I don’t own the console, just remembered reading about it and was mistaken about the specific game. Looked it up, Doom: The Dark Ages only has 85 MB on the disc, and God of War: Ragnarok was digital code only in the case with no disc. Jedi Survivor is another one with a required day one patch.
My understanding is around 30% of PS5 games are not playable without patch updates. This is something that started way back in PS3 with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 IIRC, as that game was literally unplayable due to crashing without a day one patch.
Yes, there are some games that cannot be played without internet. You’ll note that I never claimed otherwise.
Those game publishers should rightfully be called out and shamed.
What remains true is that the vast majority of games released on disc are playable without any internet at all. Discs are by no means “materially useless” in 2026.
Fair enough. I feel more than a week boycott will be needed if you actually want to enact change, but hope you folks can convince Sony.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, I’ve been a PC gamer since fully abandoning consoles (outside of some now retro handhelds) in 2012. Just wanted to understand why this was such a big deal, as my gaming has been pretty much fully digital now for close to 15 years. I don’t even have anything in my home that could play DVDs or Blu-rays. But I’ll admit, my platform of choice isn’t proprietary (heck, these days I game fully on Linux).
Best of luck, and hope you can enact the change you want here.
I don’t own the console, just remembered reading about it and was mistaken about the specific game. Looked it up, Doom: The Dark Ages only has 85 MB on the disc, and God of War: Ragnarok was digital code only in the case with no disc. Jedi Survivor is another one with a required day one patch.
My understanding is around 30% of PS5 games are not playable without patch updates. This is something that started way back in PS3 with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 IIRC, as that game was literally unplayable due to crashing without a day one patch.
Yes, there are some games that cannot be played without internet. You’ll note that I never claimed otherwise.
Those game publishers should rightfully be called out and shamed.
What remains true is that the vast majority of games released on disc are playable without any internet at all. Discs are by no means “materially useless” in 2026.
Fair enough. I feel more than a week boycott will be needed if you actually want to enact change, but hope you folks can convince Sony.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, I’ve been a PC gamer since fully abandoning consoles (outside of some now retro handhelds) in 2012. Just wanted to understand why this was such a big deal, as my gaming has been pretty much fully digital now for close to 15 years. I don’t even have anything in my home that could play DVDs or Blu-rays. But I’ll admit, my platform of choice isn’t proprietary (heck, these days I game fully on Linux).
Best of luck, and hope you can enact the change you want here.