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Sony Abandons Social Media for 24 Hours+ After Controversially Killing Physical Games
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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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So it's mostly sentimentality? That's just the way it goes with tech, you have to get used to new ways of doing things.
Why I remember as a kid getting pop and chips at the gas station when my parents stopped there to fill up. If I get an EV my children won't ever have that experience.
I don't think sentimentality is a valid reason to stick with old technology.
The concerns about Sony supporting the servers long term and the fact that it's unlikely people will be able to sell or give away their games, those are valid concerns. Sentimentality over technology is silly to me.
It’s not just that experience in and of itself. That is only one experience derived from the lifetime benefit of ownership. You own the things that you enjoy. Hell, I remember playing the Wii… then I remember finding exploits in the Wii, providing replay value… then I remember learning how the Wii works in interesting ways… then I remember hacking the Wii… then I remember discovering a world of community content for hacked wiis… then I remember sharing that with my dad… then I remember regifting that Wii to my mother in law decades later…
Prior generations had the same benefits, be it with cars or whatever. The standards for ownership have been pretty consistent for consumers in the consumer market for centuries if not thousands of years. Suddenly, everything is being locked up and licensed back on fragile infrastructure you don’t own. That’s not tech advancing. That’s you loosing shit.
Sooner or later, people won’t be able to get physical medium at all for the games they enjoy. Favorites will be predestined to be a faded memory, not something you can choose to cherish over time (in a box somewhere, of course). Thats fragile.
What about when life gets busy and you’re suddenly out of touch with modern games? Want to bust out an oldie and kill some time? Tough luck… you never owned those old favorites you’d poured money and time into… That’s where it’s headed. I don’t call that advancement.
A lot of the sentimental stuff you're talking about was gone a long time ago. You used to get a manual with a game, maybe a map, some other stuff like that. It's been decades since that was a thing. Now you're just getting a storage medium, and when you put it in the console it triggers a download, unless you want to play the buggy version that came out on release day.
Would you suffer the same emotional trauma if you had a leaky roof and your physical game collection got damaged and was unplayable?
Why would your favourite game that was still saved on your console not be playable but putting a disc with the same data on it somehow would be?
You're getting a little too upset over the potential that you might not be able to play some games you deleted.
It sucks that people won't be able to sell or give away games, but it's a little over-dramatic to be upset over not having some box in your attic.
The basic concept wasn’t “there and then left” though, like I feel as though you’re implying. Games came with extra content like maps and guides, sure, but regardless you always bought and owned the game. This has been the case with board games, card games, other physical games, and even digital games since until recently.
That would be pretty upsetting, yes. I owned those, though. I very well may own that roof, too. There’s a lot to be said, considering a leaky roof may even be my own responsibility. You can loose access to a downloaded digital game, however, while maintaining the console fine.
Because of how the licensing framework operates with digital games. It’s no longer in your control to protect your access. Governance of your access isn’t owned by you anymore. When a game is designed to require purchase validation, which many are and they can be changed to retroactively, but the validation server goes offline, you can’t play it without modifying the system—assuming you can modify the system.
Games have become inaccessible in the past and will continue to do so. Requiring all games be virtual pretty much ensures all games will, sooner rather than later.
It also goes without saying, it’s a lot easier to protect a disk collection than it is a console. Consoles have many more moving parts that can fail, for obvious reasons.
I don’t think it’s too far fetched to be upset by this.
I think you might've replied to the wrong comment?
Unless Sony is planning on selling digital meth LOL.