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00:00It will soon be game over for physical discs for PlayStation consoles.
00:04It's fair to say gamers aren't happy, and it also means saving money by buying secondhand will be a thing
00:09of the past.
00:10Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're drilling into the two mammoths of the console war.
00:14These are the 20 worst mistakes PlayStation and Xbox have made.
00:19Let's go.
00:19Before we continue, we publish content all week long,
00:22so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to get notified of our latest videos.
00:28Raising game prices.
00:30EB Games across New Zealand will be closing its doors,
00:32then officially confirmed just last week,
00:34every store in the country is to be closed by the end of the month.
00:37Publishers have spent years preparing players for the $80 game,
00:41slowly moving the price ceiling upwards while adding deluxe editions that cost even more.
00:45The especially cheeky part is that digital copies often remain at full price,
00:49while physical versions receive retailer discounts within weeks.
00:53Downloads require no disc, case, shipping or shelf space,
00:56yet somehow the savings rarely reach the customer.
00:58Digital buyers also cannot resell, lend or trade their purchases afterwards.
01:03Convenience is useful, but paying more for fewer ownership options is a strange reward.
01:07The industry removed the box, removed the resale value,
01:10and then apparently added an invisible convenience tax.
01:13If you could actually score a Nintendo Switch 2 for 50% off just nine months post-release.
01:19Mishandling the PlayStation VR 2.
01:26At a US $550 bucks, PlayStation VR 2 arrived in February 2023,
01:32asking buyers to spend more on the headset than on the standard PlayStation 5 needed to run it.
01:37The technology itself was excellent, with sharp displays, better controls,
01:40and eye tracking that felt genuinely futuristic.
01:43Unfortunately, the surrounding strategy felt borrowed from a company meeting nobody attended.
01:47Original PlayStation VR games were incompatible, first-person releases quickly dried up,
01:52and Horizon Call of the Mountain was left carrying the launch lineup like an exhausted removalist.
01:57Even strong VR support for Gran Turismo 7 could only do so much.
02:01Reports in March 2024 claimed production had paused, while unsold stock piled up.
02:05Not ideal.
02:17The PlayStation Home
02:23Log into PlayStation Home on your PS3 and you could wander around, meet strangers,
02:27visit branded spaces, and attend virtual events without leaving the couch.
02:31The idea was basically Facebook with avatars, fewer family arguments, and considerably more loading screens.
02:38Sony imagined it as a central social hub for PlayStation 3 owners,
02:42but announced the service before it had enough worthwhile content to justify the excitement.
02:46Players quickly complained that the shiny digital world offered surprisingly little to actually do
02:51once the novelty wore off.
02:52PlayStation Home remained labelled as a beta through its entire life,
02:56which became increasingly awkward after several years.
02:58It was unwanted, unnecessary, and unemployed me still didn't want to play it.
03:08Concord and live service push.
03:11Me and my crew.
03:1314 days.
03:14That was all Concord managed before Sony pulled the plug, issued refunds,
03:18and turned a major release into gaming's most expensive disappearing act.
03:22Now you don't play it, now you really don't.
03:24The warning signs were already flashing, a $40 hero shooter entering a market,
03:28packed with free alternatives, familiar characters and players who'd already chosen their favourite live service obsession,
03:34some of which, like I said, were free.
03:35The beta attracted little attention, the cast failed to spark much excitement,
03:39and years of development couldn't fix basic timing problems.
03:43Firewalk Studios later closed, making the failure even more rough.
03:46I don't want to laugh at people losing their jobs, but...
03:50Ha ha.
03:50Hustle here!
03:52No!
03:55The PlayStation Vita.
04:04I promise I'm going to slam Xbox soon, but for now,
04:06Sony launched the PS Vita with impressive hardware,
04:09then spent the following years acting surprised whenever anyone asked where the games were.
04:13Competing with Nintendo's enormously successful DS and 3DS family was already difficult,
04:19but the Vita could still have built a strong identity with steady first-party support.
04:23Instead, major releases slowed down, marketing faded,
04:26and Sony appeared to lose interest before many players had even considered buying it.
04:29The system eventually found a loyal audience through indie games,
04:32Japanese titles, and portable ports,
04:34but that support arrived largely without Sony's help.
04:38Why was Sony so adamant to do nothing with this system?
04:41It's become beloved by fans, like me, for hacking and modding,
04:45and that's because Sony didn't use it to its full advantage.
04:48So we've got it.
04:49Oh, I might as well just get in.
04:56Backing the wrong disc.
