Remember how to share a game? You take your disc, and you hand it to your friend. Cue applause. But with a rumoured new PlayStation 5 ditching the disc drive and making it a bonus purchase, we’re officially entering a brave new digital world.

I say new. I don’t really mean new. Digital games have been the norm for quite a while now. There’s no doubt in my mind that the used game section in CEX or GAME is half of what it used to be. And prices often rival new releases anyway.

But in making a digital-only console and offering up discs as an optional extra, Sony are expertly creating a paradigm shift. They’re not taking away discs, they’re offering up the option to not use them. And most people won’t. They’re not now.

By making people have to expend effort and money to get the hardware, and that’s presuming it’ll be in high supply, Sony are making digital the defacto norm. Which is impressive considering how rare their current digital offering seems to be. To the point where it’s easy to presume the digital PlayStation 5 exists mostly for the “FROM” logo on posters.

A PS5 Slim, cheaper and easier to get hold of, is a killer idea. Take out the disc drive, add it as an optional extra (with an appropriate mark up) and that also seems to be a killer idea. Everybody wins.

Well, with the exception of those still holding onto discs. But, as this move shows, they are going the way of the dinosaur.

Disc Drive Dinosaurs

All this is coming by way of Tom…