With the recent polarizing announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro, one of the biggest complaints being thrown at Sony is the lack of a built-in disc drive with the $700 console. The PS5 Pro can be given a disc drive, but it has to be purchased separately for another $80.
This separate disc drive isn’t entirely new. The PS5 Slim shipped with the standard and digital options, but the standard slim still just came with the detachable disc drive included. While there have been some concerns over what this move towards separate disc drives means for the distant future preservation of PS5s, I have some concerns about what it could mean for the PlayStation 6.
The all-digital game takeover
Physical games are fading away.
PlayStation
It’s no secret that digital games are taking over. Every year, there’s a larger percentage released for what portion of games bought in a year were digital. A lot of games don’t even release physically. And nowadays, the ones that do are primarily just a physical pass that allows you to download a game. This is especially literal for some Nintendo Switch games that can’t fit on a cartridge.
This shift towards digital became harder to ignore around the time the eighth console generation began fading out towards the ninth. Microsoft first released a digital only Xbox One S. The console was just a standard Xbox One S minus a disc drive. This sort of previewed their ninth gen offerings, where we would see the Xbox Series S and the Xbox Series X. The X, catered towards a more dedicated audience, had a disc drive and higher capabilities. The S, on the other hand, is weaker and lacks a disc drive.
After all, if there’s any demographic you’d expect to be buying physical games, it would be the dedicated pro audience. But it seems Sony thinks otherwise.
Sony has the same layout for the current console generation. There is the PS5, but there’s also the digital edition PS5. However, unlike the Xbox, both versions of the PS5 are the same apart from the disc drive. This snowballed into the PS5 Slim’s disc drive situation and now the PS5 Pro’s.
This brings my fears for the PS6 into focus. With Sony seemingly sticking one foot out the door with disc drives, how long do we have until they completely walk out? Making an all-digital variant of a console is a neat enough idea. There are plenty of people that just don’t buy physical games anymore. The data bears that out. But the shift to having the “pro” console not come with a disc drive feels concerning.
After all, if there’s any demographic you’d expect to be buying physical games, it would be the dedicated pro audience. But it seems Sony thinks otherwise. And they’re not alone. Microsoft has now started offering a digital-only Xbox Series X. Just as the market exists for people that want a weaker, digital-only console, it also clearly exists for people who want a console at the top of the line who also don’t really care to have a disc drive. So what exactly is stopping Sony from cutting out the disc drive entirely?
What do we have to lose without discs?
More than just a collection.
You might read concerns about losing a disc drive and wonder, “would it really be that bad?” And my honest answer to that question is yes. There’s still a lot of value to having a disc drive. Aside from just the satisfaction of owning a large, physical collection, there are others things to lose.
Admittedly, the blow would be a little softer on Sony’s side than on Microsoft’s. One of the biggest advantages with having a disc drive on the Xbox Series X is being able to pop in a game from any previous Xbox console. While the list of backwards compatible original Xbox games isn’t huge, the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list has gotten pretty lengthy. Losing the disc drive would mean having to repurchase some of those games digitally to enjoy them on new hardware.
On the Sony side, you’re really only looking at losing out on PlayStation 4 backwards compatibility. To be clear, that is still a loss. Just not as dramatic as the one you’d see on the Xbox side.
As much as I’d love to see another great console leap happen, I’d hate to see it be at the expense of the disc drive.
However, my biggest issue with losing disc drives is a slightly more personal one. And that’s to do with access. One in five US households don’t have internet access. Without internet access or a disc drive, you’re not playing anything. I personally grew up lacking internet access during the rise of digital gaming. Without a disc drive, I wouldn’t have been playing anything.
And that isn’t even to speak of households that have internet access, but painfully slow internet access. The kind of internet access that would take days to download a modern title. Either way you cut out, there are some folks out there that just aren’t going to be playing anything if they can’t purchase it physically.
Granted, the number of households without internet access goes down yearly. But that doesn’t mean that some kid out there without internet access should be locked out of the newest that Sony has to offer.
And, for those that have been longstanding physical collectors throughout the eighth and ninth generation, you should be able to take your collection to Sony’s next console. There shouldn’t be any concern that your shiny new PlayStation isn’t going to take discs, or will only take discs as long as Sony keeps the servers running for that console.
The announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro has drawn many comparisons to the PlayStation 3 in terms of price. And while that is more than fair, Sony did eventually drop the price of the PS3 to a reasonable amount where they could more evenly compete with the Xbox 360. I can only hope we see the same thing happen again, with Sony getting back on track in time for the PlayStation 6. As much as I’d love to see another great console leap happen, I’d hate to see it be at the expense of the disc drive.
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