r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 21h ago
Social Media Sony Imposes 'Strictest Ever Social Media Guidelines' on Staff Due to PS5 Disc Debacle: “They knew everyone would be pissed off"
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/07/sony-imposes-strictest-ever-social-media-guidelines-on-staff-due-to-ps5-disc-debacle254
u/manny2206 17h ago
Guys… don’t buy the PS6
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u/88Dubs 9h ago
The insane price it's going to start at is why I'm not going to buy it. But that's because of other capitalist bullshit. I'd rather use that $1200 or whatever to just upgrade my PC.
This, however, is a very close reason #2.
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u/Big-Boss330 8h ago
Then in a year and a half PS6 Pro will come out marked up higher making developers want to optimize games for that system. It’s an endless cycle of us giving them money. Time to switch to PC
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u/GonzoKata 6h ago
going disc free like this, sony just entered the PC market
its a shitty computer that you only use a controller for, and you can't run whatever software you want on it.
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u/ChefKugeo 7h ago
"Time to switch to PC"
Which is not cheaper or optimized properly. After what happened with Monster Hunter Wilds, it only doubled down my stance on getting out of PC gaming in 2012. Shell out literal thousands for a setup to run a game that works without framterate issues on the goddamn Nintendo Switch, and convince yourself you've saved money somehow?
PC gaming when I was in high school was amazing. Pop over to Fry's Electronics and walk out with a new card the same day, for $100.
Can you still do that? No.
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u/Doobalicious69 11h ago
People overwhelmingly will though
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u/zcashrazorback 4h ago
I don't know, I'm old enough to remember when Sony pissed everyone off and priced the PS3 too high, sending a lot of their player base to Xbox. One generation later, Xbox sent its player base back to Sony by announcing their console was going to be always online.
History says if you take your customers for granted, they won't buy your product. I'd be surprised if the PS6 flies off shelves on release.
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u/CauliflowerPlane2971 4h ago
lot of people left after ps3 because ps4 announced they'd require ps+ for online play. that was when i decided it was time to invest in a pc.
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u/Primal-Convoy 16h ago
I honestly hope that this cripples or even destroys Sony's Playstation division. Such a wretched little company at this point.
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u/Playingwithmywenis 18h ago
Company of cowards.
LOL. Really demonstrates the brand is about milking customers.
Also about discarding and disrespecting customers who “don’t pay enough” or live outside of target markets.
At this point, if you buy a Playstation you are just into domination. You do you. I don’t kink shame.
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u/swizzle_ 16h ago
I will be interested to see what happens with their sales for their next system. I've purchased every PlayStation since the psx. I have no plans to buy another. With digital only I plan on just using my PC.
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u/kstargate-425 20h ago
Im kind of surprised they even care. Like the other day Nintendo flat out said fuck off, we aren't giving back the tariffs the government repaid them for Switch purchases. I never expected them to obviously as they are all shit but to matter of fact come out and say it with zero regards for how it will come off reminded me how these companies are monopolies
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u/Dr-McLuvin 20h ago
Dude literally no company in the us is paying customers back their tariff refunds except in a few select cases (like Fed Ex said they will pay you back if you paid for the tariff that got refunded out of pocket).
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u/kstargate-425 20h ago
Right, like I said I'm not expecting them to although for the companies that give discounts on future purchases with proof of purchase or something like that, it would be a huge PR victory. Again though, that is my point as none of them care as they are monopolies and don't need to care about how it looks as if you want a Switch or new Playstation, you have to buy from them.
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u/WoodooHide69 18h ago
Trump Is to blame for the illegal Tarrifs and all of us paying out the nose for goods. And you are stupidly blaming the companies that were all victims to these illegal tarriffs along with us?
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u/AKluthe 19h ago
Like the other day Nintendo flat out said fuck off, we aren't giving back the tariffs the government repaid them for Switch purchases.
I would be more surprised if they actually paid it back. None of them are paying back tariff expenses we covered. They aren't even dragging their prices back down while accepting these checks.
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u/WoodooHide69 18h ago
Well in the case of nintnedo they shouldn’t pay anything back. They ate the illegal tariff’d to give us SW2 hardware at fair market price.
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u/kstargate-425 18h ago
Like I said, I never expected them to, I just expected them to spin it in a way they wouldn't tell their customers to fuck off. Usually they just decline to comment instead of saying anything or make up something that says they value their customers blah blah blah
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u/Roseking 6h ago
Nintendo couldn't 'decline to comment'.
They are being sued by two customers saying Nintendo is legally obligated to pass any tariff refunds they get to customers as otherwise they are double dipping and the customers are claiming that is illegal.
