Sega is the latest publisher to make its views about physical media clear, in the wake of Sony's controversial decision to kill off the manufacture and sale of discs by 2028. The president of the Japanese publisher, Shuji Utsumi, noted that he believes physical media is still important, though digital distribution is "crucial", mostly thanks to the "steadily increasing" number of people playing on PC.
"When it comes to titles we call 'full games' for consoles and PCs, we believe that a digital shift is crucial," he notes in an interview with Japanese publication Famitsu. "Of course, consoles are important, but the proportion of people who play on PCs is steadily increasing. Even in areas where consoles are not widely available, there are many people who say, 'I can play it on PC.
"In order to cultivate that market, we believe it is important to strengthen our digitalisation. We tend to think from a physical perspective, so I think we need to be more digitally conscious and become more global."
He then draws on Sega's own legacy, noting that - once upon a time - the company was in the hardware market itself. It learned some pretty important lessons back then, and since dropping out of the hardware race, Sega has found massive success as a publisher. This seems to colour Utsumi's belief in physical media.
"We were originally a platform provider, and of course, we still value the culture of physical media. Rather than completely abandoning that, we are currently challenging ourselves to shift so that we can think about and act on the important aspects of digital media in parallel."
Given the response to Sony and PlayStation's decision to move away from physical media altogether, this is quite refreshing. Many have outlined how a digital-only future could impact consumer rights, whilst others have begun petitioning Sony in the hopes the company will change its mind. The hardware giant seems immovable in its stance at the moment, however, likely emboldened by the fact that even the EU will be unable to influence its decision.
Other creators have begun weighing in on the matter, too, with the most recent comments coming from the creator of the RPG series, Disgaea. Sohei Niikawa believes that if PlayStation kills physical media, it should "get rid of the hardware" too.
Oh yeah, now would be a terrible time to do something like that. But when* the hardware market chills out
If they make physical exclusive games, unique hardware, and at a decent price, maybe. But if they essentially just make a Sega branded Steam Machine, I see no point. If a console does nothing to differentiate itself from the rest of the market, there's no reason to really get it over a PC.
That's the problem Xbox is having and is the same one Playstation is about to have when it drops the disc drive. Look at what Xbox did with the ROG ally. Instead of making an actual unique Xbox device, they just took something that already existed and slapped their branding on it. What reason would anyone ever really have to go for that instead of a less restricted option for cheaper?
The Xbox is almost the exact opposite of what I’m talking about, and I think that’s their problem. There’s nothing special about it, it has no exclusives, and it doesn’t have access to the practically infinite number of pc games, mods, emulators, etc.
So what I’m proposing is just a prebuilt pc. A prebuilt pc with a unique case, distro, and maybe a cartridge slot of some description. And with the cultural cache of a company like sega, I think it could easily earn its spot as a prebuilt living room gaming and media pc, much like the steam machine.
I think just a prebuilt PC would be pretty niche for the average person. I think they'd need to do something a little more innovative to compete. A cart slot could be one part that could help it's appeal. But I think they'd need to give it a controller and make exclusives for it. And maybe include some new kind of feature that other systems don't have. If it's just a PC in a Sega case, unless it's a great price, the only reason to really get one would be nostalgia.
It probably would be niche, but not any more niche than the steam machine, and it would be relatively low investment and low risk. Going full console with exclusives is extremely high investment and thus high risk. They would have to sell enough consoles via those exclusives to make up for what they would make selling the game cross platform, which seems very unlikely. As a publisher, this would also severely hurt relationships with current clients. These are all reasons why they got out of the console game and pivoted to being a game publisher back in the day. I don’t see them making that mistake twice.
I totally agree, I'm just speaking hypothetically. I don't see much point in them getting back into hardware unless they went big. Most likely, they will just stick to making games unfortunately.