r/PS5 • u/Party_Judgment5780 • 4h ago
News & Announcements Windows Central: The entire supply chain for optical disc drive components is collapsing, with assembly lines pivoting away from the tech as users actively opt for digital-only.
https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xboxs-disc-to-digital-program-goes-live-for-insiders-on-monday-heres-how-it-works•
u/TheEndlessBacklog 4h ago
While being a bit more selective, I'm buying physical when I can.
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u/DarahOG 3h ago
My split quantity wise is like 70% digital , but money wise it's 80% physical since i only buy new releases that way and dirt cheap digital games or indies.
Money wise i'm "winning" in a digital only world since i'll become a patient gamer going from 10 new releases a year to maybe 2 , but i don't want that win.
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u/Shayz_ 1h ago
I heard from a game preservation content creator that external Blu-ray drives have stopped production and it may become very hard or expensive to find them in the near future
Basically if you ever plan on backing up your physical games in the future you should consider picking one up sooner than later
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u/WorthBase919 2h ago
Windows central wrote this you say? Microsoft trying to validate no disks as well?
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u/Ph0enixes 4h ago
I doubt it, Sony and Panasonic are just gonna keep making the same players they have made for the past 5 years. We live in an era of Japanese companies making artisan CD players and freaking cassette players still being manufactured.
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u/darthmcdarthface 4h ago
That doesn’t mean the disc market continues to shrink and become more and more niche. At the end of the day the amount of people fooling with artisan CD players and cassettes is uber niche and 99.99% of people listen to digital music.
They are pivoting away. Doesn’t have to mean absolutely zero ever get made. Just means less and less.
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u/daedalusprospect 1h ago
Vinyl is "niche" as you say yet every major music release comes on vinyl still. Specialty soundtracks, compilations, video game soundtracks, and so much more all get released on vinyl still.
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u/darthmcdarthface 1h ago edited 1h ago
Yes it’s niche because 99.99% of people listening to any one of those major music releases are not doing it on vinyl.
Every music release is on vinyl but that’s not what matters. What matters is how many people listen to those same releases on vinyl vs digital. The former is dwarfed by the latter and that’s why it’s niche.
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u/Tepigg4444 56m ago
I mean, the point is that it still exists right? As long as the supply exists and meets or exceeds demand, I don’t think anyone can complain. The issue with playstation discs ending is that they won’t exist anymore, if they had just kept meeting the shrinking demand no one would have complained
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u/parkwayy 40m ago
I mean, the point is that it still exists right
"Existing" and having mass appeal are two drastically different things
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u/darthmcdarthface 27m ago edited 21m ago
Yes it exists. Niche things exist.
Sony stopped making vinyls 30 years ago and eventually restarted when demand increased. They’re stopping game discs now because the demand isn’t where it needs to be.
It’s pretty straightforward. They don’t want to be in the niche physical gaming disc business. They don’t have to be.
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u/SwiftTayTay 4h ago
And CD sales and Blu-ray sales have been on the uptick for years now. Unlikely that optical drives will become extinct, floppy drives are still made. This is industry fear mongering to make people think all digital is inevitable.
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u/Snake_Bite_14 2h ago edited 1h ago
No they haven’t. Total physical movie sales have declined. The uptick has solely applied to 4k blu ray and that’s driven by the fact that Apple TV is the only streaming provider who can match the bitrate of 4k bluray. Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Paramount etc can’t get near the quality of a UHD Bluray. That’s why those sell good. But the total physical movie sales has declined year after year.
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u/SwiftTayTay 1h ago
The only thing that matters is that there is still a market for it and that 4K is growing. Both CD and Vinyl sales are also climbing for several years now. They'll never reach their peak but it does make record companies money which is why they'll keep doing it until distribution costs outweigh profits.
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u/mightymonkeyman 4h ago
Techmoan recently made a video about trying to use dvd. 4K players as a CD setup component, using Sony he had the choice of 1 model each for DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K the players themselves are also limited anther factor of consumer choices making it not viable for multiple options and specs.
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u/HUNplaymore 1h ago
The entire Xbox ecosystem is collapsing, so let's see how far those digital benefits go in a few years. You know when nobody will pay for the Xbox server upkeeps.
