Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel. I hope you’re all having a great day. Now, it’s been about two and a half months (as of the writing of this article) since Sony dropped their very painful anti consumer bombs on our collective heads. There’s been plenty of anger and rage about this, rightfully so. But it’s time to analyze how this all came about. Starting from the anti consumer announcements, to the responses, to the backlash, and ultimately, how things can possibly be changed for the better. As a Playstation fan from as far back as the PS1, this situation is painful, but being a fan won’t stop me from pointing out the negatives. And unfortunately, this whole ordeal has been a constant stream of negative. Now, when you look across the internet, you see some people foolishly defending Sony’s choices. Even worse, some people have a defeated attitude, saying “it’s inevitable”. But they couldn’t be more wrong. And I’ll explain how and why.
What kicked off this whole stream of Sony pretty much destroying their goodwill with the customers was when they decided to take away videos that people “bought”. On September 1 2026, Playstation customers that purchased movies that were distributed by Studio Canal, 551 movies and television shows in total, will no longer be access to what they paid for. Now to be fair, this isn’t the first time a license dispute between Sony and Studio Canal resulted in content removal. But this is be far the most egregious one. And as an added insult, there’s no refund or compensation on any kind mentioned to be given to the affected customers. And just like most companies, the reason for this is they’re hiding behind their TOS where they say you only have a temporary viewing liscense, not ownership. Now of course, people were angry about this and still are. But for as bad as that is, it pales in comparison to the two moves that came next. Sadly, Sony isn’t even the only company that pulled movies people purchased. Google recently did the same thing.
On July 1 2026, Sony posted on their official Playstation blog that the Playstation stores on the PS3 and PS Vita were going to close July of next year. This isn’t the first time they tried this. But due to backlash from the fans being so great, they were forced to walk the decision back. This time however, that announced it with an even worse decision which we’ll speak on next. Now, the stores closing on the PS3 and Vita are bad for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that there are plenty of psn games that were only ever released on the PS3 and/or Vita versions of the store. With no physical versions of them ever produced. So once the store closes, all traces of some games will vanish right along with it. That means games like Vib Ribbon, Tokyo Jungle, Battle Princess Arcadias and loads more will only exist in people’s memory after July 2027. Then there’s also all the PS1, PS2, and PSP classics that were sold on store. That was a nostalgia gamer’s dream when you account that a good portion of those older games are wildy expensive physically.
Sure, you can hunt some down for a fair price. But a good portion of them would have you paying half your soul with some of those prices. I’m looking at games like The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Mega Man Legends 2, Suikoden 2, Blood will Tell, and a host of others. Once the store is gone, the only way to play these games will be hunting down expensive physical copies. Assuming they aren’t placed on the PS4 or PS5 storefronts. And even then, if it’s only through Playstation Plus, it’s a pale comparison to actual ownership.
And if that’s not bad enough, the ghost of Playstation’s TOS is real here, much like it was with those movies taken from people that “bought” them. In their blog post, take note of this particular wording “To ease the transition, players will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date for the foreseeable future”. That means that if or when they see fit, they’ll cut people off from their libraries. So for anyone that sits here thinking they won’t do that to game purchases, just know they literally just told us all the they can. However, as I’m sure many have seen through the internet zeitgeist, this news is overshadowed by an equally problematic issue.
On the same day they posted about the closing of the PS3/ Vita store, the major pain point for most gamers was the announcement of physical disc production ending in 2028. When you look across the internet, it’s easy to see this is the move that became the biggest sticking point for the PlayStation fanbase. From the sense of tradition, this is a massive blow because one of the more personal parts of owning a console was physical game collection. Many gamers like having tangible items in their cases and on their shelves, myself included.
Then there’s the sense of ownership. When people buy something, it’s not meant to be a lease, it’s meant to be ownership. Now, companies have always put legal jargon up to challenge that, basically saying you’re leasing a license. But the fact of the matter is, if you physically have a game or product in your possession, they can’t stop you from playing it however you want. Then there’s the added reality that as long as physical games are around, the customers aren’t held hostage to whatever prices PlayStation (or any digital store) wants us to pay.
The reality is, Sony gave us excuses as to why they’re doing this from the environment to customer preference to cost savings, each of these excuses I’ll be debunking later on. The reality is this is about wanting control over people. It’s not just the fanbase that reacted negatively, but retailers have also voiced their clear displeasure of the situation. And while some in the industry seem to be in favor of this horrible dystopian choice, just as many in the industry are openly against it. I’ll speak more on that later.
