In a recent earnings call for the company, Lin Tao, Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, has addressed the enormous backlash from players regarding Sony’s pivot from physical media, which is one of the biggest news in the industry and will definitely have lasting ramifications for the coming months and years. And while the Exec had previously acknowledged the overall sentiments behind physical media, she also confirmed that Sony won’t reverse-course from their decision to stop production of discs from 2028, and it would not hurt the business in the long run.
And later in the event, Minami Hase, a Senior Analyst at Goldman Sachs, came up with a question on whether the decision to stop manufacturing discs would make Sony’s consoles more similar to the PC which has moved away from physical media long ago. As a response, Tao said that even without discs, the Playstation 5s are capable of standing apart from the PCs cause of several key differentiators which are curated contents, a “stable game environment”, and greater affordability compared to high-end gaming PCs.
“We don’t feel that the disc is the factor to differentiate from the PC. For PC, there’s certain ways to play with the PC as an user. It’s a long tail. Our strength is that the curated contents, that’s one of our strength. The game environment being stable, that’s another strength. Compared to the high-end gaming PC, our product is more affordable. We don’t feel that the disc itself is a strong factor for differentiation. Going forward, we can coexist peacefully with PC games.”
Now while a high-end gaming PC is going to be far more expensive than the PS5s today, especially with the skyrocketed prices thanks to the ongoing component shortages, they can offer a far more future-proof experience than the consoles, especially at this time of their life cycle. Sure the PS5 Pro can be a fine alternative to PC gaming, but a high-end gaming PC is still in a league of it’s own, even a mid-ranged 9060 XT can deliver a far greater range of gaming experiences while being more technologically competitive for years from now.
