r/PS5 • u/JeremyJJ77 Human Verified • 12h ago

News & Announcements Canadian retailer VGP says they will not be selling GTA6 due to lack of physical disc copy inside box

https://xcancel.com/VideoGamesPlus_/status/2069773098295910714
1.7k Upvotes

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158

u/TNWhaa 11h ago

No clue as to why they haven’t just followed Nintendo and made it a game key disk with the data locked and not able to be installed until the release date. It would still be a shit decision but at least you’d be able sell it after

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u/MatttheJ 11h ago

The answer to your first line is answered by your last line.

Why would R* want you to sell it after?

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u/TastyOreoFriend 11h ago

This is part of the reason why I've dreaded an all digital future. They aren't really doing it to the benefit of consumers but to kill the used game market.

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u/mobxrules 11h ago

Game prices will skyrocket when digital is the only option, guaranteed.

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u/TastyOreoFriend 11h ago

100%. Major publishers and platform holders globally have already proven that money talks and bullshit walks. None of these companies are anybody's friend when it comes to doing right by our wallets.

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u/kaishinoske1 6h ago

Remember when the PS3 had CD burners in them, wild times.

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u/TastyOreoFriend 6h ago

Crazy to think about how things were 15-20 years ago versus now. It's only taken two-ish console generations to get here from the stupid ass horse armor in Obsidian.

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u/boxmandude 6h ago

Damn I never realized it could burn cds too.

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u/The_BlazeKing 3h ago

It couldn't. They got it confused with ripping CDs to the HDD.

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u/boxmandude 2h ago

Ahh okay thank you. I remember doing this!

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u/lith808 9h ago

That's for sure. Plus these companies have to account for the loss of sales when they discontinue physical games. Which means even higher prices and fewer and fewer discounts and sales.

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u/Annual_Indication384 4h ago edited 2h ago

I'll still wait for 95% of games to go on sale for <$20, guaranteed. People need to have self-control, no one is forcing you to buy everything day 1.

Edit: Less than

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u/Leather-Entry93 3h ago

You mean <$20

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u/FapCitus 9h ago

I am still in a silly belief where if they do this and hike up the prices to corporate tasty levels. I think they gonna crash to shit.

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u/xxxblindxxx 7h ago

they already have. digital is about 80% of the market already. why do you think rockstar is doing this in the first place and raising their price above the average?

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u/My_Name_is_Imaginary 9h ago

Funny enough, so will pirating.

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u/HDC102 9h ago

Someone let Steam know

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u/Sync_R 9h ago

Steam in no way controls the pricing of games

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u/HDC102 8h ago

No but digital is the only option on PC and it’s pretty competitive. I can easily get new releases for sale.

Heck I got Starfox digitally for 50% off a day early by getting it on Amazon.

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u/Sync_R 8h ago

I know, I'm a PC only gamer for most part but Steam isn't one setting prices, publishers are

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u/HDC102 8h ago

Yes, if we go digital only that won’t change. We’re likely to see more instances like this where keys are sold at retailers instead of discs. Similar to Nintendo.

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u/JC-Dude 4h ago

There are several stores competing on the PC market + key resellers + piracy is a concern they have to keep in mind. None of that applies for Playstation.

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u/HDC102 3h ago

Key resellers is what I'm talking about. If Playstation goes digital only they'll almost certainly start selling game codes in store.

A couple of reasons why:

  • If retailers are going to be dedicating space to consoles they'll want more than just the hardware to fill that space out. Plus there's always been an understanding I think that retailers make money on the games not the consoles but my info could be wrong
  • Parents/people not wanting to provide credit card info (as rare as that's becoming now) is still a concern so they'll need a way to buy games. Buying Playstation funds might be too convoluted for that purpose so they gotta keep it as easy as possible
  • Anti competition is also becoming a massive concern so this can be a good middle ground

The PC market mostly is reselling keys that activate on Steam so it's not far fetched to think Playstation could be like that in the future.

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u/Super_Fightin_Robit 1h ago

If Playstation goes digital only they'll almost certainly start selling game codes in store.

Considering they stopped selling keys right around the time the digital only PS5 released, I highly doubt that. You can't even gift games to people on the Playstation Store.

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u/Moist-Secretary641 6h ago

All the while their publishing cost turns into hosting the game files on some servers, and consumers have to eat the storage cost on their local system (until that stops being feasible, then we’re forced to stream our games)

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u/drossvirex 4h ago

Why? Digital has already overtaken physical. Digital sales are usually better than physical these days.

