It’s no secret that physical media is a niche market at this point, and despite some encouraging signs, it’s felt like it’s on the verge of collapse for several years now. With the continued growth of Netflix and other streaming services, more people are choosing digital and streaming over physical media. It makes a lot of sense considering the ease of use, and you don’t have to worry about where you’ll be storing your digital movies.
With the news that PlayStation will no longer have physical discs produced for the console in 2028, it sure sounds like the PS6 won’t have a disc drive, or if it does, it’ll be another situation where it’s a standalone option. While that’s undoubtedly bad news for physical media lovers in the video game space, it also has an impact on the Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray market. If the PS6 doesn’t have a disc drive, that means fewer people will have access to a Blu-ray player.
- 4K Capability
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Yes
- Game support
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PS5, PSVR 2, PS4, PSVR
- Processing Power
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10.3 TFLOPS
- Storage
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825GB SSD
- CPU
-
x86-64-AMD Ryzen Zen 8 cores
- Dimensions
-
390 × 104 x 260 mm
A common Blu-ray player bites the dust
This isn’t good news
With console gaming as popular as it is, the Xbox and PlayStation have become the most common 4K Blu-ray players on the market. Both of these consoles, provided they have disc drives, are excellent entry points into the world of physical media. While they don’t have access to Dolby Vision for whatever reason, they are still good players. In fact, the PlayStation has always been at the forefront of physical media. I know many people used the original PlayStation as a CD player, and then they used the PS2 as a DVD and CD player. Even the PS3, despite being two decades old, is still a fine Blu-ray player, provided you keep it updated.
New standalone 4K Blu-ray players don’t come with any type of regularity, and I’m still using the 2018 Sony UBP-X700K player. It’s a perfectly fine player, so it’s not like I need to get an update, but it’s also something that costs over $100.
I don’t know how many people are willing to go out and buy a dedicated player for a niche medium, so a game console is the best case scenario for a lot of people. Chances are high that people already have a game console sitting in their living room compared to an actual Blu-ray player. If Sony actually goes through with this, and if the next-generation doesn’t have a disc drive, then that’s millions of Blu-ray players leaving the market.
It may not mean a lot right now, but as more people upgrade to these consoles, more people will unplug their current ones, and in turn they will be unplugging the only Blu-ray player they have. That’s not a big deal to big physical media lovers as they probably have a player for their discs, but the casual person will be losing access to one of the easiest paths toward the world of physical media available. I don’t know if you could convince somebody who’s fully digital to go out and buy a player, and then pay for the price of discs on top of that.
Discs aren’t getting cheaper either
Fewer retailers means fewer sales
Something I’ve had a problem with over the past few years is the rising cost of physical discs. Netflix going up in price all the time is one thing, but it’s another when the same rising price hits the physical media market. As much as I want Blu-ray to be a streaming killer, things don’t seem like they’re going in that direction. It’s not uncommon to see a 4K disc costing more than $30, and it’s led me to pick far less than I used to.
When Best Buy was still in the business of selling physical media, I made orders from there all the time. Ever since their departure, it feels like sales overall aren’t as exciting. Aside from the half-off Criterion sales that Barnes and Noble runs, it doesn’t feel like there’s ever a great time to pick up a movie, outside of the same ones that go on sale for every Black Friday and Prime Day sale that rolls around. It just feels like it’s getting harder and harder to enjoy this hobby, and with one of the most prevalent Blu-ray players potentially being taken away with us, it’s hard for things to not feel bleak. I’m going to keep fighting the good fight as much as I can.
I’m not a hater of digital by any means, and it’s obvious that more enjoy it than don’t, but I still like to have the choice of physical or digital. When I am ushered in a certain direction, it doesn’t feel great. Although physical storefronts are becoming scarce, there are still plenty of ways to pick up things online. The problem is that a lot of the slack is picked up by boutique retailers such as Arrow, Criterion, and Shout Factory, and that all comes at a price. I understand that it’s just the way things are, and I’d rather have them than not, but it’s still disappointing to see how far we’ve fallen from a few decades ago.
