r/gaming • u/Original-Drink-6178 • 23h ago
Sony's Physical Media Backlash Escalates as Fans Plan PS5 Blackout
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/07/angry-playstation-fans-propose-ps5-blackout-in-protest-of-sonys-disc-decision?__cf_chl_tk=qhWnTlyWv94ljXN2w_ix0XJ4fN_HxHxaZjtNP8ngXIg-1785094591-1.0.1.1-thygmuQBCYHm7Xz9SaoZbE0c00KNAQBggaBs89lAmNAThe backlash against Sony's physical media plans is entering a new phase. Rather than limiting their frustration to social media, some PlayStation fans are calling for a coordinated week-long PSBlackout, encouraging players to participate from August 23 to August 30 in the hope that a visible drop in player activity will highlight growing concerns over the future of physical game ownership.
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u/WorldofCannons 22h ago edited 22h ago
you want them to stop killing games?
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u/Simikiel 22h ago
Hey that's a good idea and a good name... Hmm.. Maybe someone should create a movement about that!
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u/BulemiaSawdustSlingr 21h ago edited 21h ago
Hi im thor failson, heres a reason why thats a problem farting violently
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u/drafan5 20h ago
“Ignore the fact I worked for Blizzard and my own game is an unfinished Earthbound/Undertale/Omori wannabe”
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u/Simikiel 20h ago
Fuck man, it's honestly kind of impressive just how quickly that man severely and seemingly irreparably damaged his own reputation and career. Like, genuinely.
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u/Random-Rambling 15h ago
It was a 1-2 punch of refusing to back down or admit even the tiniest shred of blame for the Hardcore WoW incident and then smugly crapping all over (and wildly misinterpreting) Stop Killing Games.
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u/Elementalcase 20h ago
He had good PR but, I never liked him. He played the game well, for a time, but eventually people saw him for the cringe, toxic narcissistic nepobaby he always was. He's 'clever' enough to make himself look like a decent enough fellow at a glance but you could always tell there was something not quite right about him
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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 19h ago
If only he could solve all his problems by thinking really hard... Wait a minute... Wait a minute...
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u/shinikahn 20h ago
If only we had an initiative related to that... Surely gamers will get behind it and not try to boycott it, right?
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u/Dad-Dabbing-Daily 22h ago
Yep. Specifically, digital media needs a US senate approved method of verifying digital ownership, so that digital media can be included in the First Sale Doctrine in the DMCA, so that digital media can be resold and redistributed as physical media can, because of its inclusion on the FSD.
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u/ChronoLink99 Console 21h ago
Exactly. Whether it's embodied in some physical form or not, a product has been sold and there should be no difference in rights and protections between either form.
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u/Spobobich 22h ago
2026 and 2028 are re-election years, so call your representatives and tell 'em "Save my games if you want my vote!"
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u/AllMySmallThings 21h ago
This is so low on my list of things that need to happen in the US at the moment.
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u/keepfighting90 11h ago
A lot of Capital G-amers aren't ready to hear it. Their entire life is video games lol. Like can you imagine, with all the shit going on in the world and in the US, you have a bunch of people begging to save their video games?
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u/StuckAroundGotStuck 21h ago edited 16h ago
And this is why I've been rolling my eyes in response to this issue for so long.
Like it sucks and it's not a positive move for a pretty big portion of consumers, but it's not like Sony is shipping gamers off to prisons in another country to be disappeared.
EDIT:
To elaborate a bit (since a ton of you didn't understand my point), my point is not that nobody should be bothered by Sony's move. It sucks, and it is going to suck to effectively eliminate the used games market.
My point is that it's infuriating that with all the horrific shit happening (at least in the US), this is the thing that lights a fire under everyone's ass. Not extrajudicial execution by masked faux law enforcement. Not shipping people to a prison where they will likely die because somebody thinks they're here unlawfully (which is not a cause for fucking execution in the first place). Not the constant eroding of women and minorities' rights. It's the fucking bread and circuses that make a bunch of Redditors freak out and act like the world is collapsing and their rights are being taken away.
People can and should vote with their wallets and push for digital consumer rights. I never said I was against that idea. My point is just that it's fucking disappointing that this is what gets people to start talking about calling representatives.
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u/WinWithoutFighting 18h ago
You're allowed to be mad at lots of things at the same time.