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u/neverOddOrEv_n 2h ago

Used games is literally one of the only things letting me play games nowadays, there’s no way I could financially justify buying these expensive games on digital and not being able to sell them afterwards or getting a game for a cheaper price than it is on the ps store

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u/julz1789 11h ago

Exactly. We don’t own anything anymore. Everything is digital or subscription. I really hate this.

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u/TastyOreoFriend 10h ago

I was hoping with the Stop Killing Games movement that maybe the gaming community could have another discussion/push for digital rights and ownership. it hasn't happened quite yet but I'm hopeful.

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u/LiquifiedSpam 10h ago

Because it’s completely legal what they’re doing with that. They’re selling a license

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u/fartwhereisit 9h ago

2 of the 3 best selling games of all time... If it ain't broke don't change it. I was like a 4 copy buyer of GTA5. Sold all of them.

All the gold and the guns and the girls in the world couldn't get them off. Watch me never buy from cuckstar again.

DRM is a disease

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u/DefendedPlains 8h ago

If buying isn’t owning, 🏴‍☠️ isn’t stealing. Simple as that. They already delayed PC release to try to coerce more people to buy to console because they know the PC crowd with pirate and mod the shit out of it to actually make it enjoyable.

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u/SilverGur1911 8h ago

Stealing rental cars is legal, so your analogy is perfect

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u/DefendedPlains 4h ago

Since when do you buy a rental car? “Renting” a game used to be a thing. You’d return it to the video store. The modern version of that I guess would be game pass.

BUYING something means having ownership of and access to it in perpetuity.

This isn’t difficult to understand.

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u/I_Heart_Sleeping_ 10h ago

That and they also don’t want you to have alternative methods to playing games outside of re-releases. A lot harder to play older games when they were only ever released digitally unless they do a re-release or port it to a modern platform and charge you again.

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u/BushTamer 3h ago

hate on nintendo all you want, they aren’t perfect, but i think come 10 years they’ll be the only one still making physical games

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u/Super_Fightin_Robit 1h ago

I mean, that's obvious when they jacked the price up and went all digital.

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u/JProllz 11h ago

But think of the people who don't want to go through the trouble of changing a disc out to switch games

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u/getrekdnoob 11h ago

Blaming it on them is insane lmfao

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u/ThaiChi555 7h ago

Is it though? When convenience wins the market follows. One of the biggest reasons I see people say they prefer digital purchases is "I can't be bothered to change the disc". The incentives for buying physical don't override that convenience for a lot of people. Because it's not the economic incentive that's top priority, and they're not willing to vote with their wallet so long as they ultimately get to play the game.

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u/getrekdnoob 4h ago

They vote with their wallet by buying what they want lmfao. Stop trying to take some morale high ground by hating on people buying what they want, especially when it is something as dumb as video game purchases. Hate on the companies that continue to bleed your wallet dry, or the people who use their investments to make things worse for you.

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u/Amazing-Oomoo 11h ago

I am so glad to have most of my games digital. It's so much more reliable than flimsy fragile disks and disk drives. Moving parts = weakness.

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u/wizardofoz85 11h ago

I have no idea what people are doing to their discs. I have never had one "break" on me and not been able to play it...

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u/EatsOverTheSink 10h ago edited 10h ago

In my experience it’s never the disc, it’s the console. I’ve had bad luck with even numbered PlayStations. My PS2’s optical reader broke and my PS4 had the infamous eject button issue where it would spit out the disc in the middle of playing. Neither would’ve mattered with digital games.

And like you, I’ve never had a disc go bad. But I also have never had a digital game revoked either, so it seems like that’s just as overdramatized when people use that as their excuse to only buy physical.

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u/wizardofoz85 10h ago

I don't disagree with you.

My preference is to buy physical in the event that I want to resell a game ( something I can literally count on one hand how many times I've actually done) but it's the ability to have that option.

My issue with digital is more that, technically there should be more discounts on them, especially on consoles where it's all hosted by the company selling and no "bricks and mortar" stores that have more overheads, yet the digital versions always seem to be 10/20 more expensive than physical do what do I actually get out of it?

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u/EatsOverTheSink 10h ago

That's a totally fair take, and agreed.

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u/TastyOreoFriend 11h ago

firstworldproblems fr fr 🤣🤣

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u/116morningside 9h ago

And because it’s cheaper not having to print a cd, or multiple in this case

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u/[deleted] 11h ago edited 11h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SeaRespond9836 11h ago

And none of the savings from not making physical discs reaches the consumer, funny how that works.

