's ironic because you know, when the CD format came to games in the early ninetyies with the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, Nintendo stuck to their guns and stuck with cartridges much more expensive to manufacturer. And then today they're like the last bastion of physical Gaming're still doing cartridges, whereas presumably discs are still cheap to manufacture Tod. I don't know there's, you know There's clear business reasons why Sony would want to do this. like we've been saying like after they sell a physical game, there could be all sorts of transactions that happen with that game down the line that Sony sees no benefit from. They can stop that from happening Do you think there's anything to the actual manufacturing process not being worth it for them today because they're not selling enough copies. I just can't imagine it's that expensive to print games on disk. Yeah, I mean, the margin on games is software is how they've always made their money back, their actual revenue for console manufacturers. And so now it's just going to be a much larger margin because they control every single aspect of it. Ultimately, it does make sense monetarily. It just feels like I kind of hurting some goodw there Hey guys, remember when game prices up and we're like, oh, well, but if games go digital, then then prices can go back down. That was never That was never an excuse. I mean, I know the cartridge side of things is a little bit of a different story there, but certainly with the discs, with DVD's and Blu rays. Yeah. Yeah, we're not seeing we're not really seeing any savings as consumers with with the move to the all digital future I mean, that also just goes back to the anti consumer practice of it is when you don't have any competitive market They can charge you whatever they'd like. They and you'll have to just kind of suck it up if you want to play the latest and greatest from PlayStation. Yeah Ryan, I saw some say online that Sony' handed Xbox the easiest Alioop ever If they just want to keep physical games possible on Project Helix, that's where all those people that love physical can go to Xbox I mean, again, I'd love to see it, but I expect that Microsoft and a you know, they're they're Everybody exists in this world of hardware getting more and more expensive And if Microsoft had been considering a physical media drive in the Hix I expect they probably cut it already. u before Sony made this announcement because it's just what, you know if thirty if it's maybe twenty percent, as you said of customers are going to use that physical media drive, at least for games and know watching movies is another matter that Microsoft's going to They're going to want to save the parts cost on that and omit it. Prove me wrong, Microsoft They certainly could win some goodwill at least from both gamers and people that watch movie. I mean, I the only I'm definitely all digital on my Xbox and PlayStation games. I'm still very I'm probably about fifty fifty physical digital myself on my switch Um, but I imagine I'm like a lot of people were the only thing I use my My Blu ray drive for in my consoles is to watch movies, but I do like having it for that reason because I don't want another device just for playing Blu ray movies. These consoles are perfectly capable of doing it, and I hope they continue to do so I agree. Logan, what we werere just talking about providing a home for physical games like that that's just going to be Nintendo. 'Cause like something like callall of Duty, this year's Call of Duty is coming to Nintendo Switch J. If we were in twenty twenty eight Switch two would be the only place you could get a physical copy of callall of Duty Yeah, I know that's that's a super wild. Like we're in a place where're switched to is getting like current gen games. I guess they're lesser versions, but we're still getting big AAA stuff on that platform and physical versions. So yeah, I think it's going to be a big destination for people. And I feel like Nintendo kind of laid out a path. They Their recent headline was they're charging more for physical games than their digital games now. It's a ten dollar upcharge onn the physical copy, like Fire Emblem is eighty physical seventy digital. And it's like that is a path that you can take that people weren't super thrilled with it at the time. But now compared to having no physical option at all, I think anybody would take that. And it's a way to make more money off your physical copies and kind of account for that production cost. So I guess I'm surprised that Sony's not doing that half step instead to still give people that option, but upchargeed because That I think that people wouldn't be as upset about as just no, it's gone forever. Do you guys think the timing of this gives us any indication on PlayStation six timing That's what some analysts are saying Yeah, certainly, I don't think if this is this switch goes into effect in early twenty twenty eight, I wouldn't expect PS six before then, notot that we necessarily were, but Yeah, mayaybe twenty twenty eight of the year. they sort of turnurn off the faucet in early twenty twenty eight and then fall twenty twenty eight. PS six is out All digital I mean, the tinfoil hat theory I have is that Grand Theft Auto was like the hey, people seem not thrilled about it, but like they're willing to put up with it. So let's just put the news out there now and get it out of the way. I think so. Yeah Yeah, it was kind of a shield. It's a troj. It's frustrating The frustrating part for me is like my whole backwards compatible library. Like if the PS six has nothing, no disk drive whatsoever, it's like, man, feel screwed because I spent seven years building a PS four physical library. I went digital on PS five because I kind of felt like this was gonna to happen eventually, but it's like, am I gonna have to hook up an old thing if I ever want to play one of those PS four games? Like's just that's really frustrating. The Oold of you to think that the PS six might be compatible with PS four games Oh, I think yeah that's true. I didn't think about that, but I guess I guess I thought that they just carry it forward. I if they wanted to win some good will, they would make it that way, but we already know that's not the case because they are shutting down the PlayStation three and Vita store next year this time next year. So a bit of a bummer and also just a you know, u precursor to like, hey, this is what this reality actually looks like. I know recently PlayStation also revoked a bunch of movies from the digital platform that due to a licensing issue with stududio now owned people pid for it. Well they own the license to it I mean one hundred percent it' it'ss's it's a gross look and it's just a glimpse into the future of what I can expect to see. And I was talking to Damon like, granted, maybe I am a bit of an edge case or maybe I think a lot of us are edge cases here at IGN in that I wanted to replay Draacon Guard three and I only have two options. I either buy the digital version on the PlayStation Th storefront, connect my PS three, or I can dig through the IGN library and find it Granted, that game is going for crazy pricing in the second handand market right now, but the option is there and that's the thing that I appreciate. But pretty soon, I'm only going to have to go with the physical release version of it because the PlayStation three store is going away. And now fast forward, twenty years from now when I want to play God of War twenty eighteen on my PlayStation, maybe I'm just not going be able to eightighteen months. countountdown has started. got eighteen months. to buy up any Playsttation physical games We're definitely going to be sifting through the fall from this announcement for a while. I know you viewers and listeners feel some sort of way about this. so that comment section is for you. I'm seeing a lot of comments today. I'll never buy another PlayStation console. I'm done with gaming I don't know, we'll see it's very easy to write this sort of stuff in a comment, but we'll see how upset people actually are when it comes time to possibly purchase a PlayStation six That's our show for this week. Thank you to Nick Thank you to Ryan and Logan and thank you to the other Nick working behind the scenes to make this show possible. Anne Mariah and everyone else working behind the scenes. My name is Damid and we'll be back next week with more on the latest gaming hardware. We'll see you then.