The Digital-Only PS5 Is Still a Bad Idea

Sony this week finally showed us what the PlayStation 5 looks like, provided a glimpse of several PS5-exclusive games, and unveiled new accessories for the console, including a new PlayStation Camera, a media remote, and a wireless headset.

But we also learned that Sony will sell two PS5 models at launch—one with an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive and one that's digital-only. So it seems Sony did not learn anything after the last two times this approach failed.

Don't get me wrong. Digital game downloads are extremely convenient, and they're effectively the only way to get PC games now. My consoles are filled with them. But I also have shelves full of games on discs and cards (for Nintendo Switch), and I don't want to change that. I also don't want to give up the option of an optical drive as long as the device I'm buying is physically large enough to contain one.

You shouldn't either, so whether the PS5 Digital Edition is $50 or $100 less expensive than the regular PS5, it won't be worth it.

The option to play optical media is too big a benefit to give up for your game console. Discs offer long-term stability, and ensure that you'll have access to your media and (most) games even if your internet connection goes down. They give you more options, and they don't take away from your ability to download and install whatever you want on your console's hard drive.

This goes beyond games, especially with Sony finally including an Ultra HD Blu-ray player on its system after curiously skipping it for the PS4 and sticking with 1080p Blu-ray. Finally, the PS5 can play 4K HDR movies on physical media. That's a huge boon! As is the inherent backwards compatibility of being able to put on your favorite Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs. The PS5 might not be able to play many PlayStation games predating 2014, but optical media playback means you can enjoy movies and music reaching back decades.

This has been proven twice before, once by Sony itself. The Xbox One, along with the Xbox One S and the Xbox One X, got a disc-less version called the Xbox One S All-Digital (appropriately shortened to Xbox One SAD). We weren't fans, because saving $50 on the console didn't make up for losing all that functionality as a media hub with physical media support.

But years before, even Sony discovered the perils of going download-only with the PSP Go, a version of the PlayStation Portable that relied on downloads and eschewed Sony's own proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) media. With limited storage that filled up easily, the PSP Go failed where the PSP succeeded. This was the early days of digital downloads of games, but the problem of limited storage is universal.

Games are big, and even today that storage space is limited; the PS5's SSD will reportedly only have 825GB of space. Spider-Man is 53GB. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is 65GB. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a whopping 85GB. That adds up fast, and having it on disc instead of needing to download it whenever you want to play it is really useful.

The SSD on the PS5 should result in incredible performance and installing most if not all of a game onto it will be beneficial, but you still need a way to get those dozens of gigabytes on there. Do you want to download that, or do you want to keep all of that data nice and secure on discs on your shelf (and only have to download whatever patches and DLC is released for those games, which also gobble up space)?

Maybe this will be less of an issue in the future, when 8TB SSDs are growing on trees and everyone is hooked up to gigabit fiber. And if you stream all of your media in addition to downloading all of your games, more power to you. But for now? As long as optical media is an option, it offers far too much flexibility and security for your games, movies, and music not to keep it on your console. Maybe you'll save some money with the all-digital PS5, but losing that disc drive won't be worth it.