Wow... just wow. I have been playing Mega Man X: Command Mission for few days straight and I have actually enjoyed it. I'll tell you more about my experience in a future post. Then a huge drama among PlayStation fans have came out of the blue and... fans have been fuming.
PlayStation became a brand back in 1994 when the first console came out first in Japan and 30 years later, the brand has celebrated its 30th anniversary with deals and merch. It became even more exciting because we have the revamped PlayStation Plus offering classic games released on PS1, PS2, PSP and PS3. However, as we get to the second half of 2026, things have took a turn for PlayStation.
First off, discs are being phased out for games that release in 2028. This became the source of sparking backlash on all sides. Overtime, it grew. A Change.org petition was created to reverse Sony's decision and a week long boycott was planned to be put into motion, but failed because Sony's decision to end disc production remains firm. The agreement shows that digital purchases actually offer licenses. When your account is banned, all of your digital purchases are gone. Now, I need to be clear that digital purchases on a Sony console should provide ownership like physical purchases, not revocable licenses. Sony ending discs in 2028 would be the last straw that they are seriously switching to Steam.
It was clearly dunked on. The event has been the source of controversy that we own everything. It's not theirs to take. We can assume that Sony could follow Microsoft's footsteps by doing a disc-to-digital feature. July 1 came, they announced that disc production will end for games that release in 2028 and beyond and heard nothing for six days amd made a post about the FlexStrike fight stick to ignore the backlash. In fact, the chat during the double-header State of Play was flooded with "No disc, no buy" and "Destiny 3" chants. Destiny 2 had to stop being supported as Bungie has to focus on Marathon.
If you were living under a rock, Guerilla was working on a live service game, Horizon: Hunters Gathering. This is a spin-off of the Horizon franchise that uses anime-style cel shading instead of realistic depictions the mainline games use. The game had a playtest and... whew. Negative feedback went all over the place that the entire development has been rebooted and left in the dust for quite some time. Now, if Hunters Gathering has been rebooted, they are starting all over and hopefully make it any less of a live service game since we noticed that live service games aren't sustainable as we thought. That's how Concord failed that it had to be shut down after its short-term development along with the studio.
It's also how 2XKO flopped despite all of the positive buzz. The team was laid off weeks after launch and six months later, active development ends, halting my opportunity to see Riven, Sett and anyone else in a giant pile of characters just itching to be in the roster. This had left us with the only tag fighter left to support, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. But luckily, a new patch for Marvel Tokon is in development to remedy most of the major issues in the PC version that became the source of having mixed reviews on PC.
It became a de facto shortcoming for the gaming industry, with the exception, of course, of the ones that are still sustainable for years, whether it's PC only games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft or CSGO to console games like Valorant and even Marvel Rivals. Even Overwatch. Overwatch, of all games, remains sustainable after dropping the 2 from the title and keeping it free-to-play under the Overwatch name and shows zero signs of dying. I think the reasoning for Overwatch's sustained retention is because the Overwatch team is actually small from the start. They knew that smaller and leaner teams that work on live service games have the tendency to establish an overkill player engagement at launch by developing games the right way without making any bad choices that spark backlash.
Here's the thing. Look at Brawlhalla. This game became a success to have future content for years to come because it was developed by a smaller team from the start. Now, imagine if 2XKO was developed by a smaller team from the start. When it releases, its player engagement becomes high to overkill and would show no signs of laying off some of the team. This makes it a vendetta to larger teams that had to be shrunk weeks after release.
Speaking of a vendetta, this brings me to my next point, Hideo Kojima. Kojima is a Japanese video game writer. He was with Konami on that time when he was working on the Metal Gear franchise. He left Konami to form his own studio, Kojima Productions. You know that they are the developers of the Death Stranding series, with Kojima being the head of the team. But what does a vendetta have anything to do with Kojima?
Well, Kojima has a new single-player game in the works, Physint. It is supposed to be like a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid since it has a Tactical Espionage Action label and was supposed to be a PS5 exclusive. Unfortunately, Physint is going to Xbox as Kojima left Sony for Microsoft. This is due to Sony dropping the ball. They pulled funding from Kojima, been ballooning budgets, missing deadlines and spent time funding on a live service game like Concord. We already knew that live service games aren't as sustainable as we once thought, so why fund Concord? They should've kept the funding on Kojima instead of funding Concord.
Fans were set ablaze that Sony's fumbles allowed Kojima to shift the development of Physint to Xbox. This darning news really sets the drama about the situation surrounding Kojima. Here's the Kojima clip of a Mightykeef skit about being a PlayStation fan in 2026.
Kojima Productions has issued a statement saying that the studio is still in good health and still has ties with PlayStation despite losing the project to Xbox. Kojima working with Xbox must have unlocked multimedia forms, but the game is still in early development. Does this mean Physint is gonna be an Xbox exclusive? Absolutely not. Its PlayStation release is still likely.
If Sony is going all-digital, follow Xbox's footsteps by doing a disc-to-digital conversion feature. Also, funding should've remained intact with Kojima and shouldn't been funding on a dead live service game like Concord. That's my advice and rant that Sony needs to follow if they want to the backlash to pass and be alleviated.
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