And Sony’s anti-consumer practices aren’t even relegated to PlayStation alone. Crunchyroll has been subject to this as well. In all fairness, anime fans have been voicing their displeasure with Crunchyroll’s way of going about business for years so that’s nothing new. But around the same time, Sony announced that Crunchyroll’s merchandise store would require a subscription fee to access it. Yes, you read that right. They literally want you to pay for the right to access the store they want to sell you anime collectibles from. How they don’t see how detrimental that is to their business is beyond me. Telling the customer that need to pay the entrance fee just to buy niche merchandise is outrageous. This isn’t a club store like Costco or Sam’s Club. This is simply anime merchandise.
Control is the operative word here. They want to control how much each individual pays with their dynamic pricing. They want to control your sense of ownership or lack theroef with their TOS, effectively giving them control over what you “own”. And they want full control over the format you play on, which is why they’re trying to eliminate physical games. And let it sink in, despite people voicing their anger about all these decisions, they ignored customers for a whole month after the announcements. And only after an investor started to ask the same questions as consumers did Sony’s CFO issue a response.
Now, I want to challenge and debunk some of the claims Sony as made as the reason for their decisions on physical discs. The first reason they gave us was that it was an environmental concern. Sony posted a graph on the internet showing the environmental cost of making physical discs. At face value, it does make sense. But only at face value. They show the disc creation process creates production waste, packaging waste, and the issues that come with transportation of the products.
Now to be fair, most they said is true, but again, only at face value. And some of it comes off as omission. First, the packaging waste. This is mostly true, The fuel, factory and material waste is a real thing. But what they made a point to not tell everyone is how damaging to the environment the data centers they’ll need to use for their digital initiatives are. The data centers their third party server and storage partners be using will need cause noise, air, and water pollution. So unless they can convince their server partners to go green and clean, all they did was pass the buck. And the impact is arguably worse.
Next, the packaging concern they brought up with not having physical discs, cases, or paper. On their own graph they say it would eliminate waste production. But this doesn’t even make sense because disc cases and printed material are already recyclable anyway. They would have had a point if they were only talking about the discs, but they added things that they themselves already recycle.
For the transportation part, this just with packaging is a flimsy excuse. This kind of reasoning would have worked before EV cars, trucks, and charging stations became a thing. That would eliminate the diesel part of their defense. Even with the jets for overseas transport, this is negligible because they bulk their products with other companies for air cargo transport. So them suddenly saying they won’t do it anymore does nothing when all these other companies are still doing it.
Then there’s the fact they still plan to push hardware. What environmental impact are they really changing on the transportation front if they still plan to sell PS6 hardware?. All in all, their environmental impact excuses are weak and disingenuous. The only was this works is if they stopped selling hardware along with software. So whatever damage they told us they cause before the change will happen regardless. The only way that claim gets legitimacy is if they stopped making hardware too.
The second thing I want to push back on is the narrative that the people are choosing digital that Sony and some western developers are pushing. Now there is no question that digital sales are higher that physical by in large is true. But what they aren’t mentioning is how the industry is manipulating the field heavily in favor of pushing digital. For example, since around October of 2012 onward, every game you can purchase physically had a digital version released on digital stores on the PS3 and Xbox 360. So since then, every physical game has a digital counterpart. However, the same is nowhere near close the other way around.
The vast majority of games only release digital. And what adds insult to injury is that dlc and microtransactions also help inflate a number that digital already had an advantage on. Then you have how many companies started to sell pseudo physical games where they’ll sell you a game case with a code inside instead of an actual game disc. Or, they’ll have a game disc that serves as an installer where you still need the internet in order to download and play it.
All three of the major home platform holders have had their part in pushing the field away from physical games. Microsoft’s Gamepass is a digital rental service that Xbox pushes more than the games they actually sell. And the moment a game leaves the service, they give customers a discount on those games, further enticing people to lock into the ecosystem digitally.
Nintendo has been pushing game key cards, trying to straddle both the physical and digital lines. In reality, all Nintendo has done is give people pseudo physical since the game key cards still need the internet to download the game.
And Sony’s part in this hurts me because I like physical collector editions of games. Fairly early into the PS5 generation, Sony stopped giving people physical games in collector editions. They give people digital game codes instead. There are more ways the industry made a point to push digital over physical, but these are a short list that come to mind for me.
Unfortunately, plenty of Western companies and developers welcome this dystopian way of doing things. Former Valve developer Chet Faliszek says the people have chosen digital. Ubisoft’s president doesn’t even feel this will hurt the industry in any real way. And Take Two’s president feels it doesn’t make sense for the consumer to have physical.
