A former Sq. Enix exec believes that PS Retailer costs may really come down on account of Sony’s choice to finish all bodily media on PlayStation.
Sony introduced on 1st July that it’ll finish all bodily media on PlayStation, together with for video games not revealed by Sony Interactive Leisure. All releases from January 2028 onwards will likely be digital-only, together with code-in-the-box-style choices at retail. It applies to all video games releasing on PlayStation, together with third-party titles, not simply these produced by Sony Interactive Leisure.
Jacob Navok, former director of enterprise improvement at Sq. Enix and now CEO of Genvid, laid out the argument on Twitter/X.
Competitors between publishers is what drives pricing strain, not competitors between digital shops. It is because publishers set pricing on digital shops.
Competitors between shops like EGS and Steam improves the take charges for builders, not essentially the worth for… pic.twitter.com/0QLQmclwsG
— Jacob Navok (@JNavok) August 13, 2026
His core level is that “competitors between publishers is what drives pricing strain, not competitors between digital shops” – in different phrases, it is publishers who set the worth on a digital storefront, not the shop itself.
In keeping with Navok, which means competitors between Steam and the Epic Video games Retailer principally impacts the minimize builders get to maintain, fairly than what gamers really pay.
The place costs do fall, he argues, is when a title is competing straight in opposition to different titles on the identical storefront – pointing to a chart of Remaining Fantasy 16’s Steam pricing progressively sliding downward over time as proof of that aggressive strain at work.
Utilized to PlayStation particularly, Navok predicts: “The extra the PlayStation Retailer turns into digital solely, the better this development will speed up.
“You will notice extra gross sales and dynamic pricing much like Steam as a result of publishers will compete amongst themselves to a better extent.”
It is value noting that cheaper video games would not offset each draw back of the transfer – considerations stay round digital possession rights, and there isn’t any bodily choice left for anybody who nonetheless desires one. Whether or not that trade-off works out in gamers’ favour may be very a lot a matter of perspective.
If there was ever any doubt, Sony does not appear to be backing down from its controversial choice to cease manufacturing disc-based video games. It seems a discover has now been added to new PS5 consoles which have disc drives to warn customers that, as introduced, PlayStation will stop supporting bodily media originally of 2028.