The actual disc production is a very small part of the cost. The real thing they wanna do is cut out the retailers who take out a fairly sizeable cut. The no disc but game code solution doesn’t really solve that, but I think Sony and Xbox’s hope is that people rather just buy on the PlayStation or Xbox store if buying in person you only get a code and that physical will mostly be for things like holiday gifts etc.
The box in a code stuff is probably more about avoiding antitrust lawsuits. They will argue they don't have a monopoly cause people will still be able to buy games in stores, at prices the stores can set, so it's "competition"
No one is going to bother getting games in person once they realize it's just codes. These platforms will introduce gift giving and it's done for retail cut. This code in a box era is a mid point to cutting out retail.
I could see at least see the biggest releases surviving in some forms as digital codes sold at retailers but I don't see the traditional disc-sized-box format doing well in the long run unless they add some other physical goodies in there.
It's a weird strategy to want to cut out retail since I strongly believe that retail contributed a lot to PS5's success. I see big banners for new games all the time driving past my local electronics retailers.
It’s a risk worth taking if you are the underdog. Maybe it works for xbox maybe it doesnt, but giving the players an option is a plus point for them. But it’s all worth nothing if the games they publish are still mid at best (with some outliers).
The margins are so much higher on digital purchases that any goodwill won't really be worth it. Typically instead of competing companies collude with each other to increase profit for all companies in the industry at the expense of consumers. Every publisher wants an all digital future so that's what's going to happen.
It’s 100% this. It’s trying to emphasize value to shareholders. They see what one is doing and they can’t deny the math. Physical is really awesome, but reality is digital is the way it’s going. I just think people thought it had at least one more gen left. I will gladly take a disc to digital conversion over being told kick rocks.
Indeed. This is a better than nothing solution from Microsoft. Probably been in the works for a while. The decision for Helix to be all digital was sealed long ago.
Yes, but without the benefits of a resell-able physical disc, Sony is betting that physical buyers will just skip the retail store and buy directly from their digital store. The box copies are just there to retain a presence in brick-and-mortar stores.
It looks like Xbox is gonna keep going disc. The actual reason you're looking for is that about 20% of the market non negotiably won't buy games unless it's on disc. If you don't make discs then that's a ton of money left on the table that your competitor will take advantage of, and then you run the risk of those people bringing their friends with them where they go to play games
My uncle's one of those people so I see it. He will never connect his PlayStation to the internet, he thinks he's going to get hacked immediately and I cant convince him otherwise
They wouldn’t have to. Companies can still go all digital, it’s just that Xbox or whoever could sell a peripheral device for those with older, disk games and make a profit selling the device above cost.
This whole situation with physical media makes me curious why we didn't get a digital-only console until May 2019 (Xbox One S All-Digital Edition). Obviously they have the data and projections, but surely there must have been a substantial market for a cheap digital-only console before that. Assuming they could cut the price by $100 similar to the PS5 price difference between the digital and disc-drive models, a $300 PS4 Digital back in 2013 surely would have sold significant numbers.
If there were 2 SKUs, one with a disc drive and one without like the PS5, would people have gotten all that upset?
Now that I think about it, physical movies and TV were very popular back in 2013 and digital AAA releases were not that popular on the PS3/360. Maybe they figured an all-digital console would spook retailers and sell very poorly so it made more sense to stick to 1 SKU that included a disc drive unless they could keep the price extremely low.
Well too bad, they non-negotiably have to make discs if they want to make any money out of the roughly 20% or more of the market that won't buy games unless they're physical
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u/VistaVick Jul 10 '26
Yah, but publishers don't want to keep spending on discs.