Experts have told Decrypt that Sony plans to stop producing physical game discs starting from 2028, which will have the most severe impact on players in low-income areas; an expert specializing in the African gaming industry believes that the entire African continent will be severely affected as a result.
For a long time, the second-hand market has been an important channel for players to obtain games at low prices. Although PlayStation Store offers discounts, digital purchases by default require a stable internet connection, which is not easily available in rural households.
A professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and author on the business of video games, Joost, van, Dreunen, stated to Decrypt: "By abandoning physical discs, some players at the bottom of the economic spectrum will lose the opportunity to obtain physical products through retail channels. More importantly, they will also lose the channel for discounted second-hand sales. This will not be immediately reflected in the financial statements of major game manufacturers, as their current focus is on creating high-priced experiences for a small portion of high-end players."
At the same time, game costs are also rising. In March, Sony raised the price of PS5 due to "pressure from the global economic environment." Additionally, Fortune reported that the price of the next generation of Xbox is expected to reach up to $1800.
A spokesperson for the British advocacy group Gamer's Voice told Decrypt that Sony's decision to cut back on its optical disc business "is likely to have a greater impact on low-income groups."
"Out of reach for most Africans"
The founder of Bijetic, a platform focusing on the gaming industry in Africa and the Middle East, stated to Decrypt that PS5 is "now out of reach for most Africans." He emphasized that even those who can afford consoles still rely on the second-hand game market to make gaming accessible to them.
So, at least the highest-income African players can still take advantage of the discounts offered by PlayStation Store, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case. Muhammad states that PlayStation Network currently only provides support for one African country: South Africa. Many other countries are not included in PlayStation Network's official list of supported countries.
Muhammad said, "If Nigerian players want to make digital purchases, they must register an account in the United States or the United Kingdom and then pay using foreign gift cards or US dollar cards."
Another major obstacle is the slow download speeds in rural, remote areas, and those with low incomes.
van Dreunen says, "Bandwidth has now become a part of the cost of gaming. Approximately one-quarter of rural American households do not have cable internet providers that offer 100/20 Mbps service, and at a speed of 10 Mbps, downloading 50GB would take about 11 hours."
Muhammad indicates that in Africa and the Middle East, there is a significant variation in internet speeds – ranging from ultra-fast connections in Dubai to unstable connections in Iran. In some countries, the cost of accessing the internet is also quite high.
“I recently spent 75,000 naira (about $55) on a 450GB broadband package, which is already more than the minimum monthly salary in Nigeria,” Muhammad said to Decrypt. Considering that the pre-loaded file for “GTA 6” is estimated to be 212GB, “Players here first have to spend $80 on the game, and then another $25 to over $60 to download it, depending on how they purchase their data.”
According to the data from Speedtest, by, and Ookla, the median download speed in Nigeria is 36.77 Mbps. Downloading this file will take nearly 13 hours. Not to mention that they also need to have a non-Nigerian PlayStation account, a download code corresponding to the country of account registration, and a method of payment in local currency.
“According to Sony’s own terms, you must register an account in your country of residence, and Sony has the right to suspend or close accounts created with false information,” Muhammad said to Decrypt. “Therefore, any Nigerian or Egyptian person using an account from the United States or the United Kingdom is violating the rules from day one.”
Muhammad explained that African players have always been worried that they would be rejected when they need Sony's help, or even worse, that their accounts could be banned for violating rules. In a future where all purchases are moving towards digitalization, this could mean that players might lose their accounts, which contain all the games they have purchased.
He said, "If African players buy GTA 6 but are unable to retrieve their accounts, they may have no choice but to buy it again on a new account, along with all the other content they have lost. For players in most regions of Africa, this could be the case for future PlayStation games that do not come with discs."
Sony and PlayStation have not responded to Decrypt's request for a comment.