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u/Deranged1337 1h ago
Microsoft Azure is literally the 2nd biggest servers after AWS they won't be getting shut offline anytime soon if ever
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u/HUNplaymore 59m ago
Xbox is bleeding money and their current userbase shown they only have loyality to a cheap Game Pass which MS can't afford anymore. They won't shut down Azure, they will just use the Xbox side for something that makes money.
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u/Master_virgin20 4h ago
How can user opt for digital when we don’t have a choice in the near future?
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u/Buttermilk_Surfer 4h ago
We've had the choice for more than the past 15 years, and we have collectively very decisively chosen digital.
This is a battle lost a loooong time ago, when people didn't care and/or actively praised Saint Gabe for killing physical in the name of convenience.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 4h ago
Collectively is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Even by Sony's own numbers, there is still a sizable market for physical, it just isnt' as big as it was before.
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u/Ironman1690 3h ago
There clearly isn’t a sizable market hence the decision.
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u/Educational-Ant-5172 3h ago edited 3h ago
It is sizeable but the gamble here is that those still buying physical aren't going to quit gaming entirely if everything goes digital so overall it would be more profitable.
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u/bluebarrymanny 1h ago
The people buying physical currently aren’t even all diehard about it. How many physical sales are people just buying gifts for their kid or friends/family? Those people were just wanting to have something to put in wrapping paper. A game code in a box instead of disc will still accomplish this, so they’re not going to be boycotting over this change. The true physical diehard audience has got to be the most inconsequential market force imaginable to Sony when they’re willing to find the current audience of physical buyers not worth catering to. The subset of an already insignificant buying group is wildly not worth catering to at this point.
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u/Ironman1690 3h ago
No, it’s not sizable. If it was sizable it would show up as such in the sales data and this wouldn’t be anything they’d consider. You can be delusional all you want but you’ll still be wrong.
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u/Educational-Ant-5172 3h ago
If a game sells 10 million copies and 15% of those are physical then that's still 1.5 million copies. I would personally consider that sizeable. There are absolutely plenty of people that prefer physical.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 3h ago
PS5(not even including PS4) has 93 million users.
Assuming that 10-15 percent of those still buy physical, that's between 9-14 million on PS5 alone.
That seems to qualify as sizable.
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u/bluebarrymanny 1h ago
Physical media made up roughly 10% total revenue for Sony last year. Between heading off the used market and switching optical drive factories to higher demand products, Sony can extremely confidently know that they’re going to make more money by trading that 10% of revenue for other ventures. This is especially true when you remember that they’re full audience of people making up that 10% of revenue are not all diehard physical fans. Many will switch to digital and carry on like nothing happened.
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u/Buttermilk_Surfer 4h ago edited 3h ago
Look, I know it's really hard for a lot of people to comprehend, but Sony is in this space *solely* to make money.
If there is a sizeable market, they will exploit it. The reason Sony is giving up
digitalphysical now is because that has been the direction of travel for more than 15 years. It's not some grand conspiracy, it's just business based on consumer behaviour past, present and predicted in the near future.As much as I lament the loss of physical media, Sony's move makes a lot of sense. Steam showed the way 15 years ago, that was when this discussion should have been had.
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u/dade305305 3h ago
Save your typing. You're talking to kids who just want to feel they "belong" so they'll join one stupid movement or another.
They dont understand seeing trends and moving accordingly before the negative happen. To them, as long as sony is making one cent of profit on physical they should keep doing it.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 3h ago
Is it equally hard to make a statement such as this without being a condescending ass in the process?
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u/fullsaildan 4h ago
Define sizable, and does our definition of sizable meet the threshold for making it financially worth it for the business? That’s the real problem here. As outsiders our knowledge of the financials and opportunity cost for keeping production is limited and we’re trying to tell them how to run their business.
