Topic: I for one welcome the glorious return of overconfident E3 2006 Sony.

[pokepal148]

It also sucks because the PS5 is basically the only 4K BluRay player with a competent UI. Standalone players run on an OS fresh from 2012 that their chipset can barely run, the Xbox's dashboard is kind of bad for that kind of thing unless you enjoy scrolling through gamepass nonsense (not to mention the XBOX is atrocious at upscaling DVDs) and I am still clinging to physical media for movies because as stated above movie companies like to yoink content from people's libraries.

[Evan_B]

So this is how physical media dies… with thunderous… oh wait this is actually being ridiculed by a sizable number of people. Enough of a drop in the well? Probably not- money is money, and getting more of it often justifies the means.

[Ian Sane]

Timing the announcement of no more physical games so soon after taking away digital purchases is bizarre.  Like your PR people should be on top of that.  But with this and the earlier GTA6 announcement about the game being a code in a box (did Sony coordinate with Rockstar on that?), it feels like the approach is "yeah, we're doing this.  What are you going to do about it?  Nothing!"  You would figure that this would be something you try to ease your customers into.  Nintendo is sort of doing that with Game Key Cards.  But this is more like a demonstration of power.  Execute some prisoners to keep the rabble down.

I was just at the Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo adding more games to backlog.  Turns out I've just been preparing this whole time for my eventual exit from the videogame industry.  I have enough games to last the rest of my life and it appears I will need them.

Now is the PS6 coming out in 2027?  It is strange to cancel physical releases mid-generation for a system but it makes a lot more sense if they go digital-only with the PS6 and cease making physical PS5 games at the same time.

[broodwars]

Following this announcement, I brought my PS3 out of storage; hooked it up; and got it updated and ready to go again. Think I'm going to get some playtime in for Backlaugust in a month. Some words of warning to anyone else thinking of doing this:

1. Remember, the controllers used USB Mini cables, and the ones you have probably don't work as well as you would like. That's certainly been my experience trying to charge my Dualshock 3s back up.

2. Signing into PSN on a PS3 in 2026 is...an experience. You have to get a device code from your account manager to do it, and use that as your password to sign into your account.

3. You cannot buy games from PS3 PSN using a credit card anymore. You HAVE to use gift card wallet funds. Coincidentally, those seem to be a hot seller on Amazon right now.

4. As a corollary to 3, even if you DO add funds to your wallet with a gift card code, the PS3 PSN STILL won't let you buy anything because it wants you to confirm your CC details. Nothing I entered worked, so I had to delete my CC off my account before the PS3 would just bypass the CC check and use the wallet funds.

5. The PS3 is way, way, WAY slower than you remember to do anything online. You can basically watch an entire Extended Cut LOTR movie in the time it takes to download ONE PS2 game. And the PS3 store always was and always will be a colossal PoS with an incredibly clunky interface.

6. Consult these wikis to see what PS1 and PS2 games we're going to be losing once these stores shut down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_downloadable_PlayStation_games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_downloadable_PlayStation_2_games

There are a LOT of PS1 & PS2 digital games I bought back in the day and completely forgot about. For instance, I forgot I owned Fatal Frames 1 & 3 and both Parasite Eve games. That ****'s never getting re-released; remastered; or remade. I have both Digital Devil Saga games. Those might get remastered...someday...if Atlus can give a damn, but it's not likely.