It makes sense for indie companies and indie devs to use digital storefronts exclusively. They normally don’t have the resources and marketing for physical game releases. We can’t say the same for the big developers and publishers. Every big publisher has made a point to release games that are only available digitally. So when someone like Chet Faliszek says people are choosing digital, he neglects the fact that the vast majority of games are only distributed in digital form.
That’s not a choice. That’s being told you can only play said game one way or not at all. He leaves out nuances like that. Here’s an example. I bought a game years ago on PSN called Megaton Musashi Wired W. This is currently available on the PS5, PS4, the Switch, and Steam. By the way, this game is a gem and deserves all the good praise it can get. When you look at the size, quality, and content, this is the sort of game that would have and should have had a physical release. Sadly, this is digital only. So is this me “choosing” digital? Or, is this me not having any other choice of format if I want to play Megaton Musashi Wired W?
This is the kind of nuance Faliszek misses. This is just one example, there’s a digital ocean of games in the same exact spot where there is no choice. Ubisoft and Take-Two have long held stances of taking away consumer autonomy through the cover of convenience. And considering the vampiric ways both companies monetize their consumer bases, their takes on the situation is no surprise to anyone.
Thankfully, eastern developers have a totally opposite view on the matter. Hideo Kojima was very direct on how dystopian this whole thing is and how companies will be able to just cut people off any time they choose. He’s actually been vocal about this kind of thing happening for over 15 years. So much so if that it’s one of the underlying theme of his Metal Gear games, especially MGS2 and MGS4.
Sega’s COO gave his public statement on the ending of physical discs. He mentioned that while he understands digital expansion is vital, his company will continue to support physical games.
Former Nippon Ichi Software CEO and Disgaea creator Sohei Niikawa was more forceful, stating that Sony no longer understands the sentimental or collector value of games anymore. He even goes further saying you may as well not own hardware either. Which is part of the point that even I was making when they showed their environmental reason for not making discs anymore. But why is there such a difference between the Western and Eastern mindset on this matter? I’ll speak more on that towards the end.
July 1 2026 was chaos for the gaming industry. Especially if you were a Playstation fan. Sony announcing the closing of the PS3 and Vita store as well as ending physical games in 2028 was painful. And for about a month, Sony was silent. And in that silence, gamers made sure their anger was voiced. Petitions on Change.org are plenty and keep growing in sign ups. And even on Sony’s own social media pages, they’ve been getting bombarded with dislikes, negative replies, and anything else regarding general displeasure.
And it’s still happening today at the time of this article. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Look at Sony’s youtube videos, reddit posts, Facebook posts, etc. The backlash was so strong that Gran Theft Auto VI’s announcement was pulled ( to be fair Rockstar has their own hand and issues to deal with so they aren’t innocent either). This is magnified by the fact that all their other partners were caught off guard by this decision as well. And when they advertise their games on Playstation’s social media pages, they immediately get caught up in the backlash by no fault of their own.
For a full month, Sony made a point not to give the enraged fanbase any follow up response to their announcements, which in turn made the revolt stronger. In fact, it was so strong that eventually Sony’s CFO, Lin Tao finally gave a response exactly one month later to one of the shareholders that was concerned about the backlash. Which by the way was a day after They announced their quarterly earning results. Let this sink in, this show’s where Sony’s priorities are. The people that buy their products were angry…and they still are, and were given no response. But when a shareholder gets concerned about the revolt and the platform future, then they decide to respond. I’ll explain why that’s a good thing for those of us that want to save physical media and the PS3/Vita store toward the end.
Now, ever since Lin Tao’s reply, it’s been back to silence on the matter mostly, at least when it comes to consumers. So far, they look to double and triple down on the matter. Many people looked at Sony’s quarterly results and came to the conclusion that the positive number is the reason they can double down. But the be honest, that couldn’t be more wrong.
A channel on Youtube broke this down really well named Omniarch TV, great channel check it out. He basically showed that the only reason Playstation made any profit was because of the Yen currently being weak and tariffs. Physical games lost money. Digital games lost money, although not as much. And whatever else didn’t lose money basically broke even. Keep in mind, the quarter ended the day before the ps3/vita store closing and ending physical games announcements. So the effects of the petitions, online rage, the boycotts, the lawsuits, etc aren’t even in the equation as of yet. So the real story will be how the next two quarters looks
Hope isn’t lost despite what many in the industry might say. Keep in mind, when Sony tried to close down the PS3 and Vita stores the first time, the decision wasn’t reversed right away. They didn’t reverse that choice until it was fairly close to the shut off date. So protesting with your wallet does work. So all the social media backlash and petitions need to continue. The only time it doesn’t work is when you have people like BeskInfinity. BeskInfinity is the kind of person that allows these corporations to get away with nonsense. He had the “F U” energy for Sony when they made the announcements. Then once Activision released two ancient call of duty games he goes and buys them digitally anyway. Let it sink in, these aren’t remakes or remasters. These are the same old COD games that came out on the PS3 years ago. People love to talk big until it’s time to actually stick to their words.
