Not the right time Sony, broadband is still far from perfect in many parts of the world and they'd lose so much ground going down that route. Hell! Not everyone can afford even internet access nowadays and excluding them would be such a dick move. 
 
Maybe next next gen, but not next gen. 

@Napalm:

The problem is that I don't think the prices will ever drop, because that's not how corporations think; why would they pass-on the savings of eliminating physical production, shipping, and distribution when they can keep the prices the same and pocket the extra cash? They will justify it by saying "prices won't go up for consumers," which they will sell like they are doing us (and the environment by the way, because all that physical media eventually ends-up in a landfill) a favor. Why would a multi-national corporation not choose less-cost/more-profit with "no financial impact" on the consumer over less-cost/slightly-less-profit just to kick regular folks a few extra bucks per transaction? Seriously, the suits think more money for them with no change to your "service charge" is the best outcome ... or at least a close second to: more money for them, and ever-decreasing service which you hopefully will not notice until you're paying for basically nothing.

@fusrodah said:

How funny would it have been if the Xbox was the only console with a Blu Ray player in the next cycle?

No doubt, what were they thinking, that Blu-Ray doesn't hold enough? 20 Terabyte drives and waiting days for your 100 Gig download to finish.

Glad they are keeping a optical drive, I've got too many blurays now and need a way to play them without having muliptle devices hooked up. I hope there will be the option to download new games if you want though. I really don't like switching disks or having to go to stores to get hard copies.

So which is worse? A console where you have to be online to get games, or a game that you have to have a persistent always on internet connection to play, even just the single-player portion of?

My connection is generally great, but it drops out completely for a few seconds, roughly once an hour. For this reason, I won't buy Diablo III. I still download Steam games all the time though...

@Cogzwell: My PS3's disc drive stopped working. Why can't I just download all the games I own?

Just hoping with something like this that there's not another PS3 apocalypse where PSN gets shut down for months. Not sure that Sony needs something like this out as they recently put out the new Vita which is to me supposed to be a heavy online platform.

I'm ready now, I already download all my PC games on Steam.

Keep in mind, discs and cartridges aren't sold to you as sentimental items; they're just a way of transferring data, which I think the internet has just about made obsolete.

Every year this becomes more practical. Diablo III is an always-online game, and that concept would have seemed untenable to me even a few years ago. Now, the only problems I've had with it are on Blizzard's side.

@Azquelt:

Why would they let you do that when they could just re-release them digitally and charge you again? When talking about corporations you have to forget about everything except how to make as much money as possible.

That would have been awesome. 25GB downloads with PSN's terrible download speed. The schadenfreude alone would almost be worth not being able to play PlayStation games anymore.

2013 release, and no mention of the console at this year's E3? Hmm...

I'm glad they decided against it. I prefer getting physical copies of games. Being able to play it right away instead of waiting for it to download, especially at college where the internet suuuuuuuuuuucks.

Agree with lots of what's being said. Online-Only is a travesty (hey, Diablo!): it functions only for a relatively slim segment of the population. Outside major "Western" cities stable, reliable, fast internet is still very much a dream.

@Cogzwell said:

My PS3's wireless stopped working.....

why would I want it online only?

Wait...you use a console wireless? you are a crazy person.

That being said, our bandwidth penetration and speeds aren't on the level across the country to do this kind of thing yet, but props to sony to looking forward to the future. Although MS would probably has considered the same.

@Zaxex:

That's great for you -- and is ideal for several reasons -- but it's not the median experience for people, and it's also not ideal for several other reasons. Consider yourself lucky, but don't be naive enough to think that everyone in the world has the same rights, privileges, and ability to access information that you do. If Sony wants to make money on a console they have to cater to the middle of the bell-curve.

Oh thank god.

This "article" is only 4 sentences long.... Still didn't stop people from not reading it.

You know that Giant Bomb doesn’t traditionally run rumors.

This is what they say everytime they run a rumor.

@Excast: The idea behind the MMO isn't what's flawed. Really, it's more like how many times are we going to see them pump out the same tired gimmicky garbage before they realize it's a bad idea.

I just hope they have more games available same day on PSN. I prefer to buy some games digitally.

Also, this was predictable as hell. Once they started slapping hard drives into consoles, and with the success of Steam, this was the logical route to take. I also had an idea that one way around bandwidth issues would be to let people get a flash drive then give them some kind of code or something that they can take to Gamestop (or whatever other gaming distribution store) then have them upload it to your flash drive and you can take it home. I might be crazy, but it made sense to me.

download only is no good

@Hector said:

I just hope they have more games available same day on PSN. I prefer to buy some games digitally.

Most likely given the vita is doing that right now.