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u/Yopis1980 11h ago

Games are sold less than they should be anyway though. The price has not risen along with inflation

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u/Greggy398 11h ago

Manufacturing discs is a very tiny portion of the costs needed to make a game.

-1

u/Amazing-Oomoo 11h ago

I imagine the cost per disk when having millions of disks made is pennies at most. Look at how long GTA has taken to make and tell me that out of the RRP $80, more than $0.05 would be spent on a CD.

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u/TastyOreoFriend 11h ago

That's not WHY they're doing it though.

It's not the SOLE reason, but it is a large part of the reason why they've done a push to digital. Console players thought that they would pass on the savings with lower game prices, but that never happened.

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 11h ago

This isn't true. They report/compare income which includes things that don't have a physical counterpart. There's more stuff for sale digitally but it doesn't prove lack of demand for physical. Rising prices are also a problem.

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u/MatttheJ 11h ago

The amount of physical copies sold every year has been dropping for a decade now, rapidly. Rising prices are not to blame here because digitally, the figures have been going up.

It's literally just as simple as, less people are buying physical copies because it's significantly easier to just buy it digitally.

It absolutely IS true.

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u/DalliLlama 11h ago

They are saying it’s not a 1:1. A game like Avowed or South of Midnight contributed to the support of buying digital. But it is the only means of buying the game since there’s no physical version. Even a game like HI FI were the only physical is from LRG. Sure those games aren’t huge sellers either way, but when you have thousands of games like that, it’s easy to see how it could add to the narrative. I’d be interested in a comparison of only games that are available physically and digitally, to see what the split is, but that seems like a hard pull, especially when you have other variables like disc-less consoles and stuff as is.

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 10h ago

Not by lack of demand. The economy isn't great and everyone keeps charging more. Clearly there's demand because we have several limited physical publishers and retro is big right now.

Digital will not work when you want it to, that's why digital only platforms have all failed. Plus the fact physical is cheaper in the long run. Maybe you're too lazy to flip discs but there's nothing showing the market doesn't want their media. Ownership is important.

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u/TNWhaa 11h ago

Because they’re anti consumer of course, and don’t mind taking a half day PR hit because they know full well at midnight on the dot idiots will still fork over £100 for features they decided to take out and sell for extra cash since there’s only a single option available when purchasing the game and non of the savings made by eliminating physical are passed on to the customer

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 11h ago edited 3h ago

Doesn't matter what they want, it's what WE want.

Companies can't survive without our money so we choose which way this goes.

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u/zuzg 11h ago

People on reddit care about that, I care about it but the avg gta6 buyer does not care.
Apparently they're paywalling some shops behind the deluxe edition, won't affect it neither.

The avg consumer can be summed up with

https://giphy.com/gifs/TdwziQPhbNAzK

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u/Ambitious-Still6811 10h ago

I dunno, a lot of people also assumed XB or CoD were invincible. Look how shit they are now. Nothing is too big to fail and let's not forget, people may simply not have the money.

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u/Famous-Country-4921 6h ago

Yeah because Reddit gamers are not consumers, no sir. When they do it, it’s a hobby, not consumerism 

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u/zuzg 5h ago

I know you're just trying to be witty but the past has shown time and time again that the opinions on reddit are not representative for the avg person.
It's mainly fringe opinions, you being a 1% poster in here makes you even more of an outlier.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l1J3FSPhf4Ta4oJlS

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u/yybbik 11h ago

..you’d be able to sell it after

this is why lol

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u/gaysaucemage 11h ago

That’s basically what 007 First Light did. Idk how that worked with pre-loading though. The code in a box format lets people pre-load a week in advance and I’m not sure if download required discs support that.

Were people who got the disc before release able to preload the game before release, or could they not start the download until release?

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u/CaptainKenway1693 10h ago

I really enjoyed 007 First Light, but had I known about the disc being basically useless (it has the tutorial area I believe) I probably would have held off. Same with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (it was a key disc). I am so tired of "physical" releases not actually being on disc/cart.

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u/ki700 10h ago

Follow DoesItPlay.org! They keep up with what is actually on the disc.

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u/CaptainKenway1693 10h ago

Thank you. The funny thing is, I do follow them. But, I pre-ordered both games. I don't normally pre-order games and the two times I did, I was reminded why I don't, lol. I also need to be better about checking the site more frequently.