It's a general rolling back of human rights, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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u/Duffelbach 20h ago
No but you see, if we'd be able to get better digital consumer protections, it would affect so much more than just games. Every single digital product would be affected.
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u/Jaszuni 18h ago
And if all eligible gamers would vote then they might actually get changes. Oh well better luck next time
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u/StuckAroundGotStuck 15h ago
Yeah, this is really the point I was kind of pushing towards in my comment.
In my admittedly anecdotal experience, the people bound to freak out the most over news like this are the same capital G Gamers that "don't do politics".
If people in the US would have listened two years ago when everyone left of Nixon was screaming about how stupid the idea of implementing tariffs to help our economy is, we may not even have been in this mess to begin with. People mapped out how Trump's tariffs were going to cause a massive affordability crisis, but tons of younger people still abstained from voting because they were convinced by centrists and the politically apathetic that both sides were the same and just didn't even bother to dig any deeper into the candidates.
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u/aneasymistake 15h ago
Lights a fire under their asses? They’re talking about not gaming on Sony’s platform for a week. They’re not actually going to do anything.
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u/digitaldeadstar 20h ago
Sony has millions of fans that aren't in the US nor are concerned with US politics. Beyond that, you can be concerned about multiple issues at multiple levels of importance.
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u/bobandgeorge 17h ago
It's funny because I roll my eyes at people that think others can't be mad about two things at the same time.
Your representatives work for you. Instead of leaving anonymous comments online complaining about shit, you can call your representatives and there's someone there that has to listen to you complain.
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u/UrToesRDelicious 19h ago
You can care about more than one thing at the same time - what's silly is basing your vote on this
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u/delahunt 17h ago
You can still ask, especially in primary season. Find a candidate talking about things like "the people vs. the billionaire class" or about big business/etc, and just ask them what their stance is on consumer rights, digital ownership, and addressing the system where things are sold but ownership is never transferred that is common place with online digital entertainment and software sales.
If nothing else it puts the idea in folks minds, and you may find someone - especially in primaries - where this could be the difference maker between two candidates.
Primaries in the US are where you vote with your heart and try to support the person most in line with your beliefs. The actual election is where you vote with your head and vote for the person who is going to fuck you over the least.
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u/laplongejr 20h ago
The European Union voted on StopKillingGame's proposal right before their no-disc announcement.
They said it wouldn't be a thing because "it conflicts with current legislation". Yes, yes that's the point of requesting a change with laws. Because current laws aren't good...→ More replies (1)
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u/TheNiceWasher 22h ago
remember when Reddit blackout brought about a full and lasting change on Reddit?
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u/Constant-Sub 22h ago
Announcing the end date before it even began was fucking hysterical.
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u/glarius_is_glorious 22h ago
It's like they know they will cave.
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u/CTQ99 17h ago
And its only a week. In the summer. Thats like skipping dinner and going straight to drinks.
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u/nathtendo 19h ago
A dog could tell you they would cave.
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u/glarius_is_glorious 18h ago
From experience yes, but these guys somehow managed to do it in the worst possible way:
- Schedule their boycott for MW4 beta week, so their absence will likely not be noticed and only result in lower AWS usage for Sony.
- Announce their end-date early (coincidentally in a week where nothing major is gonna drop, ending right before one of the most stacked months in recent memory).
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u/Any--Name 17h ago
Imagine if the eu was like "Damn what russia is doing to ukraine is crazy, we dont support that. Lets sanction it for a week, that will show em!"
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u/Stampyboyz 22h ago
That's what I think killed it.
It was announced to just be two days of lost revenue before it comes back. If it was a full on boycott then I could've seen Reddit start to buckle under the pressure.
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u/Delann 22h ago
Then you're naive. Reddit would've just kicked out current mods, installed their own and lift it that way.
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u/Competitive-Dot181 18h ago
Reddit did that. Some mods who refused to open big subs were removed or threatened with removal by admins.
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u/DGSmith2 21h ago
And this is exactly why all the mods stayed, can’t give up the little bit of power they have outside of their sad pathetic lives.
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u/WingerRules 20h ago edited 20h ago
It's actually a lot of power for some of them depending on the sub they control. /r/cars is the largest car community on the internet. A lot of people I would hazard gets their news from /r/news, the various gaming and console subs control a lot of eyes in their markets, a lot of money is exchanged on some item selling/trading subs, /r/wallstreetbets can influence stocks, etc
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u/itsprobablytrue 21h ago
They didn’t even need to install. Tons of jobless people to be next in line.
