Maybe all the hubbub about PlayStation on social media is starting to make a difference after all.
Not long after Bungie announced that it would not be giving up on Destiny 2 despite its live-service period ending, thanks in part due to community outcry, we may have more evidence of pissing people off forcing big decisions to be made. Only this one is way bigger.
According to Moore’s Law is Dead’s Tom on the Broken Silicon podcast, Sony has begun polling developers for thoughts on physical media and how it’s handling the end of physical discs that’s planned to begin in 2028.
“There is a survey Sony sent out to developers that is, what I was told by my contacts, a bigger survey than they’ve sent almost ever before, if not ever before,” the YouTuber said. “And there was a question in it basically trying to ask in a not-direct way ‘is there an issue with how we sell games physically,’ or something, like asking developers for feedback on killing discs.”
This comes about a month after gamescom where devs and publishers at the event were said to have “a lot of resentment” about Sony’s controversial decision that’s dominated the headlines all summer. And sometimes, just sometimes, where there’s smoke, there may be fire.
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“Wolverine is still selling plenty of physical copies and you’ve also Sony is starting to ask devs if they are worried about killing physical, suggesting they realize that if they got a bunch of feedback, maybe they would consider some sort of mea culpa on it,” he said. “We’ll see.”
On a personal level, I’ve had multiple conversations over the past few months with casual gaming friends (the kind of people who wouldn’t read Destructoid if they didn’t know me, and don’t normally read daily gaming headlines), and the conversation has even reached them. So, the public outcry and stink that has been raised by Sony’s July 1 bombshell has certainly gotten to the point where decisions may have to be discussed, at the very least.
Am I optimistic that Sony will do a full 180 on its decision? No, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit better about it than I did a month ago.