@Hector:

I am sure this will happen; in fact, I would not be surprised if everything available in a physical format was also available for download simultaneously. They definitely want to go all-digital, all-download, but most people and most infrastructures are not ready for it, so they are going to keep easing us into it.

@Excast said:

I think the gaming industry is overestimating the number of people with great internet connections.

Indeed. Rural America is still on dial-up, and if not that than shitty satellite internet.

Because it worked so well for the PSPgo right guys!

I sure there was a proposal for a download only console, BUT there were probably three or four other variations as well. I bet there was a "Let's just copy the guts of a what a XB720 will be" proposal as well as a LET'S REALLY try to make a George Foreman Grill.

That is the point, they probably proposed everything under the sun when they were considering what to do next. To say the 'download only' proposal had more weight than any of the other proposal is dubious...it makes a better headline...but the headline could just as easily be "Sony proposed walk robot as next console". That fact they went with "let's make a XB 720" is no more or less shocking.

@Stimpack said:

Also, this was predictable as hell. Once they started slapping hard drives into consoles, and with the success of Steam, this was the logical route to take. I also had an idea that one way around bandwidth issues would be to let people get a flash drive then give them some kind of code or something that they can take to Gamestop (or whatever other gaming distribution store) then have them upload it to your flash drive and you can take it home. I might be crazy, but it made sense to me.

There's probably too much potential for piracy there for that to happen, but more importantly: I think game developers and publishers would rather eliminate the "middle-man" of physical retail so they can make more money directly from the consumer. The whole reason major developers and publishers are going after "used" game sales is so that they can make more money off their IP, so why include GameStop? GameStop wants to make money providing a service publishers can provide themselves digitally. Why not just make a portal like Steam or Origin where you can do the same thing on your laptop, and if you have bandwidth problems you go to the library or a coffee shop?

This would be the stupidiest fucking thing ever. I'm not paying 60$ for something I don't even own and takes 2 days to download. I want my discs and game cases or I'm simply not buying it.

Not too surprising, but also not too surprising that they deemed it too risky because of bandwidth. I'd still rather have discs over downloads though *goes back to yelling at kids to get off his lawn*

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

This would be the stupidiest fucking thing ever. I'm not paying 60$ for something I don't even own and takes 2 days to download. I want my discs and game cases or I'm simply not buying it.

This sentiment is exactly the reason why they changed their minds, and there's a huge chunk of the market that feels this way ... including myself.

Well Sony, if this is true your going to go out of business.

I only have a max download rate of 400kb/s. Before that it was 225kb/s for the past 5 years or so as my housing estate does not have fiber-optic broadband in place, so I'm stuck with wireless for a few more years.

Pretty glad they are using discs even though I'm probably getting an Xbox instead of a Playstation this time round. This is a good idea, just think they should wait until everyone has 100mb internet speed.

The last report I saw was 30%-50% of consoles are offline. This will probably not happen next generation.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28058/Study_PS3_Has_Highest_Percentage_Of_Connected_Consoles.php

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

This would be the stupidiest fucking thing ever. I'm not paying 60$ for something I don't even own and takes 2 days to download. I want my discs and game cases or I'm simply not buying it.

I was always under the impression that we only bought the right to use this interactive media, and the only thing that the consumer actually owned was the dollar worth of plastic that physical disks were made of and not the information on it. So really, you're just spending $60 on a license which is more like renting than anything. I'm probably wrong.

@Totori said:

Well Sony, if this is true your going to go out of business.

They decided against it. Or are you saying that NOT having a download-only console is going to make them go out of business?

@DriftSPace: I'm not dropping sixty dollars on a brand new, digital videogame.

@Totori said:

Well Sony, if this is true your going to go out of business.

Sony is already losing profits on many fronts, so if they go out of business it will have little or nothing to do with their next-generation console. I don't see how download-only is a better financial decision than including a console with an optical drive (i.e. more options) would be. Would you care to explain that? Most of the comments here are people saying that they don't have the bandwidth to run a console like this, and that they enjoy using their console for more than just games. Statistical data regarding bandwidth and global population supports that. How would catering to a smaller percentage of the global population be a better financial decision for Sony? Please explain what you're saying.

if it's online only why not do it like OnLive and run all the hardware on their end? This would be WAY cheaper and they could just keep upgrading the hardware. OnLive had a GREAT idea and I think it was just too ahead of its time to pull it off properly. I think Sony could pull it off. I can't wait to not have to have hardware in my house anymore and just a gaming service.

@Napalm said:

@DriftSPace: I'm not dropping sixty dollars on a brand new, digital videogame.

