I don't know that consoles have a future.

The business model is they sell you the hardware at a loss, and they make up for it licensing games.

If nobody is buying (or, more accurately, renting) games, then how do they make money? It's just a PC with a weird OS at that point.

Piracy is the only way of owning stuff

If we do not own the games when we purchase them, then piracy is not stealing. Don't want to give us ownership when we pay for it, okay. Pirate everything. Jailbreak the PlayStation, download the games, and put them on an HDD/SSD, whatever, and play them. That way, you own the game and can play whenever you want.

That said, I don't think this sentiment of Sony is new. I think many companies have been doing the "you just get a license but don't own the thing you purchased" thing for a long time. Sony is just currently the company that is getting the most attention for it.

It is why I always say, "Get a PC, learn to pirate everything, and purchase the software and games from independent developers (indies).". That way, you own the software and the games while also supporting the developers that deserve it.

This way, you don’t have to worry about the whole “you don’t own the product” thing, keep money in your pocket, which is economically wiser in today's times, and you can support the developers that deserve it.

PS5 emulators are making good strides of late. AnyPS5 is especially quite the flex: run PS5 games natively your Linux gaming PC. 💪

Digital doesn't have to mean losing ownership, GOG lets you download the installer files so the games are actually yours

Article is from Jul 14, 2026

So why are our video games slipping out of our hands now more than ever? To understand that, we need to understand DRM.

Ackshually, we need to understand the internet and our general preference for convenience. First, people stopped listening to their CDs and were listening to their ripped MP3 files. File sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa made acquiring new songs extremely easy and convenient. Some time later, people stopped bothering with downloading the songs and just went with listening to Spotify.

It was similar with videogames, starting with the X360's Xbox Live Arcade. The games you bought there were digital only, some can now be considered "lost media". Yet, it was extremely convenient, you're just sitting there, you just select the game, pay and boom, done. The writing was on the wall even back then, more people with faster internet meant more digital sales.

Regarding DRM proper, there was also the case of Capcom putting shit Enigma DRM in several games of theirs post release

the only format those aforementioned games can currently be found in if you didn’t purchase them digitally during their available window

Many games still live on in 🏴‍☠️ seas. Thank ye, me mateys!!

IO Interactive shipped a physical disc [of 007 First Light] containing only the first mission, requiring players to download a hefty day one patch to actually make the game they purchased playable.

Not the first time a company pulled that shit, either. Activision pulled the same shit in 2015 with Tony Hawk 5, the day-1 patch was larger (7.7GB) than the entire fucking game (4.6GB).

In this current day and age, I think the ideal moment to release a physical copy is at least 6 months after the digital release, so a good amount of patches have already been released.

An online hub filled with individual user storefronts operated by players themselves – like a digital yard sale, players could browse one another’s wares, combing through for a good deal or a brand-new gem they’ve never heard of.

No. Just no. The first problem that will happen is NFT 2.0, "asserting digital ownership" that can be accepted anywhere and transferred to any 3rd party. The second problem is ensuring said hub doesn't devolve into another Amazon, because you can't just pop up "digitalgameyardsale.com" and tell people to sell their existing Steam or GOG games there - you need to integrate with Steam and GOG for them to validate the users and their games.

publishers and developers could take a percentage of each sale in exchange for ensuring that ownership exchange of each digital title begins with the player handing it over and ends with the player purchasing it.

Small publishers and devs might accept that. The big ones won't, because "why accept spare change when I can force people to buy new and profit more?"

Another problem with this is about expired or unknown rights holders. For instance, who currently owns the rights to Crazy Drake? Or Mig Alley? This isn't as simple as finding the author of a book