Sticking the Boot Into Sony: Why I Cancelled Playstation Plus Today

Wow, I never imagined I’d be saying it quite so soon, but I think I’m done with games consoles, and it’s mostly Sony’s fault. Before I delve into why, a little bit of background:

I’ve been a gamer for a long time, starting with the first ever console I bought with my own saved-up pocket money back in 1990: Nintendo’s Game Boy. As a kid in Britain, I was more familiar with affordable home computers like the Commodore 64 and BBC Micro (neither of which I owned, but had friends who did) and the ZX Spectrum, which I did own, and loved. Console gaming was expensive: where a new ZX Spectrum tape might cost £2 or £3, a new gameboy cartridge was £20-£30. Following the end of the ZX Spectrum era, it was a long time before I ever bought a new console again.

My beloved Speccy. My dad binned it after an attic clearance when I went off to university, thinking that, for some reason, I wouldn’t still want it. I’ve never been quite able to forgive him for that.

Over the years, I waited for consoles and games to come down in price. When the SNES was released, I picked up a secondhand NES from a schoolfriend who was upgrading. I skipped the first Playstation and Sega Saturn altogether, and later picked up a Sega Dreamcast just as they were being discontinued and sold off cheap as chips. I ended up buying my mate’s old N64 and games for a pittance when he upgraded to XBox, and in 2006 I eventually picked up a PS2 for £50 from a work colleague who no longer wanted it. Somewhere along the line, my sister gave me her old Nintendo Wii when her boyfriend bought an Xbox 360. I didn’t even buy an HDTV until circa 2012, when one of my kids wrecked my beloved old CRT TV by pushing it off its stand.

This game was worth buying a PS3 for. Of course, now it’s also available elsewhere.

So I’ve rarely been at the cutting edge of gaming. That changed in 2016. Early in the year, I bought a secondhand PS3, mainly to play Thatgamecompany’s sublime Journey and Atlus’ bonkers action/puzzle/RPG Catherine. I was enticed by Playstation Plus, and its promise of new games every month, for a small fee, so I subscribed. Then Sony announced the PS4 Pro, along with incredible-looking space sim No Man’s Sky. Now my PC at the time was essentially a potato, and despite buying the game on Steam, it refused to run. I pre-ordered a PS4 Pro and picked it up on launch day in November, rushing home to immerse myself in the depths of space. I instantly fell in love.

And this was the main reason I wanted a PS4 Pro. No regrets.

As much as I adored Sega’s gone-too-soon Dreamcast, and Sony’s PS2 with its enormous library of amazing JRPGs, rhythm games, survival horrors and other oddities, the PS4 Pro has been, without a doubt, my favourite ever games console. I’ve spent so many hours, not only on No Man’s Sky, but also with Persona 3 Reload, Persona 5 and its various spinoffs, Metaphor Re:Fantazio, SMT V: Vengeance, NieR Automata and Replicant, A.I. the Somnium Files (both games), 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Witch on the Holy Night, Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon, Steins;Gate: Elite, among many, many, many more.

Here are the majority of my (non-special edition) PS4 games, mostly from the UK, but a bunch are from the US, Japan, and South-East Asia. Many bought second-hand, which is a benefit of physical games!

I loved its convenience in the living room, the way I could go on holiday and take my PSTV with me and play remotely, plus the remote play app on my iPad being a great way to read through visual novels (and take screenshots despite them being blocked on the console itself). And all the time, PS Plus would be gradually adding to a library of games in the background, many of which I wasn’t overly interested in, but it was nice to have the option there to try them.

So if you want this one physically on PS4, you need to buy an imported version.

My focus has always been on physical games, though. I don’t buy games digitally if I can get a physical copy, even if that means importing them. Over the past few years, physical releases on PS4 have dried up in the UK, and that’s ok, I understand that with the advent of newer, more powerful consoles, there’s little financial incentive for publishers to release games on an “old” platform. I’m happy enough to import Japanese or South East Asian editions from Play Asia, it doesn’t matter to me if the covers aren’t in English, the games automatically run in English on a UK console. That’s how I got all of ATLUS’ most recent physical releases, plus a bunch of other cool, more obscure games. You see, if something has a physical edition, I’m more likely to want to buy it for something approaching full price. I’m not willing to do that for digital.

I’d like to play this on PS4, but it’s rarely cheap enough I’d even consider paying for the digital edition, which is the only option.

Sony does regularly discount games on its store, but often not to the same level as their physical equivalents. There are a few digital-only PS4 games I’ve held off on buying lately, like Slitterhead, Ever 17 and Fantasian. None of these were released physically on PS4 anywhere, but their prices never get low enough on PSN for me to consider buying them. Not when they’re also available on Steam, who I think is about to become Sony’s greatest enemy. (If they’re not already), and usually significantly cheaper. The thing that has kept me tied into the PS4, and Sony’s ecosystem, is the availability of physical discs.