Then you have the countries pressing litigation against Sony. Including the U.S., the U.K., Portugal, Mexico, and the Netherlands. The basis of most of the cases inadvertently ties to Sony’s choice to stop physical games. Long story short, these lawsuits argue in part that Sony has a digital monopoly over the Playstation store and it will only magnify if physical game creation is stopped. And this case they may have precident because Sony’s been sued in the past for very similar things. And companies (including Sony) have been pushing “dynamic pricing”, so the prosecutors will have merit on their side.
Lastly, if the protests or lawsuits won’t force them to change, the shareholders might. Like we stated earlier, Lin Tao was made to answer questions because a shareholder had concerns, not because they felt their fanbase deserved answers. If their Q2 results are poor due to all the pressure from so many sides, you better believe it will be more than just one shareholder they’ll be answering to. And that is what may force Sony’s hand to reverse course and do the right thing. It is, as it is with most things, it’s all about the shareholder money.
Right now, we mostly see Sony in a negative light. Well deserved by the way. But it doesn’t have to be that way. But that all depends on how or if Sony is willing to change.
The first thing they need to do is move their main office back to Japan. Now, I’m not saying leave the U.S., but they need to refocus. They’ve become too entrenched in the capitalist nature of the West and lost their sense of tradition and customer service. And that wasn’t made more evident than when they closed Japan studios. Earlier I spoke on how the Western companies were in favor of digital while the Eastern ones were in favor of physical. That’s not a coincidence. Historically, the East has cared about tradition whereas the West cares about the profit before all else. Don’t get me wrong, the Eastern companies care about profits too. They just don’t covet it over tradition. It’s why the Japanese developers and companies view Sony’s latest moves so negatively. Sony forgot what made Playstation what it was and need to remember who they are. I remember awhile back the AA market falling apart was the reason why Sony closed Japan studios. But is that really true? Some indie games turn out great without large budgets or marketing and still turn profit. And outside of Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and Pokemon, one could argue most of the other Nintendo games are AA. So closing Japan studios didn’t make sense with the current excuse given. But Sony can start to rectify that by rebuilding the studio.
Second, they need to remember they’re a console maker, not the PC. There’s a reason over 80% of the PS5 sales are the version that have a disc drive. Sure digital sales are higher in most cases, but that’s mainly because customers are deprived of choice and manipulation. Not necessarily because they choose digital. Image if we did a case study with Sony’s collector edition games. For a long time now, collector editions of PS5 games have come with a digital code rather than the disc. But what if they had a disc version and a digital version selling at once. Which one do we really believe will sell better? Especially if it’s clearly visible on the box which comes with the actual disc and which has a code instead. Besides, remember the PSP go? I’m sure a handful of people do. That didn’t exactly go well. So clearly, they need to continue physical games.
Third, Sony has to remember how to cultivate. Once upon a time, they new how to build franchises and build device longevity through consumer trust. It’s what put the Playstation in a great position back in the day. But over time they forgot the importance of that. Whether it be VR, the PS Vita, Playstation HOME, and a plethora of franchises that weren’t allowed to grow even though the developers clearly had more stories to tell. Days Gone is a great example of that. And with Naughty Dog not making a new Last of Us for the PS5 generation, Days Gone 2 had a great chance to fill the void. This kind of mismanagement is inexcusable.
Lastly, they need to play to their strengths. In the PS1 and PS2 era (Ape Escape and Omega Boost come to mind), Sony were known for quirky unique games. In the PS3 and PS4 eras, it was all about storytelling. But in time, they started to veer away from that and chase trends. Such as Live Service and games that follow fads. They were a market leader and actively decided to forget who they are to become market followers. Time for that to end. What made them a powerhouse is what can save them, if they’re willing to listen to their fanbase. Go back to story based games. Go back to quirky Japanese audience based games. And most importantly, cherish the history the brand developed from day 1. And if they still want multiplayer, that’s fine. Just have it tied to the single player product the way it was in the PS3 era. Because live service online only clearly isn’t working.
With how Sony is going about their business, I’m more than happy ending my Playstation journey with the PS5. I’m at the point that even if they reversed these foolish decisions it wouldn’t make a difference for me. And I’m more than likely not the only person that feels this way. The self inflicted damage is just too great.