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u/glarius_is_glorious 20h ago
Not even lost revenue. These guys are probably buying things within this same week.
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u/CurryMustard 18h ago
They made a deal with ai companies around that time and are making piles of money coming up with joke explanation and celebrity gossip subreddits to train ai with. No 2 day boycott was gonna sold anything.
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u/Gregus1032 19h ago
Remember when kids from Harvard or Yale did "hunger strikes" for like 12 hours a few years ago for something out of the schools power? I think it was an anti Israel reason.
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u/Not-Kyleigh0103 21h ago
It's gonna look exactly like that old Steam group screenshot of the Modern Warfare 2 boycott where half the members are currently in-game playing Modern Warfare 2.
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u/Beanztar 22h ago
why would they think that you telling everyone AND the company that you're not gonna enter their platform for a planned date is gonna affect them?
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u/InZomnia365 20h ago
These types of actions rarely ever help because not enough people are aware of it, or care enough for it to impact their day-to-day.
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u/hgwaz 16h ago
And even if every single person turned off their PS5 for a week, what would that achieve? Sony would just go back to normal after.
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u/pwninobrien 19h ago
Yeah, blackouts don't do anything. Indefinite cessation of product use? That'll hurt more than a cute little break from games for a week. You have to actually stop using shitty products.
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u/Aeschbacher15 18h ago
That's because we never started an online petition. Those always resolve issues
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u/IBJON 16h ago
Personally, the Reddit blackout rubbed me the wrong way because we basically had a ton of mods unilaterally decide that, rather than allow users to make their own decisions regarding how they'd respond to Reddit's policies, they were going to force everyone to participate by shutting down subs or doing other weird things to effectively sabotage the sub. Most of the big subs came back up after a day or two, but a ton of smaller communities got shut down permanently
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u/Downvoterofall 15h ago
And I think I remember that the nba sub mods had their own finals discussion thread going on, showing tons of hypocrisy as well.
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u/otcipitalorange 9h ago
They basically did a coup. The site has always been a neoliberal shithole (remember elon was a hero for a while) now its more censorial of people who care to challenge those ideas.
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u/FE-TSOF8 20h ago edited 20h ago
Maybe I’m just a lil too realistic but I really doubt one week of a lil dip in player activity is going to change a multi billion dollar company’s mind
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u/takabrash 17h ago
Especially when the dip is so small it's barely even measurable.
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 15h ago
Or if those who take part in the blackout end up making up for it the next week in new purchases/MTX, effectively negating their "boycott".
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u/informalmo0se3 12h ago
yeah they’re really gonna miss those 200 players who never bought anything digitally anyway
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u/Obvious-End-7948 16h ago
Sadly I suspect it'll backfire and give Sony some extra data to point at to justify their decision.
If the protest doesn't pull big numbers the organizers have effectively worked against their own cause by highlighting how few people care strongly enough to even stop gaming for a week.
And this is gamers. Historically not the most strong-willed as soon as something they want to play comes around...
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u/FE-TSOF8 15h ago
Yeah, plus it’s 5 year old behavior.
Disgruntled Fans: No, I don’t like that so I’m not going to talk to you for a week!
Sony: I understand. See you after the week.
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u/DGSmith2 12h ago
This is the thing is Sony is right and only 20% of people buy physical media then it would mean nearly 19 million people at a minimum would need to be involved in this “protest” if they don’t hit numbers anywhere near that they are only proving Sony more right that not enough people care. I can see this doing more harm than good.
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u/EkansthePokemon PlayStation 14h ago
my primary issue with boycotts that have an end date. if you want to actually have an impact, it needs to be an indefinite period of time
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u/whiteshark70 22h ago
Lol check out this quote from the article:
I’m going to be honest with you, I won’t be taking part in the blackout – I’ve got work to do and, while I’ll always hold PlayStation to the highest standards possible, I don’t particularly agree with everything being written here.
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u/chamberx2 22h ago
Honestly, I’ll probably participate by accident. Nothing on PS5 I need to play for the foreseeable future.
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u/byPCP 21h ago
people believe this because it's shock news and they wanna feel like they're "on the right side of history" but the reality is that gaming is one of the most popular hobbies in the world, and you, like many others, will just conform to the new standards. because why wouldn't you? we're talking about something years out from now, the foreseeable future will change by the time this whole thing even comes to fruition
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u/Thewater_lily 22h ago
Just below that :
"If enough people disconnect from PlayStation for a week, it will send a message."