Me either; I like having extra hard-drive space, being able to play games regardless of that hard-drive space, trading discs with my friends, and knowing that as long as my console works -- whether it connects to the internet or not -- that I will be able to play those games.

E3 is just around the corner; I'll wait for an official announcement.

@Rongaryen said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

This would be the stupidiest fucking thing ever. I'm not paying 60$ for something I don't even own and takes 2 days to download. I want my discs and game cases or I'm simply not buying it.

I was always under the impression that we only bought the right to use this interactive media, and the only thing that the consumer actually owned was the dollar worth of plastic that physical disks were made of and not the information on it. So really, you're just spending $60 on a license which is more like renting than anything. I'm probably wrong.

EULA or no, disc-based games without online DRM can't just be taken away at a company's whim. People shouldn't be asked to pay $60 for something that can be snatched from them pretty much when the publisher feels like.

I honestly don't care if my games are digital only. I haven't bought a boxed PC game in nearly a decade. Haven't purchased music on a CD in even longer. I have some Blu Ray box sets because they look nice, but when it comes to watching movies, pretty much everything I watch is streamed digitally. I don't need discs anymore.

The one thing that would make the switch from disc based to digital lame is if you can only play those games while connected to PSN. Which, even if you discount all the times your connection might drop, is still not even worth considering when you take into account how often PSN isn't even up.

This idea is ridiculous. With everyone already bitching about online DRM and how shitty cloud storage has been why would they even consider this?

@Jayzilla said:

I can't wait to not have to have hardware in my house anymore and just a gaming service.

I can't agree with this. I would rather "own" the console and my game library; I don't want my living room to be a glorified arcade where I have to pay a fee every time I pick-up a controller. I still play a lot of my old NES, SNES, PSOne, and PS2 games, which have paid for themselves many, many times over; with a "gaming service" I would have spent a lot more money for the same experience, or (more realistically) I probably would have not played a lot of those games as many times as I did because there would have been a premium attached. There's a reason the arcade is dead, and I don't want it resurrected in my living room.

People like you should have the option you prefer, but people like me should also have the opposite option.

You're right about OnLive; it was ahead of its time, and the infrastructure was (and is) just not ready for it. It has little to do with the company offering the product and everything to do with the ability of people to consume that product, which is not ideal at present.

@demonknightinuyasha said:

Not too surprising, but also not too surprising that they deemed it too risky because of bandwidth. I'd still rather have discs over downloads though *goes back to yelling at kids to get off his lawn*

I doubt it's just you. Kiddies go to Gamestops all the time.

As for "consideration," I imagine it was one of those board-room shoot-downs. Probably went something like this.

KAZ: OK people! Ideas for PS4

DERPY HOOVES, VP OF WEIRD IDEAS: We could ditch optical media!

KAZ: Oh?

DERPY: Yeah, people can spend weeks downloading their games! And really, who needs all those Blu-Ray movies we've spent the last 6 years trying to get people to buy?

KAZ: Yeah, no. OK, who hired the cross-eyed pony?

@egg said:

Due to bandwidth concerns? THAT'S their reason?

I'm surprised bandwidth is such a big issue.

Having to download a blu ray's worth of game has got to be a pain for Sony to manage, and it would take ages for some people on slower connections.

@YukoAsho said:

@Rongaryen said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

This would be the stupidiest fucking thing ever. I'm not paying 60$ for something I don't even own and takes 2 days to download. I want my discs and game cases or I'm simply not buying it.

I was always under the impression that we only bought the right to use this interactive media, and the only thing that the consumer actually owned was the dollar worth of plastic that physical disks were made of and not the information on it. So really, you're just spending $60 on a license which is more like renting than anything. I'm probably wrong.

EULA or no, disc-based games without online DRM can't just be taken away at a company's whim. People shouldn't be asked to pay $60 for something that can be snatched from them pretty much when the publisher feels like.

Exactly. People don't see the part where "all-digital" results in reduced rights for consumers. More money for them, and less options for us. This is a good move on Sony's part.

@Metal_Mills said:

Nope. Bullshit. If it was 2013 release it would be ALL OVER E3. But they confirmed there won't be a PS4 announced. Secondly, a huge number are offline still. Most in fact across the world are NOT online, ever. If they did this it would be suicide.

They might announce it at next E3 and shoot for a holiday release.

As for download only I say NO. My connection is pretty damn bad and many others as well.

@KinjiroSSD said:

The last report I saw was 30%-50% of consoles are offline. This will probably not happen next generation.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28058/Study_PS3_Has_Highest_Percentage_Of_Connected_Consoles.php

This says it all right here. Why would Sony willingly cut-out such a large portion of their market when they are already losing money? They may be losing money, but they aren't total morons, and for that I am grateful.