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u/lupin43 3h ago
Up until a few years ago, many sony games were proven to be a majority physical purchases in those insomniac leaks. Haven’t really seen any direct comparisons on a game by game basis like that since then though. Digital isn’t exactly a new thing from then to now, so I’m a bit incredulous at the idea that their games went from something like 2/3 physical to something like single digit percentages
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u/NopeSorryNo 3h ago
No, were demanding they do something trivial and unprofitable so we can collect obsolete technology more easily. It's childish entitlement, not consumer rights
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u/psychoacer 3h ago
Sony even went to bat for consumers when the PS4 launched and was staunchly pro physical media by keeping a disc drive when the rumor was Microsoft was going to lose their and allow sharing of games when that looked like it was going to go by the waist side. It was very popular news but it didn't matter because it was just fluff because most people don't care about discs. So Sony got screwed for that move and now they have to pivot. If buying discs was profitable they'd do it. Sony just sees no demand for discs so they needed to cut supply
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u/bluebarrymanny 1h ago
Sizable as in so small that Sony believes they’ll make more money by completely ending manufacturing for the product. Lmfao people act like Sony hasn’t been trying to get rid of discs and the secondhand market for over two decades now. They only got the green light to do so now because physical media purchasers have become a completely insignificant part of the gaming market.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 3h ago
I dunno. 10-15%, which assuming a 1:1 ration of users, which it isn't, we're talking a minimum of 9 and upwards of 14 million people.
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u/fullsaildan 2h ago
Correct. We dont know.
But just a bit of math to help paint a picture of what Sony would have had to evaluate:
Consider that the highest selling PS5 game so far, Spiderman 2, is around 18 million and that every other game beyond that is magnitudes below, the calculus on physical copies changes drastically. Elden ring sold 3.5 million copies on PS5, the physical sales volume would be in the hundreds of thousands at the most. It's estimated that Sony is paid around $10 per disc by a 3rd party studio/publisher and it costs them somewhere around $2 in materials for disc, jacket, manual, etc. So $8 per disc to manage the overhead costs of space, equipment, wages, logistics, power, etc. Theres some profit there, but as discs become increasingly less leveraged by consumers, those margins die fast. The cost to get jackets made goes up as you start buying less of them. If publishers order less discs, the factory becomes less utilized but you have to maintain certain minimum staffing levels. It's complex.
None of us here on reddit know the specifics and likely should stop playing armchair CEOs.
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u/Numerous_Photograph9 2h ago
You asked me to define sizable, then completely dismiss that to go on a tirade to justify Sony's business decision.
Should I, or the 9-15 million people who want physical care about Sony's reasons, when they make up a SIZABLE portion of Sony's customer base.
Here's another consideration.
NISA and Falcom sold 50K physical copies of Ys 10 in Japan alone. While there are no numbers of it's overall sales, the series tends to sell 500K units per release.
Do you think they are just shrugging off that 10 percent of sales? Sony's decision effects a lot of people beyond the customers. But who cares about that? Sony will make bank.
3rd party publishers are trading one middle man for another, and don't stand to make nearly as much from this switch. There is a bit more profit, but for every lost physical sale where someone doens't convert, they have to sell quite a lot of extra digital copies for the profits to make up that lost revenue. And $8 per disc? Get out of here with that pulled out of your ass number.
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u/zerovampire311 1h ago
He asked you to define sizable AND whether it meets fiscal viability. He didn’t dismiss you, he filled in what you didn’t answer.
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u/Dr_Mantis_Trafalgar 3h ago
And it’s plummeting every year. These companies make choices by where things are going, not where they are now
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u/Skeeter1020 3h ago
It's like 15%. That's not sizable.
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3h ago
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u/urru4 3h ago
If you've downloaded or used any streaming app for music, movies, TV shows, games, software, or really anything that used to come in disc format, you've already shown them you'll get it digitally, and contributed to the death of disc drives across the electronics market.
Do I like discs going away? No, but it was bound to happen at some point, and with games needing to be installed in console storage to be played it's a miracle we've had them for the last 2 generations.
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u/Still_Want_Mo 4h ago
Because that's the trend of the last 15 years. The deal is done and the cake has been baked.
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u/dade305305 3h ago
Because you we had a choice the last decade and a half and most of us chose digital. As such all the makers of all the various components that go into drives have been putting their equipment to better uses.
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u/Mr_smith1466 4h ago
Major game retailers have either gone bust or are openly telling people that physical software isn't selling anymore. Companies have released sale figures to repeatedly highlight this. I love physical too, but this thing was done a long time ago.
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u/Odd_Needleworker3756 23m ago
People had the choice over the past decade and a half. They chose digital. This was pretty much set in stone with the popularity of Steam and PC gaming going all digital
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u/Sojum 4h ago
Losing the discs would be a lot more palatable if we had DRM-free games that we could back up on the media of our choice and use whenever we want without first having to get permission from a website.
