TL;DR: Circana’s US data shows the late‑August PlayStation blackout did not meaningfully change player counts or engagement, despite online attention; Sony will keep selling digital copiesive.
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The PlayStation blackout apparently has not caused any real impact to player counts in the United States, according to data-tracker Circana.
In late August, enthusiast PlayStation gamers enacted a platform-wide blackout in an effort to send a message to Sony. From August 23 – 30, gamers would keep their PlayStation consoles off in protest of Sony’s decision to phase out game disc production. On the surface, the campaign seemed to gather traction, amassing views on Twitter and a Reddit post with 4K comments.
However, data from US data-tracker Circana indicates that this may not be the case, and that most PlayStation users in the US, which is Sony’s principal geography in terms of revenue, still turned on their consoles and played games. “No. There was no significant change at all in player count or engagement in our tracking,” Piscatella said on BlueSky.
- Read more: PlayStation gamers’ planned week-long ‘PS Blackout’ begins today
- Read more: PlayStation gamers plan ‘blackout’ to hit Sony where they know it will hurt
- Read more: Sony limiting PS5 disc drives to 1 per person following decision to kill PlayStation physical media
This may not be the end of consumer opposition that Sony faces over the unpopular decision, yet this opposition may hit a wall due to the simple fact that the key reason why Sony is actually adjusting its media production is carefully hidden; everyday gamers will never get to see the numbers that dictate Sony’s decision-making, including the costs of disc pressing, printing of labels, and worldwide freight/shipping costs of the finished products.
Sony says that it will continue making digital formats of games available to retailers, indicating that there may still be a physical product sold in stores, possibly a code-in-a-box or some sort of smaller, more margin-friendly redemption token.
The company has yet to clarify whether or not the next-generation PlayStation 6 console will have a disc drive that plays PS5 game discs.
How does Circana measure PlayStation player count and engagement in the US?
What exactly was Sony changing by phasing out game disc production?
Could Sony’s retail copies become code-in-a-box or another redemption-based format?
What costs are driving Sony’s shift away from disc production and how do they affect pricing?
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