So yeah I guess Sony must really be going digital only with the PS6 (edit: given the PS5 pro reveal)...because the PS5 did swimmingly with all the exclusives they had. Oh wait, no they didn't.
With the Switch 2 coming any games they get on PS6 later will likely be ported as we are hitting on graphics for most people and the Switch 2 ports for these games will be more than good enough. I mean for the games that aren't on GOG and we don't want to buy on Steam so physical game carts.

Well, roughly 30% of the profit comes from physical sells and about 70% from digital sells, from what i know. However, Sony was already estimating this situation long time ago, reason why there was 2 different PS5 models... one of them with and one of them without optical disc support.

In my mind, only core gamers nowadays got interest into optical discs... and DRM free. However, core gamers are maybe around 20% of the entire gamer population, the others are casual. Casual mostly use digital and in usual the cheapest offer possible... unless a game is hyped very hard, then they may magically have 100 coins or whatelse "left" from a... in usual... almost empty pocket.

However... we have to understand that most casual gamers are only maybe getting a bunch of games in several years. So... to them, it is almost perfect getting a very cheap digital-only-console (or very cheap Laptop they can use for work and for a few games as well) with maybe 5 overhyped games in several years, instead of a rather pricey "go-all-out-console with optical drive included" or a "huge gamer big tower PC".

Ultimately. the core gamers still are playing a role but their role increasingly is becoming less important, on console at least. So, most of the coins are done by digital... and i dunno if this will stay like this, going up or down... but fact is, most of the profit is now digital... simply a fact. I still think, Sony may still offer physical discs... but the optical disc version could become way more expensive and perhaps only as "Pro version"... no normal version anymore, on the PS6 at least. You could still attach a optical drive on a "small PS6" but it will have to be gotten separately as an upgrade, kinda the way it has been done on the baby-PS5. The Pro will probably be the only PS6 with a drive inside... and at a premium price.

This is just wild speculation... but indeed, the sad fact is... to Sony the physical sells was never with such a low importance ever ago. Not sure it will become worse but it surely does not help that some publishers, for example those from "Black Myth Wukong" are not even releasing a disc anymore... forcing the support to drop down even lower. As long as gamers are accepting it... and "doing as commanded", it could soon become difficult for optical discs but i think... the optical disc is still not dead yet. What will happen to it totally depends on the support from gamers and if they accept the lack of support from the industry.

I am different but i am a real core gamer... i did not buy a single digital game on PS5 (except the few that are free to play), i got hard copy only... close to 40 soon. This is not typical at all and compared to the mass "kinda freaky".

Almost same story for hardcash... which is dropping at a crazy pace in most countries. But... this is another story, with many similarities.

Sure, my PS5 is a "big one", with a optical drive, with a purple custom body (original from Sony, with custom color pads too. Even got a second body and pads in crimson red...) and a 4 TB SSD upgrade inside... with over 2 TB of PS5 games installed as of today. However, this is a very rare example of a PS5 gamer which is surely less than 1% with a comparable PS5... it does not stand for the crowd nor the "typical Sony gamer".

I am not even gonna sell it.... but if so... (in case i start to become crazy) i would charge 2000 for it, not a cent less... it is just way to rare already. Money and digital games is increasingly becoming less rare but a console like this is already a big rarity... so... naturally the inflation will be big. Besides: If you want the 40 physical games as well, with all the steelbooks... it will be another 2000, not a cent less. Anyway, i am not even gonna sell it... so... bad luck trying to buy it. I would simply go digital.... this is affordable for most of us... it seems.

To me, this PS5 is 2 things:
1. The good old game with the good old time... including physical stuff.
2. A backup PC in order to avoid Steam and if a certain game is not on GoG

It does its duty very well for me... i can basically totally avoid Steam with... GoG and PS5 is enough. A few DRM free games i even got from EGS and Steam but those are just about 10-15 games so far; 95% is GoG and PS5.

Switch or Switch 2 is a bit a different story, but i do not own it so i am probably the wrong gamer to ask...
However... one thing i have to say "Those cartridges used there are 08/15 flash memory chips, usually used on everyday portable machines".... and... they got a very low endurance, so those data may fade away in about 5 to 10 years, as a rough estimation. It was never designed to last... to be blunt. BD discs on the other hand can last up to 100 years... if stored in a good environment, this is almost certain.

I am going to end up buying the PS5 launch after their PS5 Pro bs.

Oh and you know those same casuals will WHINE at us after their LOSE their games and we will say, "I told you so." and I will say it with all the Schaudenfreude as I can because we have seen ENOUGH examples to know that digital only in a console context CAN'T be trusted. We showed them and they BLEW IT OFF!

The digital marketplace can be short living, there have been many examples of it already. However... i do not think that GoG or Steam, not even EGS, is going to become shut down any time soon... but on Steam the consequences surely are bigger because some games simply will ultimately stop to work, and for those games using a hard DRM... not even a cracker might be able to help you out in such a case.

So far there is still no official statement about the PS5 Pro but it is almost certain there might be a PS5 Pro release sooner or later... and it might surely provide much better RT performance. The only thing i worry is, if there is actually a version with a build in drive or if we have to use the same crap like on the small PS5s... this is still uncertain.

For Sony it should be clear that the Pro version is almost only attractive to core games and core gamers MOSTLY do want a physical drive.

The "other" gamers they do not care performance that much, the price and as well low power consumption, is by far the most important aspect to them.

Yeah this is why I said in a console context.

As it stands the only games I am getting are Metaphor, Tales Of Arise, Scarlet Nexus, Nioh 1 and 2, Sandland and maybe Returnal or Demon Souls remake. I was interested in Spiderman 2 until I heard it was trying to push Peter out of the picture and onto Miles Morales plus one of the most boring missions I ever heard of. I was thinking of the new Horizon BUT then I heard the cutscenes are ridiculously long now vs. the first and I want to PLAY the game, I liked the gameplay.
Most everything else I am getting on the Switch or GOG. WHY would I get those EnixSquare games like Octopath and others when I can play it portably on the Switch as well. Plus it is literally a waste of a disc...now if they put Octo, Triangle Strategy, Oninaki, Live A Live, Octopath Traveller 2 and Saturnallia plus Diofield Strategy for little over $100 on one disc with promotional extras I would actually consider buying it.
Heck they could have at least CHARGED smaller indie companies to put demos of their games on disc and charge a nominal fee for it.

To me the 5090 needs to be able to do 4K Native, 60 FPS with HDR and MAXED RT not pathtraced RT on Cyberpunk 2077 then it will mean something to me.

Regarding the 5090... still to less is known but to me it seems most likely a max setting 4k@120 FPS card, which means RT included but not always native without frame generation.

The 4090 was a max setting 4k@90 FPS card, which was still not enough to make 4k and 120 FPS possible so my interest was rather limited and i rather was choosing a card with a better endurance-design (chip and components) which was a 3090 TI.

The 3090 TI on the other hand is a max setting 4k@60 FPS card, which was my intended use as i currently do not own a 120 Hz TV... but maybe in about a year i may finally switch to a 120 Hz OLED. However... it would require a 5090 in order to provide the required performance using this TV at maximum Hz.

The first PS5 is a max setting 4k@30 FPS console... or got a card with this capabilities... the PS5 Pro on the other hand is a max setting 4k@45 FPS... which is a improvement but still unable to reach the psychological marker of 60 FPS. To me... either 60 or 120 FPS are important "milestones"... so the PS5 Pro kinda is in a difficult spot, but same can be said for the 4090... which is surely above 60 FPS but not really able to always deliver 120 FPS.

Max settings means to me: Frame generation is allowed but all the other settings should stay maxed.

PS5 Pro.. again:

No... in general the feedback on the net is bad, i guess Sony was to cheap now and perhaps they should try to correct this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC5wpkxKnZg

I'm in favor of physical games, but I can also acknowledge reality that's a dying concept (just like DRM-free is likewise a dying concept) whose demise is inevitable.

It's only a matter of when, not if.

Profit-wise, Sony ditching physical discs would indeed be a smart move. They can make much more profits as a result of not wasting money manufacturing & distributing physicals discs and their jewel cases and the colored printed paper that goes inside of them.

However, this thread title is misleading, because it makes it sound like PS5 Pro will have no physical disc option. But I just researched that point, and found out that in fact, it does...but you just have to buy & attach the disc drive separately.

So unlike what the OP seems to be implying, physical games on consoles aren't quite dead yet.

But they surely will be in the coming years.

I still see hope, but the hope are the people... not the industry. The industry is trying hard dragging everyone toward the spot they seem to see the gamers fit and so far their success is pretty good. Despite this dark reality, the shape of the future is not set in stone and the future can still take a shape no one would be able to predict... but the ones having the real influence for a different future are no others than the gamers themself.

The end point is that it starts at digital only at $700 and you have to ADD the disc drive. The fact that Sony launched this as only a digital model as the choice and NOT a separate physical model says to me the PS6 WILL be digital only.

Digital is really NOT that much cheaper if at all. Digital means there exists a constant maintenance cost while discs AREN'T that. This is why they eventually close all those digital storefronts. Mass production of the discs themselves given that is likely cheaper, especially since Sony owns the patent to Blu-ray. The case likely costs more honestly and that packaging.
The only real benefit is you can moderate amount but if it is a big enough title and run then a digital copy is pointless vs. physical as the latter likely costs about the same. Besides the more people that get on downloading the bigger the bottleneck and cost there will be.
If they kept the size around DVD size then you might be right and it would be comparatively inconsequential but game sizes are getting bigger and bigger and taking longer to download because even if you have a Gig. connection it will NOT download at your full speed.

Very wise! Do they think a server and its constant maintenance is free? Nope... not at all... maintaining a server is bloody expensive, especially if it have to be performant and not "the slowest crap on earth".

Guess this is the reason why day one digital copys are not cheaper than a physical copy.

The number one real reason why the industry is pushing digital: It will allow them for way more control... or in other words DRM and of course, the numbers are in theory near unlimited: No need to deal with shortage anymore... just put your server on and it can become replicated nearly as fast as thousands of "digital currencies"... its really convenient.

The ONLY way to legit possibly make digital cheaper is to do some St.GIGA shit like Nintendo did with the Satellaview. If that is completely passive, like pulling a TV signal, then yeah but you still have a server involved but it would be MUCH less demanding.
edit: I have argued for 4K streaming it is stupid and a hybrid model should be employed where you do a passive method like Cable, Satellite or OTA. Show your most popular shows on a loop and the premieres debuting on primetime or when they get released and people can just DVR them for the offline. Netflix should have done this to keep 4K more affordable.
For gaming if that passive aspect is doable then do a Satellaview scaled up and charge x amount. I suppose you could do it like a PPV model but I don't know if that makes as much sense for games vs. video, Satellaview makes more sense.

Hopefully this will manage to shake Sony Entertainment Japan from their stupor, if not the failure of FairGame$.

It's 700$ and with no hook. There's no new optical media to wow people with, the developers are going to have to target base models, and I can't imagine the flaming money pit of PSVR2 is going to help either.

And apparently it has the graphical grunt of the Ampere 70 series.

Sony's probably going to have to take a serious hit before they learn any kind of lesson, and then it seems companies prefer to double down on their big brain moments rather than admit they were wrong.

I was waiting for details on the PS5 Pro before deciding if I was going to get one or not any time soon since I own a handful of games for the system physically (for a few of them it was the only way to get a physical version I wanted like GranBlue's collector's set or the Rhapsody collection). However, that price tag combined with no disc drive by default has veered me into just looking into either a Slim or maybe looking into a used fat. After all, nearly all of my PlayStations were used (PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP all were either hand me downs or purchased second hand. Only exception was my Vita TV which was marked down.).