Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / Sony's Going Digital-Only — Why That Should Worry You
Transcript
- Malcolm: Cause it's like, granted, I'm not gonna like it it does suck, but I will just add some context to what may have driven some of Sony's decisions, right? So if you look at the numbers, bro, it sucks because like as much as as much outrage and backlash as Sony has gotten over this decision to discontinue physical disc console production, the big thing is that like put yourself in the seat shoes of a CEO, right? Eighty-five percent of full game software sales on PS4 and PS5 were digital in quarter four of fiscal year twenty twenty five. Seventy-eight percent full year average. Physical disc is roughly three percent of gaming revenue. Digital products carry higher margin. There's no split with pressing pants, distributors, distributors, or retail chains. They don't have to split any of the profit. Everything just goes straight on the PlayStation store. Granite. The the the the issue that I have a problem with and it's like I like at the end the day, bro, you are a gaming system. So you still have to adhere and you have to serve gamers, bro. That's your that's your audience. Your audience is gamers, bro. My thing is like this whole licensing thing where you don't really own anything, and if you don't log into your account after X amount of time and like as an example, right? Like I I don't like the fact where it's like if the PlayStation network is down, all your games are clipped. If you don't play the game for a long enough time, all your games are cooked. If something's wrong with your internet, your Wi Fi, woo you can't get on all your games are cooked. The whole point of having a disc copy wasn't so much that people just love disc. It's the fact that one one now when you give when you give c entities like Sony control over everything about a game every at any point, you everybody knows that when a game gets old, you can go and buy the hard copy GameStop for like five dollars, bruh. What's stopping PlayStation from keeping the next 2K from staying in a hundred dollars from the day it releases to the day it dies? What's stopping PlayStation from making the oldest Call of Duty possible? sixty dollars. What's stopping PlayStation from from literally setting whatever 'cause when you allow a company to own the entirety of the market share, they can they can literally do whatever they want with the price. And the thing is, Sony is the thing about it, we are we're doing it's all this backlash online, all this outrage. But the thing is Sony is literally making everyone eat their words because the top four selling as soon as the the the the Call of Duty Black Ops Two and Black Ops One release back on on digital ports for PS PS5. Guess what the number one top selling games were Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2. GTA 6, and it may be an anomaly, but when GTA 6 came out, right up there on the top selling games, right? 2K, 2K just just opened for the P order. It's on the top of selling for in the PS store. College Football 27, top selling in the PS store. GTA 6, top selling in the PS store. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and 1, top selling in the PS store. None of these games have digital discs. Everyone is still buying them at the same clip as before. What's why would somebody stop? They don't care about anybody that's outraging because they know you're still they know it's all like it's all this. You're still gonna buy the game. You're still gonna go back and buy it. And it's like what this really comes down to. I'm not saying this is a right decision or or or or ethical decision. This is really just Sony just dragging their nuts.