Wow, this is awful. Some people reported that these ads are also very petty and not necessarily related to the game, like apparently Elden Ring shows an ad for a licensed mousepad when you hover over the game now…
Edit: Playstation Product Manager says this is actually a new bug. I really doubt it but they do seem to be “fixing it”.
Sony looking at the rotting corpse of Xbox and taking notes. But only the wrong ones.
At least Microsoft hasn’t announced a marginally improved $700 pro console that doesn’t even come with the disk drive.
Yet.
I wonder if anybody remembers when it leaked Microsoft had a concept of a plan about restrictions on Xbox discs (used/shared), everyone gasped, Sony mocked them in a video about “sharing discs” on PS4 and became a turning point in the console wars…
Even a decade later: Remove discs at your peril! Half the reason I’ve even bought consoles is for Blu-ray movies (still unbeatable AV quality). Sony won both the console and disc drive wars FFS! Still not enough. “Line must go up more!”
I hope MS is at least mocking them back right now, for giggles. Before announcing a very similar thing next year…
Generally, I find that the discs often little more than licenses and require the actual have to be downloaded.
Yeah, but how long until it doesn’t come with a power brick, and you have to supply your own?
I mean, if it has USB PD, that could be a not so unreasonable thing. That is, supposing USB PD supplies as outlets become common.
They are doing this because a rotten corpse doesn’t force them to compete, they can do whatever they want. If MS didn’t shit the bed with the Series X/S, Sony would be trying harder to please customers, or at least not actively screwing them (see also: 800 EUR PS5 Pro without disc drive or vertical stand).