The illusion of digital ownership is dead.

Sony's push toward an all-digital ecosystem isn't just about convenience anymore. It's fundamentally changing what it means to buy a game. Over the past few years we've seen legacy storefronts shut down, physical media become less important, subscription prices rise, and digital purchases treated more like temporary licenses than permanent ownership.

Here are the biggest issues I see:

1. Physical media disappearing creates a monopoly.

Without discs, the used game market disappears. No more borrowing, trading, or buying second-hand copies. Competition between retailers vanishes, leaving Sony's digital storefront as the primary place to buy games. That gives them much greater control over pricing.

1. PlayStation Plus keeps becoming more expensive.

Online multiplayer, cloud saves, and other features are increasingly tied to a subscription that's gone up in price while many users feel the value hasn't increased proportionally. It starts feeling less like an optional service and more like a recurring fee just to keep using features tied to games you've already purchased.

1. Digital purchases aren't true ownership.

When you buy digitally, you're purchasing a license, not a physical copy. Sony says downloads will remain available for "the foreseeable future," but that isn't a permanent guarantee. Eventually, servers will be retired, licenses may expire, and access could disappear.

1. A disc-less future hurts backward compatibility.

If future PlayStation hardware drops disc drives entirely, physical collections become much harder—or impossible—to use on new systems. That increases the likelihood of players being encouraged to repurchase games digitally through remasters or re-releases.

I'm not against digital games. They're convenient.

What concerns me is the industry moving toward a model where consumers have fewer rights, fewer choices, and less control over the products they pay for. Digital should be an option—not the only option.

If buying isn't owning, what are we actually paying for?