PlayStation to nix physical discs

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**Kimberly Adams** (1:31)
Gamers are in an uproar over a change that gets to the debate over what it means to own something.
From Marketplace in Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams. Comic Con kicks off today in San Diego, with the cosplayers, the anime fans, the comic book collectors, and video game aficionados. Video games in particular have grown bigger than music and movies combined, but a recent change has gamers reeling. PlayStation announced earlier this summer that starting in 2028, its games will no longer be available to purchase as physical discs. Instead, your only option will be licensing a digital copy of new games. Nitish Pawla has been covering this. He's a staff writer for business and tech at Slate. Nitish, welcome to the show.

**Nitish Pawla** (2:16)
Thanks so much for having me.

**Kimberly Adams** (2:17)
What's been the reaction of the gaming community to this announcement?

**Nitish Pawla** (2:21)
It's been pretty pitched. I actually was just checking this morning to see if PlayStation's social media accounts across networks were still getting a deluge with negative comments after every post they do, no matter how unrelated. They still are. People are really, really mad about this. There would always be this marketing language, especially from Sony, PlayStation back in the 2000s, 2010s that we do this for the gamers. When you buy something from us, you have it forever.
That I think a lot of people now see is just like a betrayal of those exact principles.

**Kimberly Adams** (3:04)
What do you actually own when you are buying these kinds of licenses?

**Nitish Pawla** (3:10)
Well, nothing really. You are basically on rent for that digital license from the storefront, and they can take it off at any time. PlayStation has done this before with movies.
Digitally, it's very easy to just wipe out software.

**Kimberly Adams** (3:32)
Sony, the maker of PlayStation, wrote in its announcement that the change reflects consumer preferences, this idea that people want ease and convenience from digital downloads, but essentially, this is the way that all entertainment is going. How much of that is true?

**Nitish Pawla** (3:48)
Physical games were definitely making up a lower percentage of game sales just year after year while digital downloads have made up the absolute bulk of sales. And I think you find that this reflects the consumer preferences of a lot of younger players, Gen Z, Gen Alpha players especially, because it's just kind of intuitive to them. They're used to having a pretty free digital game marketplace like Fortnite, you know, Roblox, like all these games are free to download.
It's all in their computer or it's all in their console. A lot of the anger, you know, a lot of the dedication tends to come from older players who have been with PlayStation for a while and felt like they had input into how the company made its decisions over time.

**Kimberly Adams** (4:37)
What recourse do consumers have if they don't like this system?

**Nitish Pawla** (4:41)
Even if Sony itself does not reverse this decision, I think it also sends a message to other video game makers because PlayStation is the first video game company to really take a step like this. Like, Nintendo hasn't done this, Xbox has done all sorts of layoffs but still hasn't done this either.