04:57This is your new Xbox 360.
05:03Microsoft backed the wrong disc horse during the Xbox 360 era,
05:07and it caused problems from both directions.
05:10By sticking with DVDs, the console had far less storage space than the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray discs,
05:15forcing larger games to arrive on multiple discs like it was still 2002.
05:19Then, Microsoft doubled down by releasing an external HD DVD drive for movies.
05:24Unfortunately, Blu-ray was already winning the format war,
05:27so the accessory quickly became an expensive plastic reminder of poor timing.
05:31The Xbox 360 itself thrived,
05:33but its disc strategy meant constant swapping,
05:35while PS3 owners enjoyed the futuristic luxury of leaving one disc inside.
05:44PSN Requirements
05:51Sony's push to bring PlayStation games to PC should have been an easy crowd-pleaser,
05:56but the company somehow turned account linking into a worldwide headache.
05:59In 2024, Helldiver's two players were told they would soon need a PlayStation Network account,
06:05despite months of playing without one.
06:07The backlash was immediate, especially because PSN was unavailable in many regions
06:12where the game had already been sold.
06:13More than 200,000 negative Steam reviews followed,
06:16and sales were restricted across 177 countries and territories.
06:21Sony quickly reversed the requirement,
06:22then gradually loosened similar rules for other PC releases.
06:25By 2025, several major single-player games made PSN optional instead,
06:30a remarkably complicated solution to a problem Sony created themselves.
06:45Every closed digital store turns another console library into a scavenger hunt.
06:50Microsoft ended new purchases through the Xbox 360 marketplace on July 29th, 2024,
06:56although previously bought content still remains downloadable.
06:59Sony will begin closing the PS3 store in select countries during 2026,
07:04followed by global PS3 and Vita closures in July 2027.
07:08Once those shops disappear, exclusive games and DLC without physical releases
07:11become much harder, or sometimes impossible, to obtain legally.
07:16Backward compatibility saves part of the Xbox catalog,
07:19but PlayStation's limited PS3 support leaves larger gaps.
07:22Apparently, retro gaming now includes preserving old hardware,
07:25hunting expensive discs, and remembering 17 f***ing passwords.
07:32PlayStation Move
07:36Ask someone to name a great Wii game, and they could keep going all day.
07:40Ask them to name a PlayStation Move game,
07:42and suddenly the room gets very, very quiet.
07:45Um, Buzz?
07:46No, that was the PS2. Get out of my house!
07:48Sony clearly wanted a piece of Nintendo's motion control success,
07:52but the Move rarely felt like more than a shinier Wii remote with fewer memorable games.
07:57Microsoft's Kinect had plenty of problems too,
07:59yet at least its camera-based controls offered something different.
08:02The Move mostly copied an existing idea without producing the software needed to justify it.
08:07Even later support for PlayStation VR could not repair its reputation.
08:10Also, the design looks like a sex toy, which killed it even further.
08:19Game Pass
08:24What began as Xbox's easiest sales pitch eventually needed its own flowchart.
08:29Game Pass originally promised one subscription, a huge library, and new Xbox releases on day one.
08:35Then came price rises, renamed tiers, and benefits shuffled behind more expensive options.
08:40In 2024, Australian Game Pass Ultimate jumped from $18.95 to $22.95 monthly,
08:47while the new standard tier launched at $15 without day one first-party games.
08:51Further changes only made the service harder to understand before Microsoft walked back part of its pricing plan.
08:56Raising costs is normal.
08:58Turning a simple bargain into a subscription puzzle requiring three tabs and a calculator is considerably less charming.
09:09Discless Xbox One
09:10Our first challenge was, how do we make an all-digital Xbox One?
09:14Removing the disk drive should have made the Xbox One S all-digital edition a properly cheap doorway into Game
09:20Pass.
09:21Microsoft apparently removed the drive, lowered the price only by $50, and considered the job complete.
09:26The awkward part was that the regular Xbox One S bundles were frequently discounted below the digital model's price,
09:33despite still playing discs, Blu-rays, and second-hand games.
09:35Buyers were therefore asked to pay more, sometimes, for a console that could do less,
09:40which is certainly not how one would approach value.
09:43The machine never seriously damaged Xbox, but its pricing made it feel less like a smart digital future,
09:48and more like a dumb digital present.
09:51Nah, I can do better than that.
09:52It's pricing made it feel less like a smart digital future, and s***.
09:56Yeah, that's it.
10:00You just deleted the disk drive.
10:03Everything is an Xbox campaign.
