Grand Theft Auto 6 and Playstation 2028

[GreyLord]

Recently, it was announced that Grand Theft Auto would not have a physical release (some seem to hope that it will have a delayed physical release awhile after the initial release, I have not heard anything on that officially). Many were upset. It still got (from what I've heard) almost 3 million (some sources say 5 million) pre-orders already.

That was soon followed up by another annoucement. Some feel that this is because Sony and Rockstar are in collusion in regards to going all digital. Regardless, it far overshadowed Rockstar's GTA only digital release announcement. Sony announced that they were not going to release physical discs after 2028.

I dislike this trend. The reason I dislike it is the same reason I dislike Game Key Cards on the Switch 2.

If you want to go all digital...fine. If you only want to release it for download. Fine. However, if your games are going to be 100+ Gigs and you only give me 800 Gigs of space to put games on...I hate your gaming ideology. If you want me to be happy, for games these sizes these days, you better give me a minimum of 4 TB. No one does this. This is why I hate this ideology. It's a constant delete and reinstall to make enough room on the hard drives.

For PS5, most of the PS5 releases must play off the internal drive. That's a little over 800 GB and many of those games take 100 - 200 GB worth of space! The Switch 2 only comes with like 256 GB (+512 if you get the highest amount of micro SD specialized Switch 2 storage put into it). These two want to do digital, but they don't provide the space for it. Even the PS 5 Pro only gives you 1.6 TB (a supposed 2 TB drive) to utilize!

At least with Xbox I was able to get a 4 TB insertable (+ the 1TB which was really less than that in the initial drive) and a 4 TB external for the older games. With PC I can get a much larger SSD drive which up to 8TB [which was a tad pricey) to fill games.

But I Playstation's drive space is far to small. FAR FAR FAR to small for this idea.

I know others have other problems with it (monopoly control, loss of ability to keep physical media, physical media as game records...etc), but I feel my main problem is that they want to go in a direction but aren't actually willing to provide the tools for someone who plays a lot of games to actually utilize that form (digital download only) effectively.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not really the target audience, as I rarely use my PS5, but when I do I always buy the games digitally. But then I also don't buy vinyl, CDs, DVDs, or Blu-Rays. I do buy books rather than PDFs, but that's because I kinda collect books and just like the bookishness of them. Maybe it would matter to me more if I used my PS5 more often, but it generally has a handful of games installed on it I'm (currently? that's a strong term!) playing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Companies doesn't have to be in collusion for them to collectively realize that printing and shipping 10 million discs to distribute their game on is extremely pricy and opens up all sorts of logistical headaches.

This day was always coming, unfortunately.

As for your concerns about memory and loading speed, I think you might need to think about becoming a PC gamer, rather than a console gamer. The difference in selection is shrinking all the time -- you will be able to play GTA 6 via PC on day one -- and, barring an AI bubble or two, you can get all the tech you want to trick out your gaming PC as you'd like, whether that's gobs of RAM or screaming fast graphics cards or SSD big enough to contain all of recorded history and allowing your games to have effectively no loading time.

 

[Zardnaar]

PS5 been a bit disappointing. Ours gets used for BG3 and apps.

 

[MarkB]

These days, even games that come on a physical disc need to be substantially installed on the SSD to take advantage of its optimised loading times. Particularly on the PS5 which was designed around that optimisation.

I agree that the available space on the internal drive is a particular limiting factor and makes it hard to juggle games, particularly as my internet speed is not great. But I rarely have more than 2-3 games on the go at any one time, so it's an occasional inconvenience to have to swap one out with an overnight download.

I guess we'll have to see which way things go next. For the next generation of consoles, will affordability of storage and speed of downloading outstrip game size inflation? Will there be a trend towards remote play that's been tried before to no great success? Or will rising hardware prices leave any new console generation priced out of their own market?

 

[trappedslider]

I remember when the xbox one launched and Xbox was pushing the digital only aspect.

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember when the xbox one launched and Xbox was pushing the digital only aspect.

Probably jumped the gun.

Bit more organic this time as physical sales are anemic and GTA6 is probably gonna be absolutely huge.

 

[payn]

I think that this direction was coming and Sony has done little to prepare for it. As the OP points out their console lacks the drive space necessary for keeping a game library. The Sony digital store has proven unreliable with the recent Studiocanal licensing fiasco. Sony has issues in other spaces too such as the film and series content aeras along with streaming. The company is big enough to be a player but always seems like a second or third place for some time now.

It's a marvel to see as once Sega and Nintendo were kings of the hill and seeing them taken down a notch was unthinkable by Sony and MS. I think Sony is teetering and I dont see it going away like Sega, but I could see Sony getting bought up by one of the big conglomerates to add their IPs to their growing portfolios as Sony just cant stand as tall or on its own anymore. Time will tell.

 

[Retros_x]

PS5 been a bit disappointing. Ours gets used for BG3 and apps.

biggest disappointment in a console I ever had. Almost none exclusive games that peak my interest, I play mostly ps4 games in enhanced editions and enjoy the faster menus - thats about it. The downfall of X-Box and Nintendo having a different target group lead to Sony having no serious competition and the customer suffer for it. We need a serious contender so Sony have to make some effort again. PS2-PS4 were absolute glourious generation that made me into a sony fan, but now they seriously lack.

 

[bsss]

I have two PS5s (one launch, one Pro) and overall love it, but I've been pretty deep in the ecosystem since the PS1 days, so it's also been kind of my default platform. I love building PCs too, but with kids and everything, I have limited time to play games, and I find trying to play a game on my Linux PCs means I spend more time distracting myself (which I also enjoy) tinkering and screwing around with tech than actually playing. So, I love consoles for just simplifying and playing.

One note though:

For PS5, most of the PS5 releases must play off the internal drive.

You can add an NVMe drive to the PS5 and play PS5 games off of it --- it's only the external drives that you can't play PS5 games off of. You can't just plug an expansion drive into an external port like on the Xbox Series, but the NVMe drives are commodity parts and you get it installed once and get real-world speeds that are nearly the same in my experience as the integrated storage. I have a 4 TB drive in my PS5 Pro (so a net ~5.5 TB of storage).

All of that said, the move away from physical discs is a huge disappointment for me, though I agree that moving away from physical in the PC/console gaming space was inevitable. I still don't like it. I do buy digital on PSN, usually when the games are on sale or heavily discounted because they're older, but the stuff I "care about" I try to get physically when I can.

Anyway, I will be evaluating if I start switching to PC gaming in 2028; not that Steam itself is miles better from a digital ownership, DRM, physical media, etc. standpoint than PSN (it is a little bit better), but honestly, it's easier for me to backup/duplicate a PC game than it is a PS5 game, until/unless someone eventually cracks the console. But, I still have a ridiculous backlog of PS5 through PS1 games, PC games, a huge collection of SNES and NES games (I collect them as secondary hobby), yada yada yada, if I stopped buying games all together in 2028 I would probably never run out of "new" stuff to play.