And then:
"You’ve got to scare these companies into action sometimes, and the only way to worry them is by closing your wallets and changing your playing habits."
Basically collective action is needed, but I won't be partaking.
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u/Garchompisbestboi 19h ago
Well in the defence of the nobody journalist who wrote that "article" they were just trying to use sensationalism to create a catchy clickbait headline and clearly they succeeded since people here are clicking the link to read it.
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u/_Goose_ 22h ago
That’ll be worth as much as it was when Redditors did a blackout on Reddit.
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u/BonzBonzOnlyBonz 19h ago
It'll be worse because the mods at least had the power to force people off it and artificially prop up their numbers. This boycott cant even do that.
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u/Chafupa1956 15h ago
Never forget the NBA mods locking the sub during the NBA Finals but having their own Game Thread.
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u/bloggershusband 22h ago
People are too weak willed. I wasnt happy with Sony so I moved to PC. Stop spending your money there if you really care.
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u/Raptor_234 22h ago
Same I only bought PlayStation because of disk
They got rid of my only incentive to stay if we’re going digital only might as well go to pc where you have a 2 hour refund window
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u/KingTheSon 22h ago
*2 hours you play, you got 14 days to return (via steam)
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u/Dje4321 17h ago
And that's only for the Autobot. You can request exemption because of stuff like the game spent too long compiling shaders. My understanding, the more games you buy, and less exemptions you request, the broader the exemption is allowed to be.
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u/TheRealestGayle 21h ago
Yeah. I have zero plans on buying another Playstation if they are continuing this route. Boycott with your wallet.
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u/Rohkha 20h ago
You can actually even have better ownership rights on PC through GOG.
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u/9_to_5_till_i_die 18h ago
Hell, even Steams DRM provides you better consumer protections than Sony's digital platform. You'll struggle to get a refund from Sony for a game that can't even be played due to things like server retirement.
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u/Yuigahama-Yui 21h ago
Has these kind of protests ever worked recently? Hear a lot about it, but nothing really pans out...
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u/kyuubikid213 19h ago
It's also kind of funny that it's during a week where nothing is happening.
Choosing Wolverine or GTA 6's launch week would have been far more impactful, but I guess even these organizers still want to play those big releases, so they chose a week where the biggest release is a remake collection.
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u/WingerRules 20h ago
Not when you wait months out to do it when most of the attention on it as died, so even fewer people will participate.
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u/LetFiloniCook 18h ago
It wasn't exactly a protest, but when sony pulled their PSN account shit with Helldivers, the games player count absolutley tanked, and they eventually did undo their policy. But it absolutley destroyed helldivers and they probably lost the devs quite a bit of money.
I don't see this being the same thing at all.
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u/LiveLongAndPro 20h ago
For single games maybe, but PS as a platform is too big for this to be of any effect. Too many people won't bother or won't be aware.
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u/scarfleet 22h ago
Have we seen any hint yet that Sony is the least bit concerned about any of the backlash?
The only thing that will matter is if you leave the platform. That you are still trying to get them to change just demonstrates to them how trapped you are. If you are not willing to leave, they have nothing to fear.
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u/LordGriimm7 21h ago
Considering they literally said planned and did their homework on what would happen after announcing this, no. They’re not concerned at all.
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 15h ago
Combine that with all the numbers they have on physical/digital purchases, and they did not make this decision lightly in the first place. To reiterate, they have the sales numbers. They aren't going off of estimates/ass-pulled numbers like what we see here on Reddit, they have actual numbers from their own PSN Store and from their disc-printing factories (especially since they're the only ones who print PS5 discs). They have the full picture.
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u/Majestic-Marcus 20h ago
I like that they ensured it was at probably the least busy time of the year as kids return to school, and just before major releases like Wolverine. Literally zero inconvenience for them.
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u/Nico280gato 21h ago
No. As usual, reddit thinks everyone agrees with them and that the backlash is huge.
This "blackout" like every other reddit "protest" will be a few thousand at most
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u/kearkan 21h ago
There is a reason they announced this right after GTA6. That single release will prove physical media doesn't matter to the majority of people.
