I don't play games but that sounds pretty stupid. Why would something tangible that needs manufacturing cost less than something digital?
Very strange.
Official Sony Online store with official launch RRP vs. Retailer that can sell or do deal on the price as it pleases generally speaking. Physical stores are also motivated to clear physical stock holdings or sell X amount to get a supplier rebate or marketing spend for instance. That being said you can purchase digital downloads and game keys outside of the official Sony store AFAIK often with heavily reduced prices though I never bother.
When a game has been on market for a bit the Sony store will often have good sales and discounts offering prices same or better than physical disc versions in store. They also give away a couple free digital games every month on their store.
Don't think I have bought a physical copy of a game since like 2017 and the one I did ended up free on the store a few years later anyway. Also disc drives can break or jam over time and is slower to load data from a game disc than a modern SSD hardrive. My experience with Sony disc drives is that they are ****ing loud as well lol however I do still understand the appeal of getting something physical for your $$ you can hang onto and actually touch/collect.
If there isn't much price or spec difference I would prob go for the disc drive version of PS5 as well
I know the new Xbox digital only console is lower specced, not sure about PS though?
Don't think the Sony one is lower spec
Personally I prefer the disc as I often trade in games, can't do that on digital.
As for the catalogue it is still pretty slim. Was supposed to much improved but a bunch of games got delayed.
Like the PS4 I will prob wait until half wayish through the lifecycle before I jump in. By then supply isn't an issue, there is a good catalogue of games and they are doing deals on the consoles with bundles ect. Or I might just skip this generation all together. Would have to upgrade my TV to take advantage of alot of the new features as well but that isn't a big deal, decent TVs can be had cheap.
Half the time you can get the disc of games from JB like $20-30 cheaper than the digital game at release time (and I can go about 1 minute out of my way to drive home past a jb). Adds up quite a bit over time. I tend to buy digital when they are cheap on the PS store.
But if I didn't already have a lot of PS4 games on disc I probably wouldn't be fussed. There are a handful of games I would want to still be able play still (without having to set the ps4 back up) that I also don't want to buy again.
Yea I figured you might want disc drive on PS5 for backwards compatibility ect. of some of your PS4 games you had on disc. I haven't bought a full priced game at release in I couldn't tell you how long. I tend to download the deluxe versions or whatever 12 months + later on with a nice discount but the free games keep me going as well, I have way too many free games as it is over PS3 & PS4 that I havn't even gotten to yet plus epic store does weekly free games.
Helped keep me sane (relatively) during lockdown