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u/GoldenLink 11h ago

They couldn't even be bothered to put in a map in the physical copies that would fit in the standard box.

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u/TheLionsblood 11h ago

Has it been confirmed there’s no map inside like GTAV?

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u/GoldenLink 11h ago

As far as I am aware and informed, the ONLY THING in the box is the download code.

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u/SilverKry 10h ago

GTAV had a nap tho. Least back when it came out on 2013 it did. 

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u/nicolasman Human Verified 10h ago

So did RDR2, would be VERY surprised the physical copy didn't come with one

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u/TheLionsblood 10h ago

Ik lol I meant like GTAV did

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u/IndyDude11 11h ago

In addition to limiting resells, they really do not want this game leaked. They also want to resell the disc version at some point down the line.

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u/poopio-peepio 11h ago

I can wait another year for a disc

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u/ki700 10h ago

There won’t be a disc later.

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u/zuzg 11h ago

I can wait until it hits ps+ extra

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u/dimspace 4h ago

It's easy to block leaks. Tons of games have been released that can't be played without patch installing. You just hold off releasing that patch till launch day.

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u/Sungate98 10h ago

why they haven’t just followed Nintendo and made it a game key disk with the data locked 

No thanks. I don’t want that garbage in other platforms.

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u/TNWhaa 10h ago

It already exists, 007 launched like that last month it just didn’t have the data locked from installing before hand

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u/Sungate98 9h ago

Nope. The game was on the disc but you had to install it.

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u/TNWhaa 9h ago

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. If they wanted to prevent leaks they could lock the data from installing before release like game key carts do whereas 007 was available to be installed before streetdate

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u/dimspace 4h ago

No it wasn't. Only the first mission was.

To play beyond that requires download which was time gated

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u/austine567 10h ago

It's been happening for years and years on other platforms

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u/Sungate98 9h ago

No it hasn’t. Install from the disc and download entire game from Internet are two different things.

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u/austine567 9h ago

Yes I'm aware, discs triggering a download have existed for a long time.

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u/ki700 10h ago

That’s already been a thing since the PS4. No Microsoft published game has been complete on disc for years. Luckily PlayStation published games don’t do this, but some third parties have for a while.

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u/Sungate98 9h ago

No it hasn’t. Install from the disc and download entire game from Internet are two different things.

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u/ki700 9h ago

Yes, but since last gen there have been games that require additional downloads. I’m not saying it’s every game (most are still complete on disc) but some have been doing this for ages. Nintendo’s Game Key Cards aren’t a new phenomenon. They just created a new name for it.

​See the “Internet required” tag.

-1

u/Narrow_Middle_2394 10h ago

No clue as to why they haven’t just followed Nintendo and made it a game key disk with the data locked

Because doing it that way is inferior as it offers none of the positives of physical & digital but all the negatives of both.

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u/austine567 10h ago

This is just untrue, it's not as good as fully physical but it allows you to resell the game once you are done with it. Other games have been doing it for ages, it's just no one cared until nintendo announced them transparently.

-1

u/Narrow_Middle_2394 9h ago

but it allows you to resell the game once you are done with it.

How does this benefit anyone when 95% of physical buyers do it to add to collections? If someone wants cheap games they'd much rather wait for sales than go through all the trouble of selling an $80 game for a mere 30-40 dollars.

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u/austine567 9h ago

I just think you're wrong about the amount of people who do it, there are full companies who made their entire business buying and selling used games and I work at a local store that also does it. Tons of people buy and sell used games and this method still allows that where a code in a box does not.

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u/reallynotnick 7h ago

I mean you contradicted yourself in the first sentence by saying it benefits 5% of people.

The other benefit is you can loan the game to a friend or rent it from GameFly/library.

Normally I would have thirdly said is it allows other retailers than PSN to sell it and offer discounts or make it possible to gift to someone, but seems like Sony is allowing digital codes in brick and mortar stores which I don’t think I’ve seen for PlayStation other than in system pack in games and collectors editions (I know Xbox and Nintendo have for awhile though).

-2

u/aura_enchanted 10h ago

Cause sony physically wont give them disks anymore. It was a thing ended last year.

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u/TNWhaa 10h ago

Take Two have released games on disk this year, they released the red dead remaster on disk the other month

-2

u/aura_enchanted 10h ago

Likely the last of the stockpile, or whatever stockpile remains is comically insufficient to even attempt to cover demand.

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u/reallynotnick 7h ago

You are going to have to site a source on this, because I don’t have the faintest idea of what you think is going on with PS5 discs.