Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot Says PlayStation Digital Move Will “Help Grow” The PC Market

PlayStation’s decision to scrap further plans for physical releases beyond 2028 is certainly polarizing. This essentially means there is a timer for highly-anticipated titles to own physically while games like Marvel’s Wolverine & God of War Laufey just make the cut. It was reported by Alanah Pearce that Sony even launched strict PR guidelines for its employees to not speak out after the announcement, understanding the nature of the discussion post-mortem.

This weekend, PlayStation Network was met with another worldwide outage resulting in many issues for users that are committed to the digital-only lifestyle. Ultimately, it proves the platform cannot sustain with the decision to shift fully digital. However, this looks to be the new future as costs for the next-generation PlayStation points towards a full embrace for no physical aspects. Leaks hint at a higher price tag alongside no disc drive being provided with the SKU.

As part of the discussion of the impact from Sony’s announcement earlier in July, Ubisoft leadership showed to offer its support for the decision. In the most recent earnings call, GamesRadar points out that Yves Guillemot sees the digital push to be a step forward for the industry similar to PC when it made the jump and will not drastically interrupt the market.

“What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market. There’s also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines, and being able to be only digital will help to have a more accessible machine, I would say. As you said, there are pluses and minuses. But we think it will not disturb, too much, the industry.” 

Similarly, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen shared a similar sentiment. While not touting it as an ultimate benefit for the video game market, he does elaborate that the choice is not a big impact on the industry as it pertains to GameStop’s business model. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you behind Ubisoft’s comment or no?