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While Sony cites "consumer preferences" for digital games as the core reason for its decision to abandon physical PlayStation releases, the numbers presented in a new report tell a different story. Games like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 are still making a ton of money on disc, according to Rhys Elliot of Alinea Analytics, and Sony's decision to end discs is much more about controlling the overall market for PlayStation games.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 earned $1.2 billion in gross revenue, according to the estimates in Elliot's latest newsletter, 35% of which was made up of physical unit sales. Ghost of Yotei made $400 million, with 37.6% physical. Astro Bot hit $275 million with 46.8% physical. Death Stranding 2 made $129 million, with 41.8% physical.

Why are these numbers so much higher than we've seen from other sources, including Sony itself? For one thing, many of the previous numbers have been counting unit sales, not revenue. For another, Alinea's numbers are about revenue generated, not units sold. And, of course, here we're talking purely about "prestige single-player" games, whose audiences are more likely to buy physical.

"Physical revenue is huge in the prestige single-player games Sony is getting more cautious about," Elliot argues, noting that "a disc dollar is worth less to Sony than a digital one, as there’s the retailer cut, manufacturing and distribution." Certainly, Sony would prefer if it were able to keep 100% of the revenue from these games, and it's betting that whatever players it loses by ditching physical releases will be offset by increased net profits.

So, Elliott argues, "the disc decision was largely about margins, control, and killing the secondhand market," rather than a recognition of consumer trends. We all likely could have guessed as much, and these factors are exactly why I've argued that PlayStation killing discs is bad for everyone, but there's some vindication in seeing the thought backed up by market analysis numbers. That doesn't make the prospect of an all-digital PS6 any less annoying, though.

Sony has topped a generational run of self-owns: abandoning Hideo Kojima's next Metal Gear right as Marvel's Wolverine falls flat.

If you play on a Steam Deck, or just rock with Big Picture Mode on your PC, the latest Steam client beta will be of big interest: It adds a new "Big Art Mode" that makes your home screen look a whole lot prettier (this is a subjective evaluation, yes, but I think it's prettier), a new screensaver feature, and a range of performance improvements and bug fixes.

The Big Art Mode is the big deal, so we'll start with that. Rather than the cluttered look of the standard interface, Big Art lowers the carousel of recently played games, and splashes, well, big art from the highlighted game across the backdrop.

So instead of this (not the video, the image below it):

You get this:

It's not quite perfect: Some games, like The Merlies, don't really adapt to the system super well.

Overall though, it's a cleaner and sexier look, ideal for those of you who prefer to keep things neat and tidy. And all the content offered through the old UI remains available, you just have to scroll down to see it now.

The new screensaver option in Big Picture Mode is also entirely cosmetic but very cool. You can choose from a slideshow of art from your recently played games, with or without your own screenshots included, or a "retro inspired bouncing logo" that has the Steam logo slowly bouncing off the edges of the screen, just like your dad's old DVD player. With a little effort, you can also set up custom screensavers.

Some of the less flashy stuff offered in this update is also very useful: Steam startup performance should be better following the update, the performance impact of game recording on some Direct3D 12 games on Windows has been reduced, and Linux support has been updated.

It's a beta, so there's always a possibility that things could go wrong, but Valve is generally very good with this stuff so I'd say it's not too much of a dice roll. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can opt into the Steam client beta by way of the Interface menu in your Steam settings. The full patch notes for the latest Steam client beta are below.

• Homescreen - Big Picture Mode
  • Added a new 'Big Art Mode' option for the home screen. This can be enabled in Settings > Home.
  • Added Personal Calendar to the Recommended tab on the home screen
• Screensaver - Big Picture Mode
  • Added a new screensaver feature, accessible in Settings > Customization. There are two screensavers available:
    • The default is a game art slideshow that can be configured to show artwork from recently played games and your recent in-game screenshots.
    • A retro inspired bouncing logo screensaver
  • Big Picture mode can also load custom screensavers. Similar to startup movies, they can be placed in the config\uioverrides\screensavers directory in your Steam install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam or ~/.steam/root). You can use the bouncing logo screensaver (in the steamui\screensavers directory) as an example to get started.
• General
  • Improved Steam Client startup performance
  • Fixed a case where after server maintenance some users might fail to auto-reconnect to Steam
  • Fixed bug where being prompted to refresh credentials more than once could trigger an immediate restart
  • On Windows, using the systray menu to exit while the Steam window is minimized will no longer flash the window visible briefly
  • Dialogs that appear for serious error conