"PC" has many storefronts I can buy digital product keys on. Which storefronts sell Sony keys, and can set their own prices?

doesn't even have to be a digital storefront for PC. I was at a convention last year with a booth where a developer was selling their game on USB flash media, in custom made cases.

There’s nobody stopping anyone from releasing games on PC on optical media or any other format.

Sony had a monopoly on their PlayStation and are changing the rules that customers signed on for when they bought the hardware.

"You end up paying way more" on digital PlayStation purchases, SM&C argues, even without the physical media market driving prices down. "On average, up to 47%. It's basically a Sony tax, and that's clearly against the law."

"The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price,"

Yet just yesterday I saw someone arguing and demonstrating that playstation's store was competitive, if not cheaper, than steam for the same games. Meaning you could buy most games anywhere else AND they were not cheaper. So where do they have this 47% number? Was it regional?

How did they change the rules? Every new console gets a new set of rules, its been that way forever.

So what they currently bought still has a disc player, the new one wont. Dont buy the new one if you don't like it.

Why would the prices be any different even if they were on another store?

Uh.... That's the nature of capitalism, bud. A store would set their prices lower to entice customers to buy from them instead of someone else.

Competition. Look at the PC market place, and how cheap keys go for. Also, prices aside, monopolies are just bad for customers.

Not really. Not if you control the license. I can sell me keys at any price I want, and expect every store to honor that price or lose money doing any less. Or even make a contract that they cannot change the price. I can lock out people who don't have the "sony version". Lots of ways to make sure this never becomes cheaper.

Thats capitalism buddy.

In the end its a hardware problem. Sony controls the hardware, they can choose to run or not run anything they want. Like all consoles since forever. Better to move to open platforms, and then you can have competition.

Nope. Not really. Someone pointed out yesterday that sonys sales were actually cheaper than PC, but thats neither here nor there.

Sony can lock the licenses into what ever price they want. Or even not have them work on their devices. This isn't as simple as you think it is.

And if you are looking at PC prices, why would you bother having a sony hardware in the first place?

Can you provide an example where the Sony key was cheaper than a PC key when both were on sale, because that has not been my experience. Discs? Sure, but not keys.

Also, I'm looking at PC prices because that is the example given of a disc-less ecosystem, but it isn't actually a good comparison, because there is competition, which is what I was pointing out.

I saw a post where the person was saying this, but of course being international the money was in a currency I don't track which did make me wonder if there are regional variants.

Looking now I see the steam and PSN sales about equal. They cited some cheaper games, but I don't recall what.

I always assume that eventually steam will be much less, certainly Humble is.

Of course I would never buy a game that only worked on a single device. Physical or not, buying for Sony seems stupid.

They changed the rules by stopping disk production to their market leading home console. The optical drive is often sold out because people actually want one on their console.

It is literal enshitification of their own product.

How is that changing the rules? This makes no sense. They are creating a new console, it wont have a drive. So what? Each gen (typically) forgets what came before it. This is nothing new.

Steam games are not PlayStation games...

So how does GOG fit in

So many are available on both platforms its a fair comparison.

But not that relevant if you have a PlayStation and want to play games on said PlayStation

The point was the price. And a lot of games are on both platforms. Most of them are actually. Go look at the psn sale right now.

They are changing the rules on the PS5 console. Sony announced that they will stop making optical disks even though customers still buy them and it is not losing them money.

One of the main benefits of a game console is the used games market. It allows people to borrow games and sell them because it belongs to them.

The fact that Sony had to announce it means that they are literally changing the rules. Especially since they are keeping very quiet about it.

The price on different platforms doesn't matter so much if you don't have those different platforms. That's the point. If you have only a PlayStation you're only able to pay the prices that Sony determines, and they know that so they don't have to compete so much with other systems, and soon they won't have to compete with the second hand market so they'll have even less of a reason to keep prices competitive.

I support this action, and hope they win, but realistically we need to be ready for Sony’s likely responses from their lawyers to persuade a judge. If you can counter-argue the following, props to you, because I’m unfortunately better at playing devils advocate than forming the best preservation arguments.

“Your iPhone doesn’t have a disc drive. Your watch doesn’t have a card slot. Personal computers don’t even come with disc drives anymore. The world has moved long beyond the idea that software is associated with a physical item, and our customer data reflects that. The disc drive has long been a heavy point of failure in the PlayStation’s design, and provided less benefit as more users across territories become internet-enabled. Requiring Sony specifically to retain an archaic design when the same expectation is not set on manufacturers like Apple or Microsoft is tacitly preferential legislation. Sony has built the PlayStation architecture and naturally benefits from it; others are free to design their own devices if they feel there is underserved competition.”

There’s a lot of good talking points about preservation, but not much that directly addresses the idea one company is receiving specific requirements.

The point is that the current sale is on par with the other platforms, using Steam as a comparison. So right now this is not true. Will it change in the future? Who knows.

What Rules? People keep saying that, but there are no rules.

Every console is different, few are backward compatible. This is just another change for a new model. You can argue you don't like not having physical discs so don't buy it. But there are no "rules".

Edit: I have said this before, I am FAR more angry about Sony promising linux twice then taking it away on the same console through an update. Now THAT is breaking a promise. They could have dropped linux support next console, no big deal, but this was a bait and switch. Nobody seemed to learn a thing from that and kept buying their crap. Now they are whining about physical discs. Its sony, they suck, get over it and don't buy their products. It is that easy.

Eh, that isn't going to stop them from enshittifying and wont prevent users from "renting" them either.

It is nothing more than semantics.

I think they mean the sales.

Playstation Store has about the same sales as Steam has. Plenty of 90% off and stuff. Don't know if they are actually cheaper.

Except those all have competing app stores. Some of them even had to be forced to allow them, but they do allow them. By moving to digital only, you MUST buy ALL games through Sony and their storefront.

This is the core of the issue. If Apple and Google have to allow alternative app stores, then why can Sony have a monopoly? There is prescident for that argument already, which ruled against Apple and Google. I don't see Sony winning where Apple and Google lost.

Yes with the sales, exactly.