After Sony announced that they were gonna do away with physical games, the internet lit up. Now, there is something to be said that social media is a vocal minority. After this week, Microsoft proved that even owning your disc, you are not always able to play them. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that even if fans boycott, they will not change their mind. Even after Rockstar announced that “physical copies” of Grand Theft Auto VI would be a physical case with a download code, we knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when.

Sony has come a long way since their infamous trolling of Xbox about allowing people to trade games. The bigger issue is that we allowed this to happen. As I said before, we traded ownership for convenience. Even Sony says a small part of their community uses backwards compatibility. Not to mention when the PlayStation 4 was released, there was no backwards compatibility with the PS3.

With these planned boycotts, I don’t see it doing anything. Many people still want the latest and greatest immediately. Even with the backlash of a digital only version of GTA 6, it will still draw huge numbers. Because it’s a GTA game. Boycotts only work if you have a ground swell of support, which is lacking in this day of social media. Too many people don’t care. While others will simply go to PC, some may move to Microsoft if they do offer physical media support.

PlayStation was Never Gonna Back Down

The only real way this would work is not the threat of a boycott. Sony is more like Apple in this respect. You will like it even if you don’t have any other option. However, if people did follow through with a boycott and say “not bought GTA 6”, or more effectively – in my opinion – boycott the PlayStation 6. We may be onto something. It is common knowledge that console manufactures operate at a loss when launched. Given how things are going now, we’ll see if this changes.

My rationale is that hitting third-party publishers would create pressure toward Sony. But people need to realize that designs for these consoles happen years before they are released. That would mean PS6 consoles are being manufactured right now.

However, during the mid-stage of their lifecycle, consoles are redesigned in the form of slims. If a majority of global sales were down far enough, they could add it in a redesign. Or, they could do like the old Xbox 360 when they sold it piecemeal and you had to buy an external disk drive for the HD-DVD. Wouldn’t that be funny? Sony ended up becoming Xbox of the past.

Now am I saying, you shouldn’t attempt a boycott? Not at all. Think people should speak with their wallets. With that being said, we need to be a bit realistic. A good majority of their base is younger players who could give two shits about owning disks. Many of them probably never bought a physical game in their life. So, this means nothing to them. Even for people that use it as a Blu-ray player. How much do you stream versus play from your own collection?

Will I get a PlayStation 6?

I know I am considered old, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t purchased consoles. I’ve every PlayStation console since the PS One through the PS4. I even had the PSP and the PS Vita. However, I have held back on the PlayStation 5. I’ll be honest, there haven’t been enough appealing (for me) games to warrant purchasing it. Depending on how things go, one more console may be my final one.

It could end up being a PlayStation 5 when the PS6 is about to be released. Personally, I don’t support the non-physical concept. For me, I will get a PS5 simply due to the 4K resolution. As I’ve grown older, I find less and less triple A titles appealing. There are more indie games that catch my interest. Yes, I know that they will stop developing games for the PS5 at some point, and that’s fine. There are a lot of older games that I need to catch up on too.

I know I won’t be grabbing an Xbox anymore. If I really want to play games on a computer, I’ll just upgrade my computer to a gaming PC. Again, I have the OG Xbox, Xbox 360, and the Xbox One. Not to mention, they rely too much on internet access to even play. And from a recent story, many physical games need it. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Games arrive unfinished, which is why we needed a “day one patch”.

In the end, people want to boycott – go for it. I’m right there with you. But the message can’t be online. Remember, this needs to be global. Sony is a global corporation, unlike Microsoft. I am not a pessimist, I’m a pragmatist. The former would say, “they’re too big, don’t bother.” The latter says, “do it, but be realistic about the results.”