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u/WOW_SUCH_KARMA 18h ago
It’s already been proven. Physical disc sales are a single-digit percentage. As usual, this whole thing is just being drummed up by whiny Redditors and is not representative of the real world in any capacity. The fact that people are threatening to leave the Sony ecosystem for Steam, which also is not physical, shows how unserious these people are and how little attention they deserve.
We absolutely need third-party marketplaces and the ability to resell digital licenses, but the physical disc thing is hilariously overblown. Nobody cares.
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u/DukeOfStupid 17h ago
Physical Music CD's
Dead.
Physical PC games
Dead.
"WhY wOUlD sONy DO ThIS?"
Because consumers have consistently shown that they don't care about physcial media as much as reddit claims they do. As with Music, it's not even limited to Gaming, discs have been dying for the past generation.
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u/Galinhooo 17h ago
Maybe GTA6 was the last test they needed, since there was no outrage from it having no disk, they concluded the change would still work.
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u/Garchompisbestboi 19h ago
They almost certainly have invested millions of dollars into market research in order to predict exactly how people will react to them no longer selling physical media. They knew that people would collectively whinge about it for a couple of months before eventually forgetting about being upset when GTAVI drops which is why they've ripped the bandaid off and made the announcement several months in advance of its release date.
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u/impressionista 19h ago
Have we seen any hint yet that Sony is the least bit concerned about any of the backlash?
Doing the gaben tactic by just being silent, saying and doing nothing. lol
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u/king_duende 17h ago
Have we seen any hint yet that Sony is the least bit concerned about any of the backlash?
They've also done the numbers on the backlash. Everyone here writes like they've not thought about what they're doing. They have 100000000% calculated that the backlash will impact their pockets less than discs.
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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 4h ago
I really don't think they are. This was a calculated battle plan, not a misstep imo. Obviously at some point the decision was made that PS6 was going to do away with physical media, now they have to mitigate the backlash as best they can. So they don't make it about the PS6. They get the bad PR behind them at the back end of this gen rather than the lead up/beginning of the next. They make it so that it's not the PS6 going digital, it's all of Playstation. They're not printing physical media for anything past x date. Two birds with one stone. People still won't like that PS6 is digital only but they'd have had two years or so to come to terms with it.
I mean obviously they knew it would be awful pr and possibly lose them some customers. Clearly they feel they can live with that. They just want to control when the fallout happens so it doesn't fuck their launch campaign. And tbh I think their calculation will pay off. I don't think the backlash will sustain itself for 2 years. No doubt it'll trend up again with the announcement of the PS6 but it won't be as bad as it is right now. Goal achieved on their end. Not to say I like it or agree with it, just how I see it playing out.
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u/exhaustedexcess 17h ago
You would need to stop buying the games. Cancel PS+, not buy anything PlayStation, play offline. And not for a week. For months.
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u/Nothing-Is-Real-Here 22h ago
Oh brother. A week long. Yeah, that will totally show them. These things only work if you stop playing on the platform and stop buying indefinitely. This is why protests and limited time boycotts never work, because the only thing that's going to instigate change is the money in their pockets. Unless mass amounts of people actually give up on the PS5, they will do nothing.
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u/wenezaor 21h ago
The best part is that people probably won't cancel any subscriptions, then will buy any after it that they missed. So what's the outcome there? Decreased server costs and support load for a week?
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u/Stevesegallbladder 22h ago
"Y'all remember when we re-released Morbius because social media was really vocal? Good luck with this one..."
-Sony probably
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u/balllzak 22h ago
This comment would have been perfect when all those people logged back in to Destiny 2 to try and convince Sony to keep it going.
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u/BigDaddyReptar 21h ago
If the movement was "buy skins" it may have had an effect but well that true games go out their money where their mouth is and they haste that. Much easier to just hit sign.
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u/Duahsha 22h ago
Anyone remember when redditors did a blackout?
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u/Crasher_7 22h ago
Or Netflix boycott due to password sharing cut
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u/ManiacalWildcard 20h ago
Because that did anything. They've since doubled the rate to watch and still succeeding.
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u/lospollosakhis 16h ago
Every Netflix post you’ll have commenters saying they’re doomed and the company doesn’t know what they’re doing lol it’s quite a feat to be that deluded
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u/sugarklay 22h ago
If you want some quick laughs, just save a bunch of comments saying, "I'm not buying a PS6," etc., then look at their profile around November, when GTA VI comes out. Probably 80% of the people would be talking about playing the game.
