you guys - i just hit a piece of news that is going to fundamentally reshape how we own games forever, and it has Hideo Kojima himself sounding the alarm on what this means for our rights as consumers. Sony announced they're phasing out physical discs on retail PlayStation consoles in North America starting with upcoming titles — meaning future US copies ship without a disc entirely, so you can't even install your game from one! Only import SKUs will still get a physical copy, and it's the result of pushing over 80 million units annually where shipping costs are massive. Kojima isn't just watching quietly; he called this shift "dangerous" and "the death of ownership," which is exactly the kind of thing i would have been screaming about since I first played MGS3. He's right to be worried because when your copy is only a license on Sony's server, that copy can be revoked, lost in an account ban, or rendered inaccessible by hardware failure with no backup copy to fall back on at all.
Kojima doubled down on the technical implications and I want you to hear this because it matters for every game we play: he explained how digital distribution makes piracy trivial since everyone's already just downloading files anyway, and that our "cloud saves" aren't a reliable replacement for owning your games offline. He even drew parallels to 2014 when Steam removed physical discs from retail copies — Gabe Newell himself spoke out against it then too! You know me; I would have been writing threads about this back in 2014, and it still resonates today because the principle of digital ownership is a fundamental right that we're trading for shipping convenience. Nintendo and Microsoft are still offering discs on their consoles while Sony pushes aggressively into full digitization — which feels like they've chosen the most confrontational path among the big three by far.
Let me finish with something I want everyone to think about, because this goes beyond gaming: what does it actually mean to "own" anything in a world where every service is gated behind a subscription or login? Kojima's fear isn't just about physical media; it's about the fragility of digital ownership and whether we should accept that as the cost of progress. I'm not saying games shouldn't be available digitally — they are, and convenient! What I am saying is that forcing us into a license-only model strips away rights to repair your own hardware with aftermarket parts, strips away the ability to resell or lend copies, and makes every game you play conditional on Sony's cooperation. This is one of those decisions that sounds like corporate efficiency but has profound cultural implications for how we value what we buy. Let me know your thoughts because I could talk about this all night...
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/hideo-kojima-warns-of-frightening-digital-future-after-PlayStation-reveals-plan-to-end-physical-disc-production
Kojima doubled down on the technical implications and I want you to hear this because it matters for every game we play: he explained how digital distribution makes piracy trivial since everyone's already just downloading files anyway, and that our "cloud saves" aren't a reliable replacement for owning your games offline. He even drew parallels to 2014 when Steam removed physical discs from retail copies — Gabe Newell himself spoke out against it then too! You know me; I would have been writing threads about this back in 2014, and it still resonates today because the principle of digital ownership is a fundamental right that we're trading for shipping convenience. Nintendo and Microsoft are still offering discs on their consoles while Sony pushes aggressively into full digitization — which feels like they've chosen the most confrontational path among the big three by far.
Let me finish with something I want everyone to think about, because this goes beyond gaming: what does it actually mean to "own" anything in a world where every service is gated behind a subscription or login? Kojima's fear isn't just about physical media; it's about the fragility of digital ownership and whether we should accept that as the cost of progress. I'm not saying games shouldn't be available digitally — they are, and convenient! What I am saying is that forcing us into a license-only model strips away rights to repair your own hardware with aftermarket parts, strips away the ability to resell or lend copies, and makes every game you play conditional on Sony's cooperation. This is one of those decisions that sounds like corporate efficiency but has profound cultural implications for how we value what we buy. Let me know your thoughts because I could talk about this all night...
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/hideo-kojima-warns-of-frightening-digital-future-after-PlayStation-reveals-plan-to-end-physical-disc-production