10:10Xbox spent years trying to prove its console was worth owning.
10:13Then somehow arrived at the slogan,
10:15This is an Xbox.
10:16The 2024 campaign pushed the idea that phones, PCs, handheld smart TVs,
10:21and basically anything running Microsoft's ecosystem,
10:23could count as an Xbox through Game Pass and cloud gaming.
10:26That made sense for expanding the audience,
10:28but it also made the actual console feel oddly disposable.
10:31At the same time, former exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves were heading to PlayStation,
10:35further blurring the brand's identity.
10:37With hardware sales already falling,
10:39the campaign became a perfect symbol of Xbox's problem.
10:42Microsoft was selling the platform everywhere,
10:45while making the box itself feel less important.
10:53Pushing the Kinect 2.0.
10:55Kinect is completely redesigned to respond instantly to you,
10:58your voice,
10:59and your gestures.
11:01Microsoft made Kinect mandatory,
11:03charged everyone for it,
11:04encouraged developers to support it,
11:05and then removed it from Xbox One bundles less than a year later.
11:08Brilliantly tidy stuff.
11:10The camera itself was impressive,
11:11offering voice commands and controller-free tracking that required serious technology,
11:16plus a living room roughly the size of an import hanger.
11:19Unfortunately, including it with every console increased the price,
11:21and forced studios to consider features many players didn't even want.
11:25By June 2014,
11:26Microsoft had already introduced a cheaper Kinect-free bundle.
11:30Developers who'd spent time supporting the device
11:32were left wondering why they'd bothered,
11:34while early buyers had paid extra for hardware Xbox was already backing away from.
11:39Wider-field-view capture of your world.
11:41As you saw with use of Skype call,
11:43Kinect's camera and Skype offer the best shared communication experience in the living room.
11:47PlayStation Classic.
11:48Let's talk about it now,
11:49so that I can actually make use out of this thing,
11:51because you know damn well I didn't play it.
11:53The PlayStation Classic.
11:56On paper, the PlayStation Classic should have been an easy win.
11:59Shrink the original console,
12:01preload some beloved games,
12:02and let nostalgia do the heavy lifting.
12:04Instead, Sony produced a lineup that somehow included Final Fantasy VII,
12:07Resident Evil, and Tekken 3,
12:09then wandered off into choices like Rainbow Six and Kurushi,
12:13while leaving out Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, and Crash Bandicoot.
12:16The old pre-analog controllers felt needlessly limited,
12:19and poor emulation made several games run worse than expected.
12:22Licensing clearly complicated matters,
12:24and the final package was ultimately undercooked.
12:26There's no other word for it.
12:28Even heavy discounts could not save it.
12:30Sony basically sold people a memory box with several memories missing.
12:34Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Twins and Metal, and Wild Arms.
12:38Xbox One DRM.
12:40Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Xbox One.
12:45Price was only part of the Xbox One disaster.
12:48Microsoft originally planned mandatory online check-ins,
12:51restrictions on lending games,
12:52and a confusing system for used discs,
12:55making the console sound less like entertainment,
12:57and more like a rental agreement.
12:59Sony gleefully mocked the policy,
13:01before Microsoft eventually reversed it,
13:03but the damage was already done.
13:05Then came the $500 launch price,
13:07largely caused by the compulsory Kinect,
13:09while the PS4 cost $400,
13:11and made its camera optional.
13:13Sony also reached stores on November 15,
13:15one week before Xbox One arrived on November 22.
13:17Microsoft entered the generation late,
13:20expensive, and already explaining itself.
13:22Fortunately, we have a product for people
13:24who aren't able to get some form of connectivity.
13:27It's called Xbox 360.
13:28Right.
13:29So stick with 360, that's your message,
13:30if you don't like it.
13:31Well, if you have zero access to the internet.
13:34PlayStation Network hack announcement.
13:40For 23 days, let me say that again,
13:4323 days in 2011,
13:46PlayStation Network effectively vanished.
13:49For those not old enough to remember,
13:50it was kind of weird,
13:52taking online play and user confidence with it.
13:55The breach occurred between April 17th and 19th,
13:57yet Sony didn't fully explain the danger
13:59until April 26th.
14:01That announcement revealed the ugly part.
14:03Personal information belonging to as many as 77 million accounts
14:07have been exposed.
14:08Players were already angry about the outage
14:10beginning on April 20th,
14:11but waiting nearly a week to disclose
14:13the possible data theft made everything far worse.
14:16Service can be repaired.
