Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Many people buy games outside of Steam. Sure, relatively speaking it's a minority and if a game is available on Steam and elsewhere, most will pick it up on Steam. But part of the reason why Steam is so good is because these other platforms exist and there's nothing actually stopping anyone from buying their games from other stores. Cloud saves, game streaming/remote play, online play, family sharing and many more features are all free/included with the game purchase on Steam and they also pioneered many of these features. Steam Workshop adds great value as well, there isn't anything remotely comparable on any proprietary console. Steam is good because it has to be in order for people to choose to use it. And "deep discounts" are the same as ever, I see some games 90% off on sales events. Sure, successful AAA titles usually don't get a big discount 2 weeks after release, but in the end the publisher sets the pricing anyway. Generally, even when comparing full price, games are just cheaper on Steam compared to PSN (10 to sometimes 20 $/€ for big titles).

Not being publicly traded makes this _very_ different from Microsoft, actually.

That's the biggest problem I have with consoles. They're essentially expensive boxes that are tied to a single service, in this case PSN. You don't like their store pricing, DRM or other policies? Yeah, well, unlucky. Sell your box and buy a different one (or don't). Too expensive to play online on PSN? Well unlucky, because that's the only way to play online. If it's more expensive tomorrow, you better pay if you want online play or you'll be locked out. Xbox now locks out uncertified controllers, maybe PlayStation as well? Even their own previous controllers (DualShock 4) don't support playing PS5 games on PS5, so if you want to play a 4 player couch coop game you better own 4 controllers specific to that one console. I get it, the new controller has some new features like "adaptive triggers" - but that's entirely optional. Heck, you can play the PS5 games ported to PC with a DualShock 4 on a PC/Steam Deck.

Isn't "little" even now unless you always buy day one.

What the..? If this bug is "unfixable" (lie), then just release an update that unlocks everything for free for everybody instead of screwing everyone who paid before 2024.