Personally, we’d like Sony to prevent publishers from doing this. While we can understand there’s a cost associated with cartridges, Blu-rays cost pennies, and if publishers want to release a physical edition, they should be forced to put the entirety of their v1.0 game code on the disc.
Original Story: DOOM: The Dark Ages, the upcoming medieval shooter from maker id Software, may be the latest Bethesda outing to enforce a download on its boxed copies.
You may recall Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s physical edition also required a significant download, with just 20GB of data included on the disc.
Well, early copies of the new DOOM game include an ‘Internet Required’ disclaimer on the box, and while there’s conflicting information at the moment, some are stating that the title simply won’t boot without a download.
This situation is different to a day one patch, by the way: typically, Blu-rays include a fully playable version of a game, so you can at least insert it into your PS5 and play it without ever connecting to the Internet. In this instance, only a small portion of the game’s data has been burned onto the disc, with the rest requiring a download.
It’s obviously not massively dissimilar to Nintendo Switch 2’s Game Key Card situation, which sees you purchasing a physical cartridge which merely acts as a gateway to download the game. The difference here is that cartridges do genuinely have sizeable costs associated with them, while Blu-rays cost pennies.
All in all, we’re really dissatisfied with Microsoft’s support of physical on the PS5. Games like Forza Horizon 5 haven’t received boxed releases at all, and assuming DOOM: The Dark Ages is the same as Indiana Jones, then Bethesda may as well have not bothered either.
None of this is good for future game preservation.
[source x.com, via resetera.com]
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As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.