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The story
A boycott movement dubbed “NO DISC NO BUY” has sprung up over PlayStation’s plan to drop discs from its next-generation console. As a countermeasure, a proposal surfaced on 5ch’s hardware/industry (Geha) board for a “key disc” scheme: keep the actual game data as a download, but burn just a cheap startup key onto a DVD for distribution. The thread split over whether this would really stop piracy given that DVDs are supposedly already fully cracked, and whether Sony actually wants to eliminate disc drives altogether — the debate never converged.
What people said
Does "cracked or not" even matter for something that's just a key?
What happens when the key itself gets copied?
There were people in other threads too who think a key disc can't be cracked — how do you even end up thinking that?
Sony used to press its own CDs/DVDs/BDs in-house. Going forward they're apparently dropping pressing altogether, so continuing would mean relying on outside contractors — and moving from in-house to outsourced naturally drives costs up.
Though killing off physical stores has zero upside.
That's just dumb lol
It would also let you use your old PS4 and PS5 discs.
If you're putting in an expensive BD drive anyway, why not just put the games on BD too? I don't get what they're going for.
Even if old discs work, there's no benefit to Sony in the first place.
Did they weigh the benefits of going download-only against the backlash it'd cause, and decide the former wins?
Management decided based only on profit from digital content sales, since physical brings in less. Sony shows zero user-first thinking in its other businesses either — they look at everything purely through efficiency.
It can be made cheaper than Blu-ray, so if they were ever going to reverse the decision, this is basically the only way left — the factories have already been repurposed.
That contradicts the "BD drives aren't sustainable" argument. Sure, there's a real cost gap between pressing DVD and BD, but that's a trade-off against copy protection.
That wouldn't let you use PS4 and PS5 games though.
I don't see why that would make them unusable — both PS4 and PS5 have USB ports.
DVD wouldn't work with PS4/PS5 in the first place anyway, would it?
There's no way they'd include a drive if there's no key disc — this is about the future, including the next-gen console.
The whole point of a dongle is not needing a drive. If you're putting in a drive anyway, there's no dongle cheaper than a disc, so it's pointless.
So USB dongles and discs are unrelated then. Whether a disc can be read comes down to whether there's a drive, which has nothing to do with whether there's a USB dongle.
What is Sony even saying here? Did they say they're releasing a USB dongle? Never heard of that.
Exactly. People need to first understand that dropping discs = wanting to eliminate drives too.
The OP just doesn't get this, that's all.
And Re: #1 is arguing that even outsourced, DVD could be made at a cost equal to or cheaper than pressing BD in-house.
So what's the point of proposing a pricier USB dongle here?
Isn't that only reasonable if you actually buy Sony's claim that drives and pressing plants will vanish from the earth within a year or two?
Why are you flatly asserting a USB dongle is high-cost? What's your basis? What would it actually run?
Obviously a brand-new little gadget with a fresh mold, plastic, and an electronic chip is going to cost more.
Huh? That's literally what Re: #62 just said, isn't it?
So what does that mean? That a key DVD could actually be made pretty secure?
But then that's just an annoying download version tied to your account, nothing more.
*Each disc carries a unique serial number, and numbers already in use get rejected during server authentication. DVDs don't have this unique number, which is why the original proposal (Re: #1) would be hard to pull off.
What do you think it can do? You can't even boot it without inserting the key card.
Because, just like the name says, it's a card that literally holds the key.
Background and key points of this discussion
This debate is set against the backdrop of Sony reportedly scaling back its own disc-pressing operations, which would push outsourcing costs up. There were two main points of contention: (1) whether the disc material (DVD vs. BD) is actually tied to resistance against piracy, and (2) whether a scheme that hands over only startup rights — without the actual game data — would be accepted at all. In reality, for this kind of “key disc,” it’s the server-side authentication method, not the disc material, that determines security; a different material doesn’t directly translate into stronger or weaker copy protection. It’s also worth noting that Nintendo’s Switch 2 already uses “Game-Key Cards” that omit the game data for some titles, making this proposal a similar concept. As for the claim raised in the thread that “Sony once blocked a used-sales-linked authentication scheme proposed by Microsoft” — that’s one poster’s interpretation, not an officially confirmed account, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
*This article is compiled as excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “The ultimate countermeasure to PlayStation’s “NO DISC NO BUY” movement has to be a DVD-based key disc — this solves everything.”
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