While gamers continues to be mad at Sony for announcing that it will no longer sell discs in 2028, moving to an all-digital market, it seems to be overlooked that what could be the biggest game of all time is doing the exact same thing. That would be the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6.
GTA 6 “physical” copies will be no more than a download code in a box, again, a purely digital distribution on consoles (no digital launch on PC because GTA 6 is only on consoles for now, another rare move). Now, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick took on the issue during its earnings report, and dismissed the complaints:
“So in certain instances, especially if it’s a big game, discs just, and note I said discs, don’t really make sense for the consumer.
Also, most instances you have to register online to play anyhow. So if you’re already connected, who cares if you download digitally? It’s all the same and it’s much more convenient.
So that’s where the world is going in our opinion and I think Sony understands that. We certainly understand that. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have physical additions now and then, I’m sure we will in the same way that there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business. But in other instances, it just won’t make sense.”
That figure is similar to Sony, which claims its business is already 85% digital, so both it and Take-Two seem fine pushing forward to force that last 10-15% into a purely digital market. Gamers lament that this is benefitting the companies while offering nothing to consumers with no price reductions in the cost of games, despite the supply-side savings. In GTA 6’s case, that’s $80 for a basic copy, $10 above the industry standard. Also it’s $100 for the Ultimate Edition, which, reportedly, most players are buying.
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Sony was a bit softer when it addressed the issue recently, but made it very clear it is not backtracking:
“And so when we think about the future–and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this–and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us. Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. And so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore”
Sony then went on to say, however, it has not and does not see the backlash, which has seemingly been the most severe in the history of the brand, affecting its business. And it seems pretty clear that with or without discs, GTA 6 is going to be an absolute sales monster. It already is, based on pre-sales alone.
At baseline, Zelnick is right in saying digital is more “convenient.” Sure, it’s more convenient to press a button to download a game than go wait at GameStop for a midnight physical launch. But even most digital consumers can’t really see anything good coming out of this. It’s just even less ownership over games, removing consumer choice and hurting game preservation. But we are likely to see the entire industry push into this format soon enough. There are rumors that Xbox may be trying to focus more on discs to set its next console generation apart, but that may not be literally launching with a disc drive, or a promise not to stop selling discs. We’ll have to see.
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