PlayStation 4 was to come out without disk drive, but Sony later changed it

If reports are to be believed, PlayStation was initially apprehensive regarding putting an optical disk drive in the PlayStation 4 console and wanted to make it fully digital. But as Wall Street Journal reports, they later changed their minds and decided against it. Internet’s reliability actually played a spoilsport in this initiative as Sony wanted their latest PlayStation to be totally download-only.

The company figured out that the speed of internet is different in different parts of the world. Thus there will be millions of players who would not be having a fast internet connection and thus it will take them a lot of time to download a game for their console. Incidentally, this thesis by Sony was shared by Microsoft as well as even they felt that owing to the variable speed of internet all across the world, there might be many who would not be able to download a game from the internet because of their slow internet connections and as a result, the new Xbox 720 will also have an optical disk drive just like PS4.

The news actually brings a pleasing smile on the face of many retailers who deal in Sony games as their livelihood depends on selling games.