What changes would you want to see happen for PlayStation's Digital Storefront during the lifecycle of the PS6 and could you see PlayStation making their own version of physical Game Key Cards once the PS6 releases?
For me, some of the obvious changes I would love to see is:
- a wider refund window of at least 2 hours
- the guarantee that our digital purchases can be resold to either other players and or back to PlayStation for wallet funds (the wallet funds option may have to have a limited time attched to it considering what PS wants to do to prevent spam refunds).
- more free demos for 1st Party and 3rd Party games
- game sharing of already purchased games amongst online friends
- the ability to connect a PS5 Disc drive to a PS6 in order to have a free of charge physical to digital license transfer (considering a PS5 disc drive cannot be attached to a PS6, even though I think they have a good chance of still being compatible)
- and clearer options to ensure most, if not all, of our digital purchases can be played offline
Now obviously, much of this does come across as wishful thinking to some people considering Sony's super recent actions of removing purchases without refunds. But I belive in those such cases of digital purchases being removed, and other pressing issues related to digital ownership, focusing on advocacy for digital purchase rights laws will always be more important to me than juat simply assuming nothing can be done to get Sony to make sure that our digital purchases do deeply matter to us.
When it comes to whether or not I can see PlayStation creating their own equivalent to Nintendo's Game Key Cards, I'm leaning more towards yes, I can definitely see PlayStation doing something like this. While obviously not as popular nor as wanted as traditional physical games, GKC's enables players to still trade, resale, and gift thise types of games to other people without any sort of digital storefront restrictions. I can see PS creating something very similar to the PS Vita cartridges as their go to form factor for in-between physical games for both the PS6 and for even the rumored new PS Handheld.
Speculatively speaking, this also may in some way allude to PlayStation's commitment towards continuing to sell their games through multiple retail stores that was stated twice in threir blog about no more physical discs. This would likely also mean that any post 2028 PS5 games may either be simple gift card like plastic cards or paper codes in cases though, assuming PlayStation does not want more than one cartridge SKU for any crossover games.
But of course, all of this is just my speculation and ultimately hopeful ideas for what I think PlayStation can and should at the very least consider doing. Call me naive, but I still do have at least a little bit optimism for the future of this industry, even though that future is looking to be somewhat more digital than purely physical.
Ultimately, we're just going to have to wait and see what PlayStation decides to do next.