PS4 Will Not Be Download Only

Kovacs 60 Comments

Though digital distribution may be the future, SCE CEO Kaz Hirai has stated to trade site MCV that the PS4 will support physical medium. Games on discs in other words.

Despite Sony significantly embracing the digital model with a revamped disc-less PSPgo, with the PS4 expected to debut sometime in the next few years, those expecting the electronics giant to repeat the design decision with the next iteration of their PlayStation console can think again. Kaz said:

“We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope. There’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium. To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.”

GameStop will be happy. As will those still with crappy broadband in 2016.

Source: MCV

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60 Comments

  1. Wouldnt everyone want discs anyway?

    I dont liek the idea of buyign something and not actually having it.

    If you system screws up your gonna have to redownload everythign rather than planting a disc in the drive

    • Do you work for “ign”?

    • i agree 100%, id still like to be able to take a disk to a friends on my PS4. The only thing i like about download only, is that i wouldn’t need loads of cases cluttering up the place, but apart from that i want physical gaming to last forever!

    • I like the download-aspect so much more than the disc.
      Not need to worry about misplacing your games, scratching CDs and it means less space when you move out of your apartment.
      Also the availability of having the game purchased forever, whereas the disc-purchase relies on you keeping that disc.

  2. Makes sense. I don’t see broadband infrastructure keeping up with the requirements of downloading PS3 games in the next few years, never mind PS4!
    Also, if they want backwards compatibility or movie playback they will need a Blu-Ray drive as that’s gonna be the movie format standard for a while yet

    • I remember sometime ago it was said that the PS4 would still have the BD drive and some form of the Cell.
      Thankfully that will mean a faster BD drive, and probably compatibility with the 100+GB Discs.

      • I saw on wikipedia they can fit 250 gb on one disk with a beefed up player and 100-150gb disks will require nothing more than a firmware update

      • Just been reading about the new BDXL format (upto 128GB Blu-ray Discs)
        Sadly its incompatible with existing equipment as it needs a whole new laser to read that many layers, so maybe yes in a future machine, but no with regards to a firmware update

  3. As long as it still does everything (including cross gamer chat) I’ll be happy! ;)

    • As long as it serves up ice cold beverages and gives a few back massages, I’ll be happy.

    • id like an iTunes interface, so my MAC library can be controlled via PS4 and play/display music,videos and pictures outputted to my surround sound amp and TV. All through HDMI and WiFi, that would be very useful.

    • The PS4 will do MUCH more than cross-game chat!

      • it will f**K you

      • the jeremy kyle show- ‘i just lost my virginity to my ps4’

  4. Was kinda inevitable. I don’t want to say goodbye to my collection of games just yet.

    • would be nice if they added PS3 BC to PS4. and allow PS1 and 2 games to be ripped onto its HDD (they wont as it means less PSN remakes) but nice thought

      • I would love to be able to rip my old PS1 and PS2 games to the HDD. I have so many sitting in a drawer. I would actually play them too after ripping.

      • by the time the PS4 is out zero amount of sales will be made on PS1 and PS2 software, so pirating isn’t an issue, so i think Sony should get on it!!

      • …of course, that is unless the publishers are wanting to remake them for the PS4 PSN, which going by the current amount of remakes it will be few and far between!

  5. GT7 2020?

    • Random, who mentioned Gran Turismo?? :s

      • lol, just what I was thinking! And what happened to GT6?!

        Anyway, if all games were downloads, what would happen to hte people who are sat with 40+ discs next to their PS3? How are they gonna fit all their games and movies and everything else on their harddrive if they always buy that many? I know harddrives are always getting nice and big, but so are game sizes

  6. Unless we get ultra super duper broadband i cant see this working. Plus id rather have a game box and a manual, mmmm new game smell.

    • I prefer new BD smell… Marzipan :)

    • A paper manual? I can’t remember the last time I read a manual but, I’m a “real bloke”!

      • I cant take that sentence seriously with your avatar!

      • who said anything about reading it? mmmm new game smell. Most of the good smell is in the manual!

    • nothing beats ngs but thq games will start smell likre bs

  7. “parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope”… ie places outside japan?

    • Absolutely. Read: most of the world!

      God knows we have lovely connections in the UK but only in some places. Same goes for the US and god knows how many other 1st World countries.

      My only worry is that Sony seem to not learn from their mistakes (well, not at the same time) and something might slip-up. This time around, if they remember to use a fast enough BD-ROM we’ll be fine, but I bet they’ll be concentrating on this and forget to put a graphics chip on the motherboard or something equally spectacular.

      • They might just forget to put any solder in at all so we will have YLOD (or maybe some other futuristic colour) after about 1 hour of turning it on!

        Also, your TSA point score is ridiculous so I might just steal some =]

      • You dare. I’m about to hit five figures and reset the clock! Lucky the TSA points counter wasn’t built by Sony either. ;-)

      • When you reach 1000, the whole TSA site will implode and the year will reset to 0 A.D

      • I wonder if Jesus has an Xbox or a PS3. I’m guessing the latter as the controller will be easier on his hands.

      • Yeah but surely Jesus couldn’t be without Live! :P

  8. That’s a relief then. To be honest I really think that unless the pricing issue is resolved (I realise there’s far more factors than I am privvy to – but I do take real issue paying pretty much the same for a download game as a boxed version) I may just be out of the gaming market completely if and when digital distribution becomes the norm. Either that or it’ll give me chance to catch up on all the classic PS3 / Xbox games that came out that for various reasons I missed (every cloud and all that).

    Let’s all just hope Sony don’t crazily decide to not include backwards compatability like they did with the PS3 (good thinking on that one Sony – way to lose millions of sales – maybe).

    • Well I don’t think they quite lost ‘millions’ of sales from excluding BC.

  9. Good news indeed, I’m really not looking forward to the digital download future, its just not in the consumers interest.. Plus I dont see UK broadband infrastructure coping well with it.

    • I prefer physical media. The only advantage for downloadable media is that you don’t have to change discs when you want to play another game, but changing a disc isn’t difficult.

  10. The man is talking sense – these pro-download types are way off with their prediction of a digital future any time soon. No doubt the PS4 will come with a huge HDD for those that want to download games though.

    Also a disc slot will be required for PS3 backwards compatibility – surely after all the bad press and complaints they wouldn’t be daft enough to make the same mistake twice and completely reinvent the architecture and not include BC. The PS4 will, I think, share ties with the PS3 to keep the devs/programmers happy and the fans of B/C happy.

    • Yeah, I don’t think the PS4 will be as a big of a jump as it was from PS2 to PS3. Surely there will be B/C.

      • AFAIK, IBM have stopped development of The Cell, and with the PS3’s games having to be heavily customised for the Cell… if the Cell no longer exists then backwards compatibility between PS3 games and a successor console may be unlikely.

        However, Sony could of course contract IBM to make a custom processor based on the Cell, just with more cores – but that would presumably be very expensive for Sony.

      • Well let’s keep our fingers crossed!

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