this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Dutch consumer foundation sues Sony for overpricing digital PlayStation games (www.gamedeveloper.com)
submitted 1 day ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[–] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago (28 children)

That's the biggest problem I have with consoles. They're essentially expensive boxes that are tied to a single service, in this case PSN.

You don't like their store pricing, DRM or other policies? Yeah, well, unlucky. Sell your box and buy a different one (or don't). Too expensive to play online on PSN? Well unlucky, because that's the only way to play online. If it's more expensive tomorrow, you better pay if you want online play or you'll be locked out.

Xbox now locks out uncertified controllers, maybe PlayStation as well? Even their own previous controllers (DualShock 4) don't support playing PS5 games on PS5, so if you want to play a 4 player couch coop game you better own 4 controllers specific to that one console. I get it, the new controller has some new features like "adaptive triggers" - but that's entirely optional. Heck, you can play the PS5 games ported to PC with a DualShock 4 on a PC/Steam Deck.

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[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

Again, just showing console gaming is one of the worst things to do if you are a gamer

[–] Vent@lemm.ee 25 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Hence why nobody should ever buy the digital-only edition of a console. You buy like one used game and make the money back. Then, you can sell that game once you're done and turn a profit over digital-only.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Honestly? It's been probably a decade-and-a-half since the last time I bought a physical game, and I don't exactly miss it. I lived through the era of having cubic metres of space taken up by discs and boxes of games that you finished once but don't really want to get rid of since you liked them and might want to revisit them. I lived through scratched discs and reading errors crashing the game mid session or preventing installation altogether. Having a digital games library is just magnitudes more convenient in practice, and I don't mind paying for that. Especially since I buy 90% of my games on big GOG/Steam sales anyway.

[–] Vent@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure, but this is specifically about consoles. They don't have the same open market that PC digital games have so the only way to not be price gouged is buying physical.

Bluray is extremely scratch resistant. I'm sure there are extreme cases, but scratched disks haven't been a problem for 15+ years.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

PC games don’t have an open market in the way you think.

The reason digital console games are more expensive than physical is precisely because physical console games are still a thing. Digital prices are kept high to not piss off the physical stores. If digital was cheaper then the brick and mortar stores would sell way less games. Shelf space in stores is limited and if they don’t sell enough games they rather use that space for something more profitable. As such, lowering digital prices would effectively end physical game sales.

Once you take physical sales out of the equation digital prices will drop. The fact digital PC games are so much cheaper proves this.

[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Once you take physical sales out of the equation digital prices will drop.

You don't really believe that, do you? Why would a for-profit company would ever lower the prices if it wasn't absolutely necessary?

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You don’t have to believe me, just look at the price for PC games which are already digital-only.

[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago

I bought resident evil code in the box PC because it was cheaper that directly on steam.

[–] Vent@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Why would Sony care about GameStop's share price? Physical stores already are using the shelf space for more profitable things. GameStop's shelf space is like 90% not-games now, plus they're closing down tons of physical locations to focus on online sales.

Physical games still exist because they'd lose too many sales if they exclusively sold digital games. Otherwise, they'd happily stop selling physical games since they make less money for every physical game sold. Money gained from digital-only sales is less than money lost from pissed off customers not buying your console or games at all, so they keep physical games.

PC is not cheaper because there are no physical games, lol. How would less options and less competition lower prices? PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers. This article is literally about Sony restricting digital sales to their own store so they can have a monopoly and artificially raise prices.

[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

PC is not cheaper because there are no physical games, lol. How would less options and less competition lower prices? PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers.

Exactly. That's why I personally don't mind buying digital games on PC, because the PC is an open platform. If Valve decides to drop the ball and sell every game for double the price or something, I can still get and copy games via other means on my Steam Deck. If Sony decides they double the price, you're out of luck.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Exactly. That's why I personally don't mind buying digital games on PC, because the PC is an open platform. If Valve decides to drop the ball and sell every game for double the price or something, I can still get and copy games via other means on my Steam Deck

That’s not how it works at all. Valve doesn’t set the prices in their store, the publishers do. Valve just takes a cut of whatever the publisher decides to charge. If a publisher for a game decides to double the price for a game, why would they do so only on Steam and not on every other store that game is sold?

[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago

It was just an example. If they only allow publishers to publish racing games from now on or whatever, you have a choice to run other software on your hardware. A console is locked down, it's a brick if the manufacturer want it to be.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 1 points 1 day ago

Why would Sony care about GameStop's share price?

They don’t. They care about their games being on the shelves because that’s where grandma is going to pick up a game for Billy’s birthday.

PC is cheaper because nobody has a monopoly on digital games so stores need to run sales to attract customers.

PSN has sales just like the stores for PC games, there’s no difference there. The difference is that the non-sale price on PC is lower.

You also seem to be under the impression that digital stores work like physical ones, where the store buys their wares from a distributer and then decides at what price to sell it to the consumer, maybe even at a loss when they want to clear inventory. This is not how digital sales work.

Digital stores operate according to what’s known as the ‘agency model’. They don’t set the price of the products, they just take a cut of the sale. The prices are set by the publishers. Even sales work that way, the stores don’t determine the sales price, instead they go to the publishers and say “we’re going to do a sales event, want to join in?”.

For each individual game, the publisher of that game has a monopoly. There is absolutely zero competition between stores on individual games because they do not have any control over the pricing of games in the first place. The publisher set the price for each store.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I bought a digital-only PS5 because I know I will never buy a physical game. I bought a handful of physical games for my PS4 and I still regret it.

I gladly trade time and convenience for a little extra money.

[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

for a little extra money

Won't be "little" for long.

[–] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Isn't "little" even now unless you always buy day one.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I still remember when AAA games where $30 and that cost included the disk and case, sure inflation is a thing but with digital only these games still should be cheaper, not the same or more expensive than a physical copy.

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

I started buying games after buying myself an OG play station. Even back then, I remember $40 and even $50 MSRP game prices. Their greatest hits line was discounted to $20. Final Fantasy 7, which remains an all time favorite of mine, was $50 at launch.

Their greatest hits line was generally priced at $20, which offered a way of discounting games after launch. IMO man games in Steam follow a similar pricing strategy these days - high launch prices with discounts later.

Note that I'm not advocating for the digital only model. Not being able to sell your games again is super lame.

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[–] imecth@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

Good. Make them open their platform to third party stores. Make them open their bootloader.

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