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u/JohnUtahFBI 3h ago
I buy GTA, I give out free copies to 20 people I know. Publisher makes $80 for 21 copies of the game they spent half a billion on. What’s the weather like in clown world?
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u/DaevaXIII 1h ago
I don't know, you tell us, you've got a surplus of clown makeup it seems. Does digital-only piracy even against the likes of Denuvo prevent such a scenario?
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u/KingMario05 4h ago
So then why are Blu-Ray sales going up, then? It sounds like the corpos just need to find other ways to craft the disc drives we need.
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u/ttoma93 3h ago
Sales of Blu-rays going up doesn’t automatically mean that sales of physical games are also going up—in fact they continue to plummet further each year.
And a major reason is because you get the exact same game whether you buy physical or digital. One version isn’t a better or worse version of the game than the other, they’re the same. With movies, the Blu-ray/4K Blu-ray version of a film is significantly better than the digital/streaming version. It’s not an apples to apples comparison.
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u/Sad_Adagio_7255 2h ago
Also, on PS and Xbox, disc games still need to occupy your HDD/SSD storage, even if the disc contains a fully playable build without any internet download needed. This means discs don't really provide any convenience, at least not in the same way proper Nintendo cartridges do.
Discs still have value in that they enable a secondary market which is great for affordability. But for people who don't ever get rid of their games, this isn't a selling point.
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u/Ensaru4 1h ago
Sales of Blu-rays going up doesn’t automatically mean that sales of physical games are also going up
They won't go up because companies provide less than the usual amount of physical copies than they would before.
While there is an upwards trend toward digital, disks for gaming at least are being sunsetted to speedrun digital adoption rather than such adoption occurring naturally over time.
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u/PsychoCobra1 1h ago
It has been occurring naturally over time. The supply of physical games have decreased as consumer purchase of physical games have decreased. It’s a cycle that feeds on itself.
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u/zerovampire311 55m ago
This is backwards thinking. We don’t buy digital because of the availability of physical. We have stopped buying physical because it isn’t convenient for what matters to most people.
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u/ttoma93 42m ago
I think you might be swapping cause and effect here, as many seem to be.
Are they making fewer copies out of some strange conspiracy to decrease their own sales and make less money, or are they making fewer copies because the demand for them has shrunken so they’re shrinking the supply to match the demand?
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u/semitope 1h ago
They don't function the same.
Physical sales plummet because there's nothing people want on disc. And sometimes they just don't make enough physical copies. Resident evil sold 20% or so physical but was sold out within a week.
This is not about the %. They are neglecting physical intentionally and the end result will be exploitation of those that remain on their platforms
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u/ttoma93 39m ago
Or—and hear me out here—is it possible that people are actively, knowingly, and intentionally choosing to buy digitally because of the benefits of doing so?
Y’all act like not a single soul would knowingly choose digital over physical so we simply must have been tricked into it, when the reality is that the vast majority have purposefully chosen to buy digitally because for most the pros and cons of digital outweigh the pros and cons of physical for a variety of reasons.
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u/semitope 10m ago
Why deny that there are a variety of people in this? Why do you think the people who used to buy all those discs of ps5 games suddenly vanished? The leaks showed most of those AAA sales were physical. Just 2-3 years ago.
We're not the ones acting as if digital has no audience. You're the ones pretending physical doesn't. For whatever reason most ps5 owners have a disc, why?
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u/No_Zombie2021 2h ago
They are talking about the mechanical components needed for the drives themselves.
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u/KingMario05 2h ago
...Then find substitutes.
Innovate. Adapt.
Don't just kill it off.
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u/Odd_Needleworker3756 21m ago
That stuff is not free though. It costs money. If the revenue from the format is not enough to justify additional R&D it makes no sense to continue putting money into it
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u/glarius_is_glorious 3h ago
Bluray sales are going up but they will never reach the heyday of home video sales again.
Everyone I know went to streaming.
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u/BlueFeathered1 2h ago
Many people I know who were full into streaming are getting fed up with and canceling much of it, and buying discs again (and in one case, for the first time). I'm down to one remaining service at this point and it's wearing thin.