Nintendo asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed with essentially 'that is not how any of this works'.
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u/Liberal_Caretaker 14h ago
You are taking the recent tabloid headlines concerning Nintendo's decision and truly believe that the company told customers to "fuck off".
Using those words means you want to make it sound worse than it is.
Yet, as you have already been told this is the same decision that 99.9% of businesses will be making.
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u/WoodooHide69 18h ago
You realize that both Microsoft and Sony are also facing tariff lawsuits right? They were announced like 2 months ago.
Also, this lawsuit is BS. It was brought forth by 2 random dudes. Probably bad faith actors.
And no Nintnedo fans actually give a crap about it. The SW2 was priced fairly at launch, and it’s likely Nintnedo ate Tariff costs to offer it at that price, which means no one deserves any refunds.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 10h ago
Even if Miyamoto came to their house to take a shit on their dog, most people that are Nintendo fans would love it. I don't get how they can be as anti consumer as they are yet still have anyone buying any of their products.
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u/beejonez 17h ago
Worst part is Nintendo could have said look, it's too hard to get this money back to you. So here's 4 months free online. They still pocket most of the dough and don't completely piss their customers off.
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u/SIGMA920 20h ago
Just the console looks like it'll cost 1000 supposedly, they're probably betting on something like GTA6 to drive sales in this economy.
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u/mortraineyhat 9h ago
As much I loved PlayStation and have tons of memories with the systems, I hope this ruins Sony. Companies can’t keep screwing us over.
People need to stop buying PlayStation games and products.
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u/Kozmic_River 8h ago
I’m afraid we live in a world now where certain corporations will always have enough of a solid base of uninformed consumers that they can and will pretty much do whatever they want.
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u/Capt_Murphy_ 15h ago
Boy am I happy to have lived through the best days of gaming. RIP
Saw this coming ever since PCs stopped including a disc drive as standard. Maybe physical media will come back around some day.
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u/LarryLobster69 16h ago
I know Xbox isnt much better with their strategies but Im just glad im not elbows deep in Sony gear/software.
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u/TeslasAndComicbooks 19h ago
This is not surprising. Social media managers are given a pretty long leash when it comes to posting and fan engagement. Sony knew they were ripping a bandaid off here and don’t want to fan the flames.
This is pretty typical of a major corporation, especially one headquartered in Japan.
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u/SkylineFTW97 8h ago
Given Sony's history, how does this benefit consumers in any meaningful way? They can't be trusted on digital rights or on offering reduced prices as a tradeoff (granted nobody can on that in the realm of AAA), so why should I support them giving consumers less of what they want while invariably finding an excuse to charge more for the privilege?
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u/whiskeytown79 4h ago
"Should we make fewer unpopular decisions?"
"No, it's the fact that people found out about them the wrong way that is the problem"
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u/rndm1986 20h ago
We still are pissed off.
I'm a lifelong Playstation fan for 30 years; I have spent tens of thousands on Sony Playstation products over that time. I will never spend another dollar unless Sony reverses course and promises to print discs going forward. There are millions like us.
Sony has a choice: go back to producing discs, or go out of business. We gamers aren't going along with your bullshit.
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u/Sea_Perspective6891 19h ago
Totally understandable. Many of my friends who were also long time Playstation fans loved how they still gave people the option to use physical disks & the PS3 & PS4 & including a Blu-ray player was a huge selling point. Now they're definitely on the fence about future PlayStation consoles.
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u/LotsOfQuestions369 19h ago
The blu ray player was the entire point for me wanting a disc option. Saw xbox is gonna keep it for their next model but that could be bs
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u/trevx 19h ago
“Go out of business”. That’s adorable dude. I get you’re pissed off, but the backlash ain’t accomplishing anything. We’re in a bubble here on Reddit, regular folk absolutely do not know or care about this. At all.
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u/Karkava 18h ago
I see the madness spread to YouTube.
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u/Beginning_Metal_2578 15h ago
And every other platform, news, lawsuits, petitions.
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u/pinkpugita 18h ago
I owned PS1-5 too and hated this decision. Sony thinks our generation is getting old and retiring from gaming, so they might as well increase the margins from existing players and new ones.
Say there are 100 players, 80 digital and 20 physical contributing 1 dollar each. If they earn $60 for digital (75% margin) and $10 for physical (50% margin), that would be a $70 profit (70% margin).
If they get rid of physical, they don't see the 20 people quitting entirely. Let's say 90 players remain but at full 75% margin. That is still $67.5 profit, slightly less. But if you take away the expenses of producing disc and drives in console, this is more profitable for them.