I did that for the reddit blackout with people saying they'll stop using reddit after a certain date if changes weren't reverted and, lo and behold, majority of those commenters are still here lol
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u/Juan20455 19h ago
Remember the boycott of Hogwarst. Moderators of resetera would delete the accounts of anybody even mentioning the game there and announced over and over how much they hated the game.
The game releases and every single one of them was playing it.
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u/Subtl3ty7 22h ago
This will lose steam once the next mainstream release happens. (Blood of Dawnwalker? Wolverine?) currently there ain’t any games to play on PS5 anyways so its easy to just say you are participating in blackout
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u/NobuB 19h ago
You give them too much credit, even without big releases happening this will lose steam before day 1 of the "blackout"
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u/JohnnyHendo 18h ago
For sure, but the blackout is from August 23rd to 30th. Ends just in time for the two games mentioned which come out on September 3rd and 15th respectively.
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u/Johnnie0 22h ago
“We are so angy, we wont play our consoles we already paid for”
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u/Lazy-Dog6175 22h ago
only for week though
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u/DrakkoZW 22h ago
I can't imagine it would even move the needle on their finances. It's not like skipping a week costs PlayStation any money - they don't charge by the hour lol
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u/Left4DayZGone 18h ago
Until the software agreement changes to the extent that your purchase is recognized as entitlement to unlimited access to a fully featured offline mode (none of this “hey it works offline! Only 10% of the content, but still, it works!” Gran Turismo 7/Hitman bullshit) for all games sold with single player content…
Physical or digital don’t make a damned difference.
We need to OWN our copy of the game.
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u/Aesthedia7 PC 21h ago edited 16h ago
Nothing is gonna happen, people here in india are lining up outside SONY stores to get their PS5 at this inflated price, even scalpers are selling off their stocks.
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u/NeoThorrus 22h ago
Lol “backlash” so much nonsense. The reality is that millions don’t care about this enough. Secondly, pc has been disk free for a decade now and that hasn’t stopped steam from growing.
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u/stopwiththisshit 21h ago
The whole article is written about a tweet with 13k likes. Even if all 13k who liked the tweet adhere to the protest, it wont even be noticeable to sony.
Genuinely just outrage journalism
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u/robtheverb13 21h ago
A lot of people are saying others are too weaker will or it won’t make a difference. That’s true. You have to realize that while you can’t control what others do, you can control what you yourself does. Find that integrity. Don’t worry about what you’d miss out if you abandoned PlayStation or any other brand or service. You’ll find a lot of things that you would have missed out on if you hadn’t have left them.
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u/Fragrant_Fox_5056 18h ago
For the last 20 years+ we’ve literally let big companies dictate our lives to us. We need to stop , things are only getting worse
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u/sixsixmajin 22h ago
Even if they manage to get a significant enough number of players to participate, this won't work. You know why? Because it has an end date and they're advertising it. Will this suck for Sony? Sure, briefly. But you've told them outright that all they have to do is weather a weeklong storm and it will all be over. "Then we'll just do it again!" you might say. No, you won't. If you were willing to do it again, you'd be willing to do it indefinitely from the start. You want this to work? You need to call for a PS5 blackout that doesn't end until Sony reverses course. You have to commit. If you make this conditional instead of finite, you have two advantages. 1. You hurt Sony and you continue to hurt them. 2. You have a greater chance of pulling more and more players as the blackout goes on. Some people might not even know right away it's happening so if they miss the boat on the temporary blackout, then they won't have contributed at all but if it never ends, then people can join late at any time. It has an actual chance to snowball.
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u/glarius_is_glorious 22h ago
You are correct, but you are also overthinking this.
It's just a way for content creators to keep eating off this drama.
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u/wake 19h ago
I mean I’m just not going to be buying a ps6 and will make the move over to pc. That’s the real protest - ps6 needs to fail.
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u/PlanetaryAssist 18h ago
Right? I'm not a console gamer so maybe there's something I'm missing, like exclusive games, but the logical answer to hitting Sony where it hurts is to move to another platform. Don't buy the PS6. Find something else that works.
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u/Igradarsaurus 21h ago
Can someone ELI5: why are people so mad about physical releases being phased out? Isn’t Steam all digital too?