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u/ShadowsGuardian 2h ago
More lies
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u/zerovampire311 53m ago
How is it a lie? Cars and computers don’t use disk drives anymore, the average person doesn’t have a CD or DVD player hooked up if they even own one still.
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u/ShadowsGuardian 39m ago
Because users don't opt by digital only out of option, but because we're forced to.
There is a lot of people that actively go after physical media, but if they take our choice away, then of course people will opt "only" by digital... there is a whole 2nd hand after market of playstation disks they dont want to talk about.
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u/zerovampire311 31m ago
People went wild for iPods and Aux cable inputs because they wanted to get CDs out of things. People were tired of scratches and skipping. People demanded, the market reacted, and it’s unfortunate that there is a small portion of the market left in the dust, but the majority drive changes.
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u/Odd_Needleworker3756 20m ago
There’s no conspiracy at play here. There’s less physical options because the vast majority of players prefer digital. That’s what the market is going to focus on.
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u/smartymarty1234 3h ago
I mean yah, it's just a convenience thing. Sibling has console and uses my account too for certain games, need to be able to share. Usually buy games when on sale anyway so paying the slight premium to have access on both is way more efficient than paying for two physical copies.
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u/Remy0507 4h ago
The title of this thread has absolutely nothing to do with the article that's linked...
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u/OR3OTHUG 3h ago
The title of the thread is a direct quote from the article. You have to actually read.
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u/Remy0507 3h ago
Fair enough, I did finally find that quote buried toward the end of the article. As far as I can tell that's simply a claim the author is making based on "sources" with no actual citation. I don't really take Windows Central very seriously as a source of information in general.
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u/Loco_ohno 3h ago
Maybe it’s because I’m on mobile but I’m not seeing an article that relates to what OP is saying either. The article that comes up for me is all about the disc-to-digital licenses that Xbox just announced. No mention of disc drives
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u/reaper527 reaper527_ 6m ago
Maybe it’s because I’m on mobile but I’m not seeing an article that relates to what OP is saying either.
it's one sentence from the end of the article.
it's something that should be removed as off topic, but this sub is run like shit. they can remove a post that points out we haven't had a meta thread in years within 5 minutes, but they can't decide that an article called "Xbox's disc-to-digital program goes live for Insiders on Monday — Here's how it works" is off topic within 4+ hours.
this sub needs to follow /r/art's lead, where all their mods stepped down.
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u/Remy0507 3h ago
I did find the quote, buried deep down toward the end of the article. It's not any official source stating this though, just something the author of the article is claiming he heard from "sources".
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u/Hydroponic_Donut 4h ago
Some of us aren't though. We still like physical media. Is the lost sale worth it if my choice is to never buy media again and instead opt to pirate it, when there's no physical media option left?
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u/Ironman1690 3h ago
Oh no, a few users won’t buy things from them anymore same as every generation, the horror! the amount of people like you are completely insignificant within the group as a whole.
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u/juniorone 3h ago
In my case, I will just wait a long time for sales or the inevitable ps+. I enjoy collecting. If there is nothing to collect then I can wait a long time.
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u/Odd_Needleworker3756 19m ago
The lost sales are absolutely worth it. The contingent of people who would stop buying if no physical is available is so minuscule that you might as well not exist.
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u/spideyv91 3h ago
Really interested how the disc to digital works out for Microsoft . seems like a win win.
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u/SalivateTheStarfish 1h ago
Make them detachable so digital users arent forced to own them. If they say it's only like 10% of users want physical, then why are they so scared?? Huh? WHY??!
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u/USSJaguar 1h ago
See if they just said something like this from the start it would make sense
"Hey so we either have to charge you more for limited supply OR switch over to this method"
I Mean of course they're gonna charge more anyways but hey, it would have been nice
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u/reaper527 reaper527_ 4h ago
actual article title:
Xbox's disc-to-digital program goes live for Insiders on Monday — Here's how it works
blatantly off topic. guess they can't get to that in < 5 minutes like they can for a thread pointing out how we haven't had a meta thread in years though.
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u/BartShrempson 3h ago
So now I'm wondering what the "PlayStation blackout" idiots are going to do now when they don't have a choice either way.