14:17A trust is slightly harder to reboot,
14:19especially when millions of customers discover
14:21their details may have gone sightseeing
14:23without permission.
14:31Xbox Bloodbath
14:33Within Microsoft,
14:35and also if you drill down even more specifically
14:37into Xbox,
14:391600 layoffs happening today,
14:41another 1600 expected to happen
14:43over the next fiscal year.
14:45Hi-Fi Rush won awards,
14:47earned praise,
14:47and apparently unlocked the secret bad ending
14:50where its studio closes anyway.
14:51Microsoft shut Tango Gameworks,
14:54Arcane Austin,
14:55and Alpha Dog in May 2024
14:56while folding Roundhouse into Zenimax Online.
14:59That followed 1900 gaming layoffs in January,
15:03with another 650 arriving in September.
15:06The axe kept swinging through 2025,
15:09cancelling projects such as Perfect Dark and Everwild,
15:11before Xbox announced another 3,200 job cuts
15:14and multiple studio departures in July 2026.
15:18Crafton thankfully rescued Tango,
15:20but Microsoft's message remained grim.
15:22Release a flop,
15:23get cut.
15:24Release a hit,
15:25perhaps also get cut.
15:26Truly inspiring workplace motivation there, Xbox.
15:29We're seeing Undead Labs,
15:31we're seeing a couple other big name studios in that mix,
15:35Double Fine as well.
15:36My worry is that we're going to see portfolios
15:39that are less interesting,
15:42and kind of more formulaic.
15:44The Red Ring of Death.
15:47Oh my God.
15:49Three glowing red lights
15:50became the Xbox 360's unofficial mascot,
15:53which was slightly less charming than Master Chief.
15:56Microsoft's year-long head start over the Wii and PlayStation 3
15:59helped the console gain momentum,
16:00but rushing the hardware carried an enormous price.
16:03Faulty systems began displaying the infamous Red Ring of Death
16:07before becoming very expensive paperweights.
16:09To its credit,
16:10Microsoft extended warranties
16:11and repaired affected consoles for free,
16:14but the cleanup was brutal.
16:15Former Xbox executive Peter Moore
16:17later revealed that shipping and fixing broken units
16:20cost the company more than $1 billion.
16:23The Xbox 360 succeeded anyway,
16:25although Microsoft basically paid a billion dollar apology fee.
16:31PlayStation 3 botched launch and price.
16:40$599 was the number that buried nearly every other part
16:44of Sony's PlayStation 3 pitch.
16:46By the time it launched,
16:47the Xbox 360 had already spent a full year
16:49building an audience
16:49and proving what HD gaming could look like.
16:52Sony then arrived with fewer must-have exclusives,
16:54many multi-platform games available on the cheaper Xbox,
16:57and branding that replaced the familiar PlayStation look
16:59with a font borrowed from Spider-Man 3.
17:02That design disappeared quickly,
17:03but the price damage lasted much longer.
17:06The PS3 eventually recovered with stronger games
17:08and cheaper models,
17:09yet its launch felt like Sony assumed
17:11the PlayStation 2's success
17:12and made customers temporarily allergic to common sense.
17:16And now,
17:17I have the final and the biggest announcement.
17:21Going digital.
17:22It will soon be game over
17:24for physical discs for PlayStation consoles.
17:27It's fair to say gamers aren't happy,
17:28and it also means saving money by buying secondhand
17:31will be a thing of the past.
17:32Sony has now placed an expiry date
17:34on physical PlayStation releases.
17:36Starting in January 2028,
17:38newly released games will no longer be produced on discs,
17:41instead arriving through the PlayStation Store
17:43or as digital codes sold by retailers.
17:46Existing releases and games already planned
17:48before the deadline are unaffected,
17:49but the long-term direction is obvious.
17:52Without discs, players lose secondhand purchases,
17:55lending, trade-ins,
17:56and a reliable copy that cannot simply be delisted.
17:59It also gives Sony's storefront
18:00far greater control over pricing.
18:02After decades of building enormous physical libraries,
18:05PlayStation has decided the future of ownership
18:07is entering a code
18:08and hoping the servers remain cheerful.
18:10I'm at all 64 as a kid
18:12and on different platforms all the way through.
18:14Now, do I have the devices?
18:16Can I get the devices?
18:17Yes, all those things are possible.
18:19And it poses the question
18:20that a game I buy today
18:22and spend a hundred-odd dollars on,
18:24will I be able to play?
18:25Did you enjoy this video?
18:27Check out these other clips from Mojo Plays.
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