During today's earnings call Sony for the first time in a month reacted to the backlash against their attack on physical media. And it went about the way we expected. Let's analyze it. (Disclaimer: We are going off of the official English translation in the clip provided. It wasn't that long of a statement, but there might be minor inaccuracies in there.) First of all, they seem to emphasize that 18 months ahead of time is a respectable period to give notice. No comment on the fact that basically everyone was surprised by their announcement coming this soon, while PS5 is still going strong. Then they dive into the reasons. They claim there are "various", the biggest one being that "digitalization of contents overall has been progressing". This is a clear shift in language. Initially, they blamed it directly on consumer habits. We've shown how that reasoning doesn't fully hold up when looking at the numbers. Then they claim that digitalization does not only impact PlayStation, but "all kinds of content". And that is true. It has been on the rise for quite some years now. At the same time, this conveniently ignores any and all counter trends in recent years. It is a statement that makes it sound like their direction is inevitable on a global scale. But their direction is absolute. Their goal is to kill physical media entirely for games, while basically all other major entertainment sectors have at least a strong niche remaining, with various indicators that physical media is actually growing again. The recent Capcom report saw a 133 % rise compared to the same period of last year. The overall spending is up for physical games compared to the previous year (admittedly, aided by the Switch 2 release). Sony's own physical split last quarter is up, both compared to the quarter before and the same period last year. More and more signs point to a stable plateau of physical buyers at the very least. The call continues and they drop the big one. A few seconds of stuttering followed by, "We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we are cautiously going to move this forward." They are not really giving any insights here. It is a "trust me, bro" in business speak. At the same time, if we take these words at face value, it means they are aware of the consequences, but do it anyway. Endangering retailers across the globe by removing one of the biggest entertainment brands from the portfolio? Fuck them. Removing a choice for consumers who were loyal to the PlayStation brand? Fuck them. Stripping developers of an additional revenue stream and the chance to immortalize their art? Fuck them. Forcing all remaining customers into an ecosystem without customer protection legislation? Fuck them too. What thoughts did they put in exactly? The only word that might give hope is "cautiously". But even that could be read in two ways. Either they are more cautious not to spark more backlash, but they want to continue regardless. Or they are actually waking up to the fact that this might cause more harm to them than they initially anticipated. They follow up with "to this decision we have received various opinions and people have strong views" and how games are loved and connected to memories. The speaker claims that they "understand those emotions". Really? Why are they calling it emotions when there is a long list of legitimate criticism entirely rooted in facts, though? Because they don't want to acknowledge the facts. Sony tries to paint the backlash as emotional without substance. As completely unfounded in anything tangible. After this bit, they immediately continue to starting damage control for the future and start talking about the "future digital ecosystem". Again, in a manner that makes it sound without an alternative. "How do we engage the gamers, is something we would like to continue to explore", they say. What is that supposed to mean, you ask? It's entirely talking about how they can continue to boil the frog. This part of the statement was not revolving around giving customers anything. Our best guess is that it is the attempt to indirectly address the monopoly criticism, and that there is no customer protection in an all-digital future, and that customers will be entirely at the mercy of the platform with zero control over purchased goods. With this statement the clip concludes. The overall tone remained. Cold, distant, no real explanations, no apologies for the past weeks either. But they did get a message. It had some impact. They ran damage control here. 100 % confidence would look different. But they won't correct course for now. It is up to us to continue. If anything, we need to step it up now. #PSBlackout is just one of those steps. Many more need to be taken. This needs a collective effort from all gamers, regardless of how you like to play your games. xitter.cf/ethangach/status/20830…