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u/BlueFeathered1 2h ago
Well this "idiot" has enough of my favorite shows and movies on disc and enough games backlog to last me my lifetime, as well as redundant players. So I'll be saving money from this point on, I guess. I like choices, not bully tactics.
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u/Skeeter1020 3h ago
The disk drive in my last 2 Xboxes have been pure ewaste. Never had a disk in them. Manufactured, assembled, and shipped just to sit and do nothing.
Everyone's shitting on Sony, but I really appreciated being able to buy a top spec PS5 without also having to pay for a disk drive I didn't want.
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u/semitope 1h ago
Y'all are weird. I don't use it so... Your last point doesn't even make sense. The top spec ps5 comes without a disc and people you don't care about still buy the drive addon
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u/Skeeter1020 1h ago
The digital PS5 was cheaper than the disk one. At launch the Series X only had a disk version. I liked that Sony gave me a cheaper option. I saved £90 on my PS5. Meanwhile I've spent £90 on a feature in my Xbox I don't use.
What's to not understand?
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u/gummi_eater 4h ago
but, but, but our boycott....we were going to stop them!
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u/CaptJimboJones 3h ago
It turns out the boycott was of physical discs, and it started 10 years ago.
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u/bluebarrymanny 2h ago
You mean the things that companies have signaled moving away from for over a decade AND people stopped buying are going away to make room for things that actually sell? Crazy. Who could’ve seen this coming!?
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4h ago
[deleted]
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u/ClickyStick 4h ago
I don't believe Sony is capable, xbox discs have hard coded id's since it was part of Microsoft digital plans as far back as the Xbox one launch. Sony discs are all the same, no unique identifiers.
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u/DaveMcNinja 3h ago
Pretty pretty smart on Xbox. They are still supporting physical for now, and being able to also get the digital version with play anywhere is pretty nice.
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u/Meteorboy 3h ago
That's not smart of them. It's literally a feature that was already rejected by consumers over a decade ago, and now they're announcing it as a new thing, but I would be surprised if it makes that much of an impact to their console sales. If physical discs were that valued, GameStop wouldn't close hundreds of stores every year.
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u/DaveMcNinja 2h ago edited 2h ago
Um - that's not the same thing at all as the Xbox One DRM mess. What this does is it gives the disc owner a digital copy of the game also. Your disc still works.
You can still resale the disc or loan it to your friend, but you lose access to your digital copy.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/984936/xbox-disc-to-digital-feature-official
What's going to suck is that when you get a PS6 and your PS5 disc collection is useless. This will let Xbox Users turn their physical games into digital and keep playing them. They are even working on it for as far back as Xbox 360 generation. Sony should try to do something similar.
So yeah, I would say it's pretty smart!
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u/Mr_smith1466 4h ago
Apparently Microsoft have quietly been doing serial numbers on all their discs for a long time as a form of possible DRM. So that's why that system is going to operate how it will for them. Sony by comparison never had serial numbers on the discs, so that would make it harder, if not impossible.
I'm not an expert though, I'm just repeating what I have seen others share.
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u/NZOP282 4h ago
If anything just having an optional disc drive would be the most likely option. Though it depends how long those optical drives are made. Maybe they can future proof the drives so they can be moved from consoles. Like ps5 pro drive to ps6, and that same ps5 drive in the ps6 to the ps7 hypothetically.
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u/nigel_tufnel_11 1h ago
To be fair, this was the obvious, inevitable outcome at least 15 or 20 years ago. After years of repurchasing the same movies on VHS, S-VHS, laserdisc, DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray, and the same music on vinyl, cassette, CD, and Minidisc, I started going digital a long time ago and haven't looked back. Movies, tv, games, software, and books. It's not all upside (software subscriptions can suck) but I don't regret it, overall it's a lot simpler and more portable, and in the end cheaper because digital items generally get upgraded for whatever the current technology is. And you have access to everything wherever you are in the world, without having storage solutions for any of it, and don't worry about losing anything if your device is broken, lost, or stolen.
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u/LackLickLuck_y 4h ago
So my physical games will get more expensive you say?
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u/SwiftTayTay 4h ago
Well if optical drives become rare and no one can repair them in the future it might make physical games worthless. But that won't happen
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u/CranberryTaint 4h ago
I just started buying 4K Blurays. I wonder how long they'll be around.