Remember when Valve sold games on disc?

I was a relatively early adopter of Steam. I got a disc copy of Half Life 2 from my parents for Christmas 2004, and it required a Steam installation to decrypt the files, download patches, and after that, the disc (and accompanying alphanumeric key) was no longer needed. Although Steam first existed only as a distribution method for Valve, who soon stopped releasing discs altogether, they soon opened up their Steam Store to third parties, and the rest is history. They became the most wildly successful game distribution company on the PC platform, and have held onto that title despite competition from Epic Games and GOG, plus of course Microsoft themselves. Even Sony have released some of their first party games on Steam, until recently changing course (again).

The PS5 Pro (with additional disc drive) will probably be forever beyond my reach, price-wise.

You’ll notice that, so far, I’ve not mentioned Sony’s latest console, the PS5, at all. I don’t have one, and am now unlikely to ever buy one. There is not a single exclusive game that I can buy on Sony’s expensive, closed garden ecosystem that I can’t also get, usually for cheaper, on Steam. There’s also the fact that the PS5 console itself is absurdly expensive. I couldn’t justify upgrading at launch, partly because it was ridiculously difficult to even find a PS5 back in 2020 because scalpers gobbled them all up and sold them at a premium. Then, unlike in every previous generation, prices never came down. In face, they went up. “I’ll wait for the Pro model like I did with the PS4 generation,” I thought. Then the Pro released at such a ridiculous price in the UK, without a disc drive. To buy both console and drive together would take the price so close to £900 for me that I baulked. And no, I’m not leasing a games console, because that idea makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Note I would never consider a PS5 without a disc drive because the majority of my PS4 games are physical, and backwards compatibility is my number one consideration when considering a new Playstation games console.

I got this instead of a PS5. No regrets…

So I bought a new gaming laptop instead. Yes, it was three hundred pounds more expensive than a PS5 Pro, but I can do a lot more with laptop PC. It has Nvidia GTX 4070 graphics, a 3TB NVMe SSD and 32gb DDR5 RAM (I bought this just immediately prior to the subsequent AI-driven RAMpocalypse which would probably have doubled the price, if not more), therefore it easily matches the PS5 Pro in performance. If my laptop can play games like Stellar Blade, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate, Pragmata and Returnal, why on Earth would I need a PS5?

Some more of my PS4 physicals, this time with nice cardboard boxes.

In the back of my mind though, I thought “maybe I’ll just miss out the PS5 generation. If PS6 is backwards compatible, then maybe I’ll get that at launch instead.” Unfortunately, with the ongoing price gouging caused by AI data centres munching all of the available RAM chips, and this unlikely to improve any time in the next five years, any chance Sony has of releasing any proposed new console at a remotely affordable price is slim. There’s little chance that any PS6 will release at less that £1000, and that prices so many people out of the market, including a working professional with a decent wage like me. With so many other expenses in life, I can’t justify spending that kind of cash on an expensive toy, especially after what Sony just announced last week.

Discless Xbox Series S… boo hiss

From January 2028, Sony has announced that it will no longer release new PS5 games on physical blu-ray. There is no way for other companies to get around this, as only Sony’s factory is licensed to replicate PS5 discs, and that facility has recently been re-purposed to produce high-grade lenses instead. So Sony’s already locked into this decision, no amount of protest from consumers will make a difference. Not that gamers have taken this lying down. Sony’s social media has been constantly spammed by angry gamers expressing their frustration. They’re a small minority though. The average consumer doesn’t give a shit about physical games, they like the convenience of an all digital console. The writing was on the wall when sony released its discless PS5 models, and Microsoft released the discless XBOX series S console.

Actual scenes at XBOX HQ today.

I don’t think Microsoft is likely to rush to anyone’s rescue here either. Things are on fire at XBOX headquarters right now, and I don’t think anyone there has a clue what they’re doing. They’ve just gone and shuttered a bunch of studios (why did you buy them in the first place then?), and they’re gutting the staff of those studios that remain. Sony have done similar, look at what they did to Bluepoint recently, among others. Microsoft is in full slash and burn costcutting mode, and if they can get rid of talented employees with decades of institutional knowledge, then they can sure as hell get rid of costly physical media and all of its associated troublesome distribution. (I’ve never once owned an XBOX console, and it doesn’t look like I’m about to start now.) Even Nintendo is slowly making strides towards a mostly-digital future with its game key cards which look like cartridges, but are essentially just another code in a box.

