Our recent post on how to fix your PS4 Blu Ray drive got me thinking about my own use of the PS4 disc.

When was the last time I used my PS4 Disc drive? As a matter of fact, the only time I had to ever use my PS4 Blu Ray drive was when it started failing and I had to follow the steps above to make it stop doing its awful noise. Yup, the only time I had to insert a Disc in my PS4 was to try and fix the Disc Drive which had broken for no reason and had become extremely noisy.

I have moved on to a full digital experience on my PS4. I do not watch Blu rays or DVDs anymore, instead I use Netflix and Amazon Video. I have not bought a physical game for my PS4 yet, I rely a lot on digital games, but even more on my PS+ subscription for my gaming needs.

I realize digital’s not for everyone. It artificially inflates the prices of video games as you cannot buy used games, and some people live in areas where downloading a 50GB game is not necessarily convenient (although to be honest here, just have a little patience: my 7Mb Centurylink ADSL does the job well. It’s not as awesome as the 1Gb Fiber I had back in Tokyo, but it’s still acceptable if I’m OK with not playing the game right here, right now – I now, instant gratification takes a hit…). And for many gamers, the physical object is a must have to build a really cool collection of games.

I don’t have good numbers of how much of the market digital games represent. A few studies here and there seem to say that digital games already represent 15% to 20% of the gaming market. That’s quite a lot.

Based on these numbers, it would make sense if Sony came up with a version of the PS4 that doesn’t have a disc drive at all. This would be an easy way to reduce the size and weight of the device without have to spend too much on R&D to shrink other components.

Update: I got a comment on N4G stating that Sony doesn’t want another PSP Go. This is a fair point, but I’d say that this was then, and this is now. The PSP Go was out 6 years ago. The digital market has dramatically evolved since then. Also, the PSP go was a portable console with no 3G chip. It was technically not the best device for a “full digital” system (keeping in mind that people who owned a PSP Go tended to love the device!) . The PS4, on the other hand, is used to its full potential only when it’s constantly connected. There is a growing number of gamers that go digital only, compared to 6 years ago.

I’m also not pretending that the disc version of the PS4 would entirely disappear, but I can imagine a world where Sony market two versions of the console, the “digital only” one being slightly cheaper.

Are you still mostly “physical”, or did you make the switch to “digital”. Do you think a disc-less PS4 would make sense?