Would a Sony Boycott Work?

 

I already know the answer to this question, but let's explore it anyway. 

Unless you've been living under a rock the past couple of months, you know that Sony is closing up shop on PSP, PS Vita and PS3 stores. I already talked about this a couple times, so I won't be delving back into detail. Yet as the days go by, more news is coming out that the stores closing are only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem comes in the form of a battery that's in the PS3 and the PS4, a CMOS battery, and once that fails, both the PS3 and PS4 cannot sync the systems to the internet and verify dates against what's on PSN. This renders not only digital games unplayable.. but physical games as well. Yes, when the CMOS battery goes out, it will effectively brick your disc games. Hmm.. what does that sound like? Oh yeah, 2013 when MS tried to release the Xbox One with an always-on system check.

When MS tried to pull that on us, we did not take kindly to it. We threatened to boycott MS and their Xbox One. They buckled. We also didn't like the fact that Kinect 2.0 was forced on us jacking up the price of the console by 100 dollars and not being able to be turned off. We put pressure on MS and they buckled on that too. MS actually listened to us when we said bad ideas were bad and did something about it. Although I'm still wanting them to improve their first party line up, but that will happen over the years. 

Anyway, long time Sony gamers are pissed. They don't want their massive collection of games they've accumulated to be rendered useless. There was a day where they thought their physical copies would be safe, but that looks to be in jeopardy now. Sony already knows that their customers are angry with them, but they aren't going to do anything about it. They've got them by the balls. The PS5 simply cannot be found anywhere, in large part thanks to component shortages and scalpers, but rest assured, the demand for them would still be high even without those complications. So with that kind of demand, would it even be possible to put any kind of pressure on Sony to do something about their legacy games?

The sad reality is that a boycott simply wouldn't work. They'd lose a little money, yes, but it's clear Sony is ready to leave the past behind. They're even leaving the little guys behind as it looks to be they're going to continue to focus on mega million blockbuster titles that will carry them through their fiscal year like ice cream stores that do all their business in the summer. Boycott all you want. Sony will just laugh. There simply isn't enough angry gamers that would be willing to make an impact in Sony's future sales to get them to realize they're losing money as a result of not preserving their legacy games. This would be similar to trying to boycott Nintendo for any wacky reason that causes a new controversy.  Look at Pokémon Sword and Shield. All those people complaining about it yet they went out and bought it anyway.

The boycott for Xbox One worked primarily because MS doesn't really have a legacy outside of Halo and Gears.  They rely on tech and services to sell their hardware so when the problems are rooted in the very system itself, they don't have a massive list of must have games that will get enough people to compromise. Sony and Nintendo don't have that problem. Nintendo will keep making underpowered hardware and you will buy it because you HAVE to have the new Mario and Zelda. Sony will keep making weird policy decisions and make it so hard to find a PS5, but you NEED to have it for God of War and Horizon. What, you're just not going to play the biggest games of the generation? Yeah, we never had that problem with Xbox. It was an easy system to ditch if need be.

And well, if you know a boycott isn't going to work, why deprive yourself of the games you want? I still boycott certain game companies because I can always find different games to play on that platform, but boycotting an entire platform....ooof. That's a tall order. I can't imagine not having a Switch or a PS5 because the Switch's library has been fantastic up to this point and the PS5's is slowly picking up speed. Have you seen Ratchet and Clank: A Rift in Time? WOW! But I could easily give up the XSX if I needed to as everything it has I want to play can be played elsewhere. That's why Phil Spencer has been working so hard trying to reverse all the damage Don Mattrick did with Xbox One. He wants Xbox to be a bullshit-free platform and I got to be honest, it's looking better every month.

But I would like to see an attempt of a boycott, though, just to see how much more arrogant Sony will continue to be. They thought they were the shit in 2006 when they sold the PS3 for 600 dollars and that nearly ended them, so there is a precedence of them readjusting their strategies as a result of financial consequences. Again, though, Sony is not having a problem selling the PS5, glitches and missing features be damned. They're under no pressure to fix the PS5 or put out games at a faster clip. So then really, why bother preserving their legacy games? 

And that's what it really boils down to. We all care about our old games. We don't want our digital games to disappear and our physical games to be turned to coasters. But do we care enough about them to say no to future games? I love playing retro games, but I can't subsist on them. Sometimes, they really do become too old to play. I love seeing games evolve with new ideas and larger worlds. This is why as much as I want to boycott Sony, I can't.  There's simply too much coming down their pipeline for me to say no to. I know some people will, but they also know it won't make any difference. At least they're sticking to their principles. My hats off to them.

There's also something else to take into consideration. The games we're buying now may end up going through the same thing when Sony releases the PlayStation 7. As much as we want the new PS5 games, maybe we shouldn't, unless Sony is prepared to do something about game preservation. I get that they can't keep servers up forever, so that's why they either need to disable whatever CMOS crap is affecting PSN checks, or the most preferred method would be to finally institute backwards compatibility and bring the older games to newer storefronts. Hah... you've better lucky with buying a winning lottery ticket. 

Anyway, enough Sony. I'm tired of talking about them, nevermind that my PS5 suddenly decided to pitch fits with my router and can't finish any downloads. Unless Sony really does something stupid again, I'll promise I'll write about something next time. Thanks for reading.