AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's been 33 years since Sony released its first PlayStation video game console. Earlier this month, the company announced it would stop producing physical disc for its games in January 2028. NPR's Ryan Benk explores what that means for the industry, retailers and, most importantly, gamers.
RYAN BENK, BYLINE: Let's say you're in the market for a new game, but you really don't want to spend a whole lot. What better place to find something on the cheap than a booth at a place like the Unique Thrift Store in Silver Spring, Maryland?
Walking through a place called the Unique Bazaar...
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BENK: ...Some interesting music playing. And we are looking for CrazyGamesAndMore, which - I think we have found it.
There are rows and rows of everything from Super Nintendo and N64 titles to Xbox 360 and everything from PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 5 games.
There's "Star Wars Outlaws" for $24.99. That's a steal, considering most brand-new PS5 games are about 70 bucks. Oh. We got "Evil Dead here, though, for $13.99. That might be more my speed. Hey. How you doing? I'd like to purchase this.
At the register is Mateo Maldonado (ph). He's the owner of CrazyGamesAndMore. And as he's ringing me up, I ask him what he thinks about Sony's announcement that they'll retire physical games after next year.
MATEO MALDONADO: They're dumb. It's just - I mean, they're just dumb. They're focusing way too much on digital.
BENK: Maldonado says about 50% of his business comes from selling mostly used physical video games. Still, he's not all too worried because...
MALDONADO: When they realize the fans are really - how do I say? - not on board, they're like, oh, wait, wait. We didn't mean to - we didn't mean totally this.
JASON SCHREIER: Sometimes these companies are responsive and will make big decisions in reaction to significant backlash. In this case, I don't know if that's going to be an option.
BENK: That's Jason Schreier. He covers the video game industry for Bloomberg. It was strange, he says, that Sony made such a huge announcement so far in advance. Schreier points out that most games these days are not bought in physical stores. Sony says it sold almost 318 million game units last year, and Schreier adds that downloads account for 85% of that figure. So it makes business sense that Sony would end physical production of discs, and the company makes way more money when the gamers download directly from them.
SCHREIER: So it's pretty safe to say that that plays a role.
BENK: Schreier says, on top of that, most people are casual gamers, buying no more than a couple of games a year. So they're not really worried about the hard-drive space. But that doesn't mean Sony's decision is without controversy.
SCHREIER: When a game is digital-only, that means that it can only live on hard drives and servers. And it can be just kind of zapped out of existence at any time.
BENK: Remember that "Evil Dead" game I bought? You can't buy it from Sony's digital store any longer. It's been delisted, meaning no disc, no boomstick. You're out of luck.
FRANK CIFALDI: The ability to maintain your ownership of your game on a physical disc is something that we're losing.
BENK: That's Frank Cifaldi. He's a video game historian and founder of the Video Game History Foundation. And Cifaldi says we're losing something else, too - accessibility. Games are already expensive, and when they're too expensive, only a select group of people actually get to play them.
CIFALDI: So many of the creators that I love and respect were inspired by the ability to play cheap video games, right? And so I fear for the future of creativity in games.
BENK: Back at CrazyGamesAndMore, Mateo Maldonado shrugs his shoulders. He says as much as this news disappoints him, it isn't going to stop gamers like him.
Yeah.
MALDONADO: Honestly, why we're still in business is the retro. It's all the people that want to hop back on a PS3, you know, the 360, PS2, PS1. Thankfully, there is a - still a really big community of retro.
BENK: And you know what? It's also not going to stop people like me who just want to dive into a favorite horror movie without selling our souls.
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BENK: Oh, that's a great sound. I am ready...
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BENK: ...To be inspired.
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BENK: Ryan Benk, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSEPH LODUCA'S "MAIN TITLE FROM EVIL DEAD: THE GAME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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