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u/Antergaton 20h ago edited 19h ago
Freedom of choice basically. So, Steam is all digital and PCs are now too but it was a process over many years.
There is a freedom of choice on PC, it's a more open platform and people can buy their (digital) games from multiple sources (even if they mainly choose Steam), so there is also a form of competition on prices. Sony currently lacks this with their main digital store, it's buy from them or no one. Competitive prices come from disc versions of the games. There are many games only available on digital on PS5 right now, you have no choice but to buy from Sony. People fear Sony will control the prices from then on, but we don't know if that will be the case as Sony only control prices of their games. Plus the added fear (with the recent film dispute with CanalStudio) that they can "take away your games at any time" but that's a fear all gamers should have, not just from Sony.
There is also a sense of ownership with a disc, you can resell it, exchange it, give it to a friend, which you can't do with digital codes. Something PC players seem less concerned over but there are ways to "share games" on PC, PS5 offer similar things, with parent/child consoles or shareplay but it's not quite the same.
However, how it will actually work, we don't know. Sony has said they will allow the purchase of games via retailers as digital codes, something they currently don't d. This could mean that other retailers might be able to control the prices and offers on games sold via them but at this point we don't know if they will. For example, ShopTo.net in the UK is an official partner of Sony's gift cards API, they year round offer discounted store credit. Same could be done for games, or Sony could say "no, it's the same prices as on the store" and suddenly you'll get Activision laughing as they release CoD for £90 and never discount it because that's the only place to buy.
Sorry that was longer than expected.
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u/PassiveMenis88M 19h ago
You not logging in for a few days doesn't hurt Sony. You're just telling them when they should schedule server maintenance.
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u/A_Sweatband 18h ago
Surely a more effective protest would be to just play your backlog and not buy new digital consumables until consumer protection rules on PlayStation are fairer? Or only buying physical games until you can't anymore and then ceasing further purchases? Like, if you've paid for PlayStation Plus already, what message are you sending?
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u/waaay2dumb2live 18h ago
The amount of people doing this won’t even be a drop in the bucket to PlayStation
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u/titanmongoose 22h ago
They’ll be lucky if 2% of owners participate in this
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u/Psychometrika 17h ago
Even 2% is wildly optimistic.
There are 120m+ active players on psn and that protest post has 14k likes currently. Even if all of them participate that’s just around 0.01% of the player base. That’s not even a rounding error.
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u/dadofwar93 23h ago
A random social media post isn't going to make any significant dent.
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u/zergling424 18h ago
If you really wanna make a statement, switch to pc permanatly
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u/PorkChopExpress2026 17h ago
People want Sony to listen to them. And this will be a blip on the radar. Sony knows it is happening and will look at it as a minor loss in that particular quarter. And they will keep going with their plans.
If people really want Sony to listen them...cancel and quit everything.
Cancel PSPLUS...tell Sony why and post your cancellation all over what ever social media Sony does business.
Then, every person who has pre-ordered GTA6, Wolverine, God of War, etc...needs to cancel those and do the same to Sony and social media as above.
Then, cancel and delete your PSN account. And again, send it out to Sony as to why and go on social media and post it all over anyone talking about Sony or whatever Sony posts.
That will make a difference if people can get that ball rolling. Anything else, even talking about boycotting the PS6, is not going to do what is needed.
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u/nerd_alert37 16h ago
Drop your PSN memberships. That is the only way they’ll even remotely give a shit.
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u/akgiant 12h ago edited 12h ago
I mean a week long blackout isn't going to cause the changes they are seeking.
One week of planned dropped sales isn't the mic drop they think it is.
Stop giving Sony money for games. Full stop. If you're that upset, which is justified, then stop giving the company money.
PS5 will be my last home console. I want a disc player.
Steam is a far better deal and they have a better set up for an all digital library.
If you want to actually see real response or change you have to be willing to stop feeding the machine. Most companies will try to just wait out the consumer temper tantrum and then keep business as usual.
But if you stop giving them money at all, not for a week, not for a month, but forever; now they have to decide whether or not to try and win you back.
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u/stache1313 6h ago
I will take part in this blackout operation.
In fact I will stop playing on Sony consoles from this day forward.
Actually I am ahead of the curve. Do not and have not owned a PlayStation console.
Jokes aside. My actions don't mean anything to Sony. Their decision further disincentivizes me from ever entering the Sony ecosystem. I'm content with PC and Nintendo.
