Sony is erasing over 550 movies from PlayStation libraries without offering a single refund. If clicking "Buy" only grants access until a corporate licensing deal expires, the service is fundamentally broken.
I would be curious how that will work with anti-trust legislation. At least currently, there’s an argument that Sony does not prevent people from buying games from other sources, or other publishers from publishing physical games for their consoles.
That’s no longer the case if they switch to a purely digital model, since they become the sole source of all the games on PlayStation, and have unilateral authority over them. The only place you can get a game on a digital model is Sony.
Since the iPhone was released, Apple was the only place you could buy Apps from. The same has been true of a lot of niche appstore-driven devices, like VR headsets. It’ll be hard to argue that a game console, a device to run software, must produce that software on discs, and must sell those discs to other retailers.
In a way, this fight was going on between Epic and Apple over Fortnite back in 2020. Gamers just didn’t care because those devices didn’t have disc drives.
It’s hard to picture how competition could be formalized though. It’s a good thing Valve decided to create their own through the key system, but I can’t picture Sony doing something similar. We might lose discs no matter what happens - I am still trying to think through how we might win back ownership and control regardless. With a lot of goods, you could just claim price competition on things like games, but when so many gamers could barely afford one console to begin with, hardly anyone will afford a second to take advantage of Xbox prices or something.
I would be curious how that will work with anti-trust legislation. At least currently, there’s an argument that Sony does not prevent people from buying games from other sources, or other publishers from publishing physical games for their consoles.
That’s no longer the case if they switch to a purely digital model, since they become the sole source of all the games on PlayStation, and have unilateral authority over them. The only place you can get a game on a digital model is Sony.
Since the iPhone was released, Apple was the only place you could buy Apps from. The same has been true of a lot of niche appstore-driven devices, like VR headsets. It’ll be hard to argue that a game console, a device to run software, must produce that software on discs, and must sell those discs to other retailers.
In a way, this fight was going on between Epic and Apple over Fortnite back in 2020. Gamers just didn’t care because those devices didn’t have disc drives.
It’s hard to picture how competition could be formalized though. It’s a good thing Valve decided to create their own through the key system, but I can’t picture Sony doing something similar. We might lose discs no matter what happens - I am still trying to think through how we might win back ownership and control regardless. With a lot of goods, you could just claim price competition on things like games, but when so many gamers could barely afford one console to begin with, hardly anyone will afford a second to take advantage of Xbox prices or something.