The discs have been a formality for longer than most gamers understand or want to admit. Sony is discontinuing disc sales as a response to how gamers are buying games not the other way around. So it's an irrational response but an understandable emotional response. It's a final marker of an era that realistically ended more than a decade ago. That video games are not an island: an enclosed experience of just you, the…
On the contrary. It's been a very long process of boiling the frog.
I bought a physical release of Spore in 2008 and the game allowed itself to be installed a couple of times. Few years later I bought a single player RPG game for which I still own the CD but I'm not able to play it because I tied it to an online service and lost my credentials. All the games I own on Steam can be gone in one second and my children probably won't be able to get access to them even if they don't require online accounts, for which very many does.
There's a huge disconnect between online games that require servers to be played on - in which case it's sad but understandable that one day these will be gone and unplayable - and vast majority of games that are single player that still require players to be online and have credentials to some 3rd party applications.
GOG is the only vendor that actually lets you to own your games.
Steam is the only company that play fair with their customers, but I can easily see the future in which Gabe passes out and Tencent buys the company.
> But today, buying a console is an ongoing relationship with the manufacturer every microsecond you play a game.
We are fully aware of that, and that's precisely what we are opposed to.
I can buy an old PS2 with collection of games, plug it to a monitor and have fun with no hassle and without an internet connection. 10 years from now PS5 will be a dead brick, even with a bag full of games.