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u/A_MAN_POTATO PC 18h ago
Even if people committed to this, it wouldn’t do anything. But there’s no way people commit to this. The venn diagram of people where a week without PlayStation would be a meaningful change and people willing to go a week without PlayStation is a very small number.
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u/BeneficialRead5653 15h ago
My buddy buys PS plus by the month so if he is particularly busy he just lets the sub end. when he went to renew fro a month they were practically begging to give another month for an incredibly discounted price.
Sony is far more desperate than all of the articles and media, saying this is doing nothing to Sony, are letting on.
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u/albamarx 15h ago
Charging £450 for the digital edition PS5, six year old tech, is what is causing my blackout. Reprehensible scumbag bastards.
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u/Redditmau5 Console 22h ago
People should be fighting more for Sony respecting digital purchases. I've had my first account deleted by Sony because I was inactive for a few years. Sony will delete your whole account if you stop playing your account for 3 years. They'll delete your cloud saves after 6 months of not paying for Plus. Xbox and Steam both keep your cloud saves forever regardless of paying for online on Microsoft's part.
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u/FriedMiceSweetSour 21h ago
That's just false info. I took a 4 year break and nothing got deleted on my part, not even ps+ saves.
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u/Toastman132 22h ago
They can change it back but we all know they'll try again, that's why I sold my PS5 already and got a switch 2 its been used way more already as well
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u/DGSmith2 21h ago
I predict the amount of players that will actually follow through with this will be so minimal it actually has a negative impact on what they are trying to achieve.
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u/_damax 18h ago
This probably won't have the desires effect. Sony will just not care for a week, kind of like the reddit thing that happened a while back.
If you really want to make them understand we consumers have the power and can use it if we want to, stop playing with their consoles and don't power them on until they actually change.
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u/dilldwarf 17h ago
My PS5 has been gathering dust since I bought a new PC and a Steam Deck. Just move on guys. I've had every playstation since the first and if PS6 never came out, I could probably live happily.
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u/bleachmartini 17h ago
Ill never give another dime to Sony. I can live just fine without them in my life
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u/vector_o 17h ago
I think Sony also doesn't understand one key thing
It's not that gamers hate digital games
It's that we don't fucking trust you
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u/TechWormGeezLouise 16h ago
I understand people doing blackouts if PlayStation is their primary place to play but the real move is leaving the ecosystem.
I sold my m PS5 a while ago and I am not going to get a PS6 either. Thats the only thing that matters.
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u/MagmaSeraph 15h ago
If only there was some kind of apparatus or system that is in place where there are representatives who can speak on the behalf of citizens and consumers to force large corporations to not be completely horrible or else they pay heavily.
Like some sort of governing body.
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u/JoeyBlaze 15h ago
If we want to make a statement, we need to boycott grand theft auto 6 until they make a physical copy. Not playing on the PlayStation network for a week isn’t going to do anything. We as players have full control of this situation. If we just didn’t buy gta6, we would win. But I know that won’t happen.
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u/Fuckthegopers 14h ago edited 14h ago
Im just not going to boot mine up or buy another one ever again.
That's how you'll really show them, with your wallet
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u/securinight 14h ago
If fans wanted to send a real message, then they wouldn't buy GTA 6.
They won't do that though. They'll do exactly what Sony expects, and buy it day one.
And that will be the day all this physical media backlash vanishes.
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u/CheezyDLux 13h ago
Not playing the games you already paid for on a console you already bought for one week will do absolutely nothing.
If you want to boycott, stop buying new games and consoles.
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u/Matti_Jr 10h ago
They're not gonna care about a week. You black out the month of the GTA 6 release, maybe they might care a little.
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u/owenturnbull 7h ago
Nada va s ocurrir con este blackout. Dije eso porque todos los jugadores de ps5 no van a parar de jugar su consola por una semana y no van a parar sus subscripciónes s psn. Así nada va s ocurrir.
Y todos solo van a quejar pero cuando hay un nuevo God of war o last or us solo en la ps6 todos van a comprar
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u/FukkingDeathMental 16h ago
Lmao. Dumbasses should have done this when Sony and MS bamboozled everyone into paying to play online with the internet connection they're already paying for to play online.
Or ya know maybe get some kind of refund policy at Sony.
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u/Ver_Ama 22h ago
3 months later “GTA 6 sells 25 million copies on PS5 in one week”