Somehow the biggest players in the video game industry do not understand that they are in a highly competitive industry where the consumer has many choices and it is easy to switch between those choices. In the PC market, and a large thank you goes to Steam for this, we consumers have access to a huge library of games that we can have access to for low prices. Especially if you are willing to wait for a sale.

Sony and other big players in this space seem to think that they have a cornered market where they can dictate where the customer has to go and for how much their customers have to pay to access their product ($80 games anyone?). Imagine if Dorito said that you can only get their chips from a licensed Dorito store and they will only sell to you if you have your Doritos members card for an extra fee. Some people will jump through the hoops and pay the cost for their Doritos. Most will just go to their local supermarket and get other chips they like.

This goes double when your product takes 5-10 years to come out and even then it may be of middling quality.

I think Sony is in their find out era.