Gaming

Keeper, from Microsoft-owned Double Fine, came to PS5 at the same State of Play where Sony headlined a Final Fantasy that ships day one on Xbox. Console exclusivity did not erode — it inverted, live, in ninety minutes.

The protest is aimed at a cutoff in January 2028. The biggest release of the generation ships on 19 November with no disc in the box at all. The thing people are marching against has already happened.

Developers, collectors and lawyers at Cologne this week on the end of physical PlayStation games — plus a report, thinly sourced, that some third parties are keeping their distance from Sony.

Retail takes 20-30% of the margin on a disc. Second-hand sales were a third of a game shop's revenue. Removing both is worth a great deal to publishers — and nothing at all to you.

Insert a disc, claim a digital entitlement, keep the disc playable. Microsoft has announced its disc-to-digital programme weeks after Sony announced the end of PlayStation discs — and the timing is not subtle.

Naughty Dog and Bend have not shipped a game this generation. Bluepoint was handed a live-service God of War, then closed. The disc row got the headlines; this is what people are actually angry about.

Your console keeps working. Your discs keep working. Nothing breaks in January 2028 — but three decisions get harder, and one of them is worth making this year.

S-Game moved its PS5 action game out of the most crowded month of the year and into the run-up to the biggest release of the decade. It is a stranger decision than it looks — and probably the right one.

A September date is circulating and nothing is confirmed. Sony has announced no event. Here is the difference between what has been reported and what has been invented.

Microsoft's disc-conversion programme starts testing today. It arrives eight weeks after Sony announced the end of PlayStation discs, and the contrast is the entire point.

Insomniac's M-rated Wolverine arrives on PS5 on 15 September, and Sony is shipping a limited-quantity console bundle and accessories on the same day.

Wolverine on the 15th. Silent Hill and Control on the 24th. Onimusha on the 25th. One game already fled the month entirely — and it was probably the right call.