Is this the culprit? (Also note hilariously wrong release date)

People will blame GTA VI for this, though Rockstar’s decision to forgo a disc version, with the retail edition being little but a code in a box, is not that different to what Valve did with Half Life 2 over two decades ago. GTA VI will sell like gangbusters regardless. The normies will eat it up, it’s mainstream entertainment for mainstream consumers. They’re not the ones who still buy music CDs, or vinyl records, or blu-ray movies. For them, streaming services like Netflix and Spotify bring them more entertainment than they can possibly need. Like it or not, they’re the majority, and their spending dollars are the ones companies like Sony and Microsoft are chasing, not the fanboys like me with shelves heaving with countless hundreds of physical editions.

Yet more nice boxes. That’s the Dark Souls Trilogy lurking on the top right, in murky shadow where it belongs.

What Sony has perhaps misjudged is that a lot of folks like me will just completely check out of their ecosystem. I barely play PS+ games. I’m not interested in online multiplayer, certainly not when I can play online for free on Steam. Cloud saves are nice, but they’re free with Steam. I’ve never needed to use them once on PS4. So, with Sony bringing their physical era to a close, so they remove any incentive for me to continue supporting their business model with my money. I had a look through all 279 PS+ games on my account today, and came to the conclusion I’d like to keep maybe 15 of them at most. I’ll buy their physical editions cheap second hand, and that will work out cheaper than paying for PS+ every year in perpetuity.

I sure won’t miss the clunky as hell PSN store.

I won’t spend any more money on random indie games on PSN sales, nor on anything discounted on my wish list. Sony won’t only be losing the cash from my physical sales, they’ll lose all of the other (numerous) digital sales they got from me every year. I could have been convinced to buy a PS5 or PS6 if there was more positive news about the future of physical games, but I can’t see that happening.

I’m not leaving gaming behind — there’s still a whole bunch of physical PS4 games I intend to pick up to add to my backlog, though they’ll mostly be acquired second hand without Sony profiting (which is one of the reasons they hate physical games). Perhaps it’s time to start focusing on all of the games I already have, rather than obsessing over the next new shiny thing. On PS4 I’ve got almost every Resident Evil game ever made, plus more than a dozen Yakuza games, an almost endless selection of Legends of Heroes: Trails games, and a bunch of unfinished ATLUS JRPGs to finish. All you’ve done, Sony, is help redirect my attention towards the stuff I already have, and I can’t imagine that was your intention.

If you love physical media, they certainly do. Look what they did to Rightstuf International, the bastards. Gutted it and ruined it completely, mainly out of spite and a need to enforce their monopoly.

The fact that Sony also owns Crunchyroll, who would love to have a monopoly in the anime field, gives me cause for concern. They’ve been grossly cutting down production of their anime blu-rays, and rarely license out their properties to other companies. Look at 86: EIGHTY-SIX, no longer streaming on Crunchyroll, and the blu-rays are all sold out. That show’s only five years old, and already it’s no longer available. This is the future that Sony wants for entertainment. It’s not art to them, it has no inherent value other than profit for its shareholders. It’s no surprise that everything they do is calculated to maximise profits. Now their projections are telling them that it doesn’t matter if they lose the die-hard physical media fans, if they trap enough uncomplaining, unaware normies into their closed ecosystem, they can keep prices high and keep squeezing them for everything they’ve got, availability and media preservation be damned.

This guy on YouTube does good guides for jailbreaking PS3s. I followed his instructions just fine.

It’s a brave new world where they want us to own nothing and be happy, but I want no part of it. I already jailbroke my PS3 and PS Vita so will be unaffected by the upcoming closure of their stores. Those machines I’ve packed full of so many gigabytes of games that I never need to download anything from Sony’s servers ever again. I never bought any of the 500+ Studio Canal films on PSN that have been removed from everyone’s accounts recently, but they can do that shit with games too. Now, I’m not completely sure I agree with the sentiment that “If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing”, but I think there’s an element of truth to it. I hope physical media never fully goes away, because then those Sony bastards can’t come sneaking into my house in the dead of night and steal it. They’ll find a stiff golf club lodged deep between their testicles if they try.

These are two of my prized posessions, I loved both of these VNs so much. It was absolutely worth importing them from the US and getting the lovely boxes, nice art books, and actual tangible, physical discs. Digital files ARE JUST NOT THE SAME.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s really no need for me to continue subscribing to Playstation Plus. It’s just another endless subscription, a way for large corporations to keep bleeding individual consumers dry by weaponising FOMO. I’ve had enough of the nonsense. It’s been a great 36 years of console gaming, and while I’ll continue with it in terms of retro gaming, its future is pretty dead to me. XBOX is a non-starter, and I’ve been entirely disinterested in Nintendo’s games since I entered adulthood. Though each of my kids have their own Switch console, I’ve never touched them. Maybe if TYPE MOON release the second half of the Tsukihime remake physically, I’ll buy their nice shiny box for Switch 2, as it’s likely to be the only option. Not sure if I’ll bother with the console itself though…

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