PlayStation Blackout won't matter and the reasons are as obvious as the physical media you never owned

Date:
Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:59:48 +0000

Description:
Some believe DoesItPlay's PlayStation Blackout week, protesting the end of physical media, is poorly timed and won't make a bit of difference. I tend to agree.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter I'm not a gamer. It's not that I've never gamed. In fact, I've frenetically mashed game controller buttons
on every conceivable console and platform. It's just that I don't think about it when I'm not gaming and, if you ask my adult children, I am terrible at
it.

My youngest, now 28, is an avid gamer, and, in fact, a gaming writer. Having written multiple lengthy features for a wide range of gaming publications and played more hours of more games than I've spent trying to draw or learn guitar, they are a true gaming expert. "It won't matter," they told me as
they examined a PS5 game I handed them, curious if Kena: Bridge of Spirits
was any good and if they thought it was worth playing. The comment was not related to the game. They were talking about the PlayStation Blackout. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

Starting this week, games preservation site DoesItPlay launched an online grassroots campaign, PlayStation Blackout Week (August 23 to 30), to protest Sony's decision to cease all physical game media production in January 2028 . As part of the protest, which is under the hashtag # PlayStationBlackout, DoesItPlay called for "No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony s platforms.

This X post pretty much captures DoesItPlay's core argument: You may like 'We've set this company up in preparation for this moment' as PlayStation scraps discs, these companies are ready to keep physical games alive These
are the physical PlayStation releases we'll treasure forever 'If not PS6,
then PS7' Analyst says PlayStation ending physical discs was bound to happen as 'the console ecosystem is nearly entirely digital at this point'

'One more time: EVERYONE will be negatively impacted if we let Sony erase physical media. Not just physical buyers. Digital will get more expensive and you will have no form of ownership anymore. Physical going away doesn't mean the rest gains something. Quite the opposite!" Big Boss potential The potential economic impact of such a protest is massive. After all,
PlayStation Network alone has a reported 125 million monthly active users , paying anywhere from $10.99 to $19.99 a month, not to mention whatever they pay for additional games and in-game purchases. Get daily insight,
inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

And yet, my own gaming expert was telling me it won't matter (echoing sentiment I've found across social media). Part of the problem, my expert
told me, is that the hardcore gamers, the ones who might rally the pro-physical media troops, are all at Gamescon . That's right a site deeply enmeshed in gaming culture may have chosen the exact wrong week for its protest.

Still, I think there's something larger at work here. Yes, the outcry when Sony announced the change was loud and lusty, but just because some people with a platform are making noises, that doesn't mean everyone is upset or willing to protest the impending change.

Had Sony proposed this change 20 years ago, I could understand the concern.
In 2006, Sony's PlayStation network was brand new. Most people bought games
on disc, and for many years after, they also bought pre-owned games at GameStop. Discs were part of gaming culture. Since then, though, we've had
the rise of the networks, including PSN, Xbox Live (now Xbox Network), and perhaps more important, Steam, which probably did more than any other
platform to move games off physical media. What to read next Sony needs to learn from Sonos to respond to the physical games backlash but it probably won't GameStop CEO puts dent in physical game preservation push A G2A
business executive sides with gamers in pursuit of disc preservation

There's another reason my gaming pro might've said the blackout won't matter: Gamers have moved on. A recent report noted the lowest physical game sales since 1995 (there's also a huge gaming console sales slump).

People's game libraries are mostly in the cloud these days. Getting owned Regardless, a vocal minority complains that the loss of physical media means the end of game ownership. Except that's not true, either. We don't own the games we buy, no more than we own any of the software we purchase. It's all nothing but licenses to use the games and software.

Here's how Sony describes the agreement between it and its customers when it comes to the games they buy:

The Software is licensed to you, not sold. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.

It's a license to play, not own.

It's not that I don't understand the frustration or even sadness at the loss of physical media. I have literal shelves of classic software boxes. They're fun to look at, though almost entirely useless, since all the platforms and hardware have moved on. Gamers might be a different breed, holding onto old consoles and the games they bought to play on them for decades, but in my house, that's not the case. Our Nintendo Wii and GameCube are stuffed onto shelves gathering dust. No one has touched them in years.

The most avid gamers, ones who play at near-competitive levels, are most interested in the next big thing. Take, for instance, the upcoming GTA 6 launch . My games expert mentioned that, and how the insane leaks tie to this protest.

Again, they're not interested in the protest, and are instead fixated on the leak and how messed up it is. They've even avoided looking at the GTA 6
clips, so as not to spoil the big game reveal in November. This plan is
broken Put another way, it seems all the efforts to make Sony relent are having, if not the opposite effect, basically no effect at all. DoesItPlay is talking to a devoted few who still clutch their physical media like water canteens in a desert. The GTA 6 leaker, Cyberleek, who has implored Sony to "do better," is drawing attention mostly to his shenanigans, and I don't
think he's inspiring people as much as he's making some think he might be ruining the fun of the most important game launch in 15 years.

There is, in all this, a fundamental truth about physical media: it always
has its season, and then that season inevitably passes. Storage media is the perfect analog, because every time we think we have a physical storage medium for the ages, it's supplanted by a new, better, and higher-capacity alternative. I have drawers full of dead media, including Zip Drives, Jaz Drives, 3.5-inch floppies, 5-inch floppies, and more.

Even if Sony was to relent, and continue making physical game media for a few more years and it won't the hardware to play it will age out. We'll end up with something better or, more likely, the last physical gaming media
holdouts will switch over to the cloud, and that will truly mark the end of physical media.

As my own gaming expert said, #PlayStationBlackout doesn't matter. People's attention is elsewhere, and all true gamers really care about is how quickly the GTA 6 teaser will shift from an exclusive Netflix launch to YouTube . Talking and thinking about anything else is pointless. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/gaming/ps5/playstation-blackout-wont-matter-and-the- reasons-are-as-obvious-as-the-physical-media-you-never-owned


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