PlayStation 6

1 month, 3 weeks - Welcome back to Next-Gen Console Watch! This week Daemon, Max, and Bo break down Bo's recent op-ed about the death of the $500 console. With RAM shortages, supply chain issues, and general inflation wreaking havoc on the games industry, is it time to consider $1,000 or more for a gaming console the new normal? And if that's the case, can we expect an industry crash similar to what befell video games in the 1980s? Plus we have last week's poll results and a new poll for you to vote on at IGN.com and Spotify.

1 month, 3 weeks - This snippet from Podcast Beyond Ep 955 (the one we recorded inside of Big Walk), Max and Nick take a Big Walk and discuss the news that Sony finally revealed why they made the decision to go fully digial with the PlayStation 6. It turns out that a whopping 82% of game sales on Playstation are digital and physical games just arent selling the way they used to. Check out the full episode here! https://youtu.be/yhgNoMjEg_Y?is=iWzifd-xYhjwYNcTJoin the IGN Discord https://discord.gg/h2T45nkkm6This weeks show was hosted by Max Scoville and Nick Maillet.

2 months, 1 week - For decades, borrowing and sharing video games has been a fundamental part of the gaming experience, but that reality is rapidly slipping away. With Sony deciding to end physical disc production in January 2028, while PlayStation 6 and Xbox’s Project Helix are reportedly dropping disc drives altogether, the industry is accelerating toward a digital-only future where true ownership is replaced by Digital Rights Management: effectively a long-term loan that publishers can revoke at any moment. For various reasons, sometimes legal, sometimes financial, this reality has already sent beloved titles like Spec Ops: The Line, Deadpool, and Super Mario Maker into near-extinction.The death of the physical disc doesn't just impact your shelf; it threatens to destroy the entire second-hand market ecosystem built around retailers like GameStop and CEX. However, a digital future doesn't have to mean the end of player autonomy. By looking toward anti-DRM storefronts like Good Old Games (GOG), pioneering peer-to-peer digital marketplaces, or supporting boutique physical publishers like Limited Run Games, players can still fight to keep real ownership alive. As hardware costs rise and companies push the boundaries of monetisation, how we respond to these corporate shifts will ultimately define whether PlayStation’s slogan "Play Has No Limits" remains true, or if we will simply play within narrowly defined digital prisons.

2 months, 2 weeks - In this snippet from Podcast Beyond Ep 952, Sony announced plans to discontinue the manufacturing of physical PlayStation games starting in 2028, and doesn’t exactly give us hope for what’s planned for PlayStation 6. With the rising prices of 6 year old consoles, everything slowly pushing towards subscriptions, and the general lack of excitement at the moment for a new PlayStation has our expectations tempered. We also ran a poll last week and the numbers are surprising. Beyond!Watch The Full Episode Here! - https://youtu.be/6UqzZrNQbc0?si=Ors4uEuJuY4z1aO2Join the IGN Discord https://discord.gg/h2T45nkkm6This weeks show was hosted by Max Scoville, Brian Altano, Jada Griffin, and was produced by Nick Maillet

2 months, 3 weeks - Join the IGN Discord https://discord.gg/h2T45nkkm6It’s been another rough week for the games industry. Most recently, Xbox’s ruthless “restructuring” has left thousands jobless, and shortly before that, Sony announced plans to discontinue the manufacturing of physical PlayStation games starting in 2028, which will likely eliminate more jobs in the long-term, and doesn’t exactly give us hope for what’s planned for PlayStation 6. This console generation kicked off in the middle of a pandemic and the countless issues that caused. Sony made a multi-billion dollar push into the live-service space, which has since backfired, meanwhile, chip shortages due to the AI boom have made gaming more expensive than ever. Now, on top of all that, Sony’s plans to go all-digital are making the walls of its walled garden even higher than ever. So, pardon us if it’s a little hard to get excited about next-gen. Beyond!This weeks show was hosted by Max Scoville, Brian Altano, Jada Griffin, and was produced by Nick Maillet