It’s a valid POV. My take is opposite:
All the CDs and DVDs I ever bought will eventually fail to work, the disc drives will fail to work too.
My Steam account is 21 years old. I can still play games I bought 21 years ago, even on my Steam Deck and desktop Linux PCs.
PC is an open platform though that allows for much better longevity when it comes to games scaling with future hardware without needing the approval of publishers pushing an update.
Console games are at the mercy of whether future consoles will have backwards compatibility and then new settings to meet expectations of future hardware. So physical is something I still prefer for console because I view console games more stuck in time due to so much being dependent on what is allowed. Don’t really have a long term view of consoles. More of a nice to have an option to sell.
It’s not really new though. They launched with a digital only PS5, too, for the same reason (to create a lower price to entry for the same hardware). If they’d just priced it at $800 with the disk drive included, would people be happier?
The reality is that their margins aren’t high. The PS4 Pro might not have had the same premium, but it was using very old tech that they were able to get prices down over time on. Their chip costs haven’t gone down this generation because of the world around them. The Pro is still a high end chip on a manufacturing process with lots of demand. It wasn’t going to cost less. It couldn’t.
It’s not really new though. They launched with a digital only PS5, too
The positioning there was a bit different. The “PlayStation 5” was presented first with the primary name while “PlayStation 5 Digital Edition” was presented as a secondary optional variant.
Oddly even the blog post of the announcement didn’t include it in its main list of compatible hardware:
PS5 Pro fits perfectly within the PS5 family of products and is compatible with the PS5 accessories currently available, including PlayStation VR2, PlayStation Portal, DualSense Edge, Access controller, Pulse Elite and Pulse Explore. The user interface and network services will also remain the same as PS5.
It does mention it later but the change in focus from disc drive as default in 2020 to digital only as default in 2024 is a new position for the company.
Clickbait. Dude bought a $5 used game disc and couldn’t play it because the PS5 Pro doesn’t have a disc drive.
Its a fair issue.
(Not a surprising one, the all digital console does what it says on the tin.)
But it is a fair issue to raise as a defect with the proposal the Pro offers.
It’s a valid POV. My take is opposite: All the CDs and DVDs I ever bought will eventually fail to work, the disc drives will fail to work too. My Steam account is 21 years old. I can still play games I bought 21 years ago, even on my Steam Deck and desktop Linux PCs.
Whilst I don’t care about game discs, the notion of a high end media device without a UHD drive seems nuts to me.
PC is an open platform though that allows for much better longevity when it comes to games scaling with future hardware without needing the approval of publishers pushing an update.
Console games are at the mercy of whether future consoles will have backwards compatibility and then new settings to meet expectations of future hardware. So physical is something I still prefer for console because I view console games more stuck in time due to so much being dependent on what is allowed. Don’t really have a long term view of consoles. More of a nice to have an option to sell.
Largely speaking compatibility is uncertain across any two console generations.
On these platforms physical media represents license transferability.
It’s not really new though. They launched with a digital only PS5, too, for the same reason (to create a lower price to entry for the same hardware). If they’d just priced it at $800 with the disk drive included, would people be happier?
The reality is that their margins aren’t high. The PS4 Pro might not have had the same premium, but it was using very old tech that they were able to get prices down over time on. Their chip costs haven’t gone down this generation because of the world around them. The Pro is still a high end chip on a manufacturing process with lots of demand. It wasn’t going to cost less. It couldn’t.
The positioning there was a bit different. The “PlayStation 5” was presented first with the primary name while “PlayStation 5 Digital Edition” was presented as a secondary optional variant.
https://youtu.be/RkC0l4iekYo
In comparison for the Pro the digital nature of the console is not mentioned in the announcement video at all.
https://youtu.be/6HaRMiTfvks
Oddly even the blog post of the announcement didn’t include it in its main list of compatible hardware:
https://blog.playstation.com/2024/09/10/welcome-playstation-5-pro-the-most-visually-impressive-way-to-play-games-on-playstation/
It does mention it later but the change in focus from disc drive as default in 2020 to digital only as default in 2024 is a new position for the company.
The actual difference is that you can add it after the fact. The original digital edition never promised you’d ever be able to add a drive.
They still listed it as starting at $399
i play most of my games as rentals from the library. until we can do that digitally,