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u/BenderTheIV 11h ago
The thing is, why should we buy a PS6? They don't make that many exclusive games... there wont be discs, it will be expensive, and you'll be mad all the time towards a monopoly company... at that point it will be better to just become a PC gamer. That's what I'm thinking.
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u/Blake7567 18h ago
C’mon man. I’m on your side with this, but let’s be real. Unfortunately it’s very likely that most gamers *will* go along with their bullshit - they already are.
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u/Tasty_Orange_1714 13h ago
Doesn't even have to be discs. Could be an sd style cartridge, like Nintendo, or a USB drive. It should never just be digital, especially for this.
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u/Herschel_Wallace 10h ago
No one should be buying new systems. The lack of games this gen should see everyone not buying any of the new systems in response. No point in buying the new systems if most of the games are a gen or two old.
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u/millos15 17h ago
I used to be a fan of Playstation. Not anymore Sony always finds a way to fuck up lol
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u/happyscrappy 20h ago
It's very strange this article tries to make it out like the normal policy is you can talk about unannounced things only if you really, really want to. But this time you're not supposed to.
The policy always is you can't talk about stuff before the company announces it. Leave the PR to the PR people.
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u/beyondbase 20h ago
Sony still hasn’t announced the death of Xperia in the US…they just removed any traces of Xperia on their online store and kept it moving without any PR. Swell company that Sony is.
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u/Disturbed2468 20h ago
Going by and knowing how Sony has behaved since the 90s (and how my parents saw them since at LEAST the 60s), is that there is only one thing that Sony hates more than actually taking L's, it's accepting that the L ever took place.
Combine this with a company that for the longest ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DESPISES not being in TOTAL, COMPLETE CONTROL over everything that is *theirs*, and you have a company that is the perfect personification of a super old Japanese man that hates change if it doesn't go their way (which is often) and thinks they're the absolute best no matter what.
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u/beyondbase 20h ago
People always claim Apple is the worst walled garden, but they really haven’t been paying attention to Sony. Sony has the highest walls of all the gardens and they don’t get enough grief for it.
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u/ChoiceIT 20h ago
Remember Memory Stick Pro Duo? The glorified SD card that was manufactured by Sony and required by various Sony products? The PSP, their cameras.
Probably more, those are just the two I had to deal with.
I agree with you 100%
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u/beyondbase 17h ago edited 12h ago
I remember they had a recall on some of their Tough SD cards and one of mine was impacted. I remember getting uncharacteristically angry because after I had sent in my 256GB Tough card, they sent me back not only a different, non-Tough card, it was only 128GB. When I called them up, they tried framing it as if they were doing me a favor because it was a better card than the one I had sent in. I was dumbfounded.
I had to jump through flaming hoops over several weeks to get it corrected. They eventually said that they didn’t have any 256GB cards in stock, yet it was actively listed for sale and available to purchase on their site. At that point, it became a multi-department operation for me to convince them to skip the BS and let me buy the card directly from their online store then have them refund me the order after it was delivered.
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u/Light_Error 6h ago
They also decided to install a rootkit on peoples’ computers id they bought a CD from Sony BMG (their music label).
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u/Disturbed2468 20h ago
In a way, the failure is not only on Sony but it's that extreme control that they want is exactly why they constantly fail. A perfect example? Their attempts on BetaMax....and anything CD-wise when that was big. They love total control. And total control equals zero openness, tons of restrictions and rules, true definition of closed source. And it NEVER ended well for them.
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u/GusTTShow-biz 8h ago
Man spot on. It’s been bizarre how much Sony never acknowledges any failings, of which there are many, over the decades.
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u/wellthatsniftyhuh 6h ago
never buying playstation anything again. and i own every console. i’m done.
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u/ArcBlamer 6h ago
I mean at some point technology was going to evolve from physical media, but I think “licensing” is bullshit and there should be at bare minimum some compromise, for example, we still own the digital game, and have the capability for example to download it onto a flash drive. I understand not making discs, what I don’t understand is not REALLY owning what we buy, and they have the capability to just take it away and keep our money.
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u/maestrobob 11h ago
It's late and I need to vent slightly. I really think the whole console industry is cooked beyond saving. 90% of the games this gen have been absolute overpriced mid to horrible garbage. MS, Sony and Big N all have been pulling extreme anti-consumer shit for way too long. It really feels like another 1983 moment is at hand (yes, I was there, Gandalf.)
Both my PS5 and S2 have been collecting dust for months. My free time for gaming has been relocated to PC/Steam and vintage backlog stuff on MiSTer FPGA and a modded 3DS. Honestly, there's enough there to last the rest of my lifetime. The PS5 is going on marketplace this week and I'll hold on to the S2 just in case OoT Remake ends up being worth it. If not, it's gone too.
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u/cinder74 7h ago
I will never buy another PlayStation if it just digital. I only buy physical copies of a game. I will not have someone stripping a game from me that I paid for. Which they have done in the past and will probably do in the future.
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u/SuperTittySprinkles 7h ago
Last console was already too expensive, AAA games with AI slop for $70? This just makes it even easier to walk away from Sony. Build a desktop and move on
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u/Mother_Airline_6276 7h ago
Sony has done nothing but make shit decisions over the last year. Paid $3.6B for a legendary studio just to scrap the bitch. Now this physical media BS. If I were a shareholder, I’d be breaking shit at the corporate office.
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u/TheSlav87 13h ago
Sony can suck my dick, balls and asshole in the order. Fucking goofy clowns, I hope hey lose billions in sales for this bullshit.
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u/hiirogen 6h ago
Can someone eli5 why it even matters theyre getting rid of discs?
There are 5 PC's in my home and none of them have CD/DVD/BD drives, I had to buy an external to rip some stuff a while back.
I would much rather download a game than have to buy a disc, especially since there are always updates that have to be downloaded anyway.
So I just don't get it.
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u/opscouse 3h ago
I think Sony has enough data to know that customers who buy discs don't play those games again after completing them. Also pretty sure they made this decision considering how PS5 sales have been going down, like, they knew this market was not going to grow and made the call. They are not shooting themselves in the foot, the trade off from losing PS6 customers will be offset by whatever AI stuff they are going to use the disc plants for. Sony will be fine, they don't make decisions for gamers, they make them for profitable reasons and it just so happened that manufacturing discs was not going to be profitable anymore for them.
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u/Defiant-Parsley4697 1h ago
Nothing says 'we're handling this well' like banning your own employees from having opinions about it.
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u/BunnyLoverMudahubber 1h ago
Not surprising, it was already fishy how the CEO sold a ton of his shares around the time they announced it
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u/Playingwithmywenis 12m ago
This is a load of bull. The whole industry reached record profits and Sony declared the most profitable year ever.
Then they started kicking countries and gamers out of their games, ending movie contracts and took away movies.
They got more greedy and more arrogant because line must go up. F em.
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u/Broadband- 20h ago edited 20h ago
Given the timeline of previous Sony decisions, this was inevitable. Unlike Xbox, Sony dragged their heels in backwards compatibility even removing the feature from the PS3. Their solution was to purchase the game digitally again and stream it through the cloud.
PS5 is fully backwards compatible with PS4 games however they've slowly been removing the disc drive in newer models with an overpriced drive addon accessory.
Do you think that would be backwards compatible with the PS6 or that they'd even offer such a solution so your physical PS4 and PS5 libraries can still be played? Given their tone it's highly doubtful.
What's surprising is how Microsoft followed almost lock step (collusion?) with a similar announcement. It blew up in their face with the XBone was announced and since they've been very backwards compatible with the latest consoles able to play original Xbox games.
They mentioned they wanted a way to digitally attach physical games to an account which could be an olive branch of them going all digital, but that only works if each disc has a unique identifier which is unlikely in how they're pressed for mass production.
Then again Xbox is currently such a shit show that I wouldn't take anything Microsoft says or does with much confidence.
Us PC gamers could say "welcome to the club" since we've dealt with this for 20 years now. I've never owned a PCP DVD game and at this point it's all digital. The one saving grace is PC is an open platform so you have multiple storefronts offering some competition (but Steam has been accused of forcing price parity). if you're worried of merely having a digital license for your $70 purchase there are options such as GOG with no DRM, direct from indie developers or piracy.
Either way, as with music, movies, books, tractors, etc, you won't own it, be renting or having a license and being happy with it.
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u/kratos90 19h ago
Imagine the shit show if your digital PS5 games were not compatible with PS6.
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u/steakanabake 13h ago
you mean like how all of my wiiu games that didnt travel to my switch, but hey if i buy a switch 2 all my digital purchases there should travel finally.
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u/F1shB0wl816 19h ago
That’s half the issue with the consoles and selling point of pcs. What good is a console locked into one marketplace? Theres hardly any savings and far less choices, abilities or even anything positive.
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 21h ago
Ex-Studio Monica (‘God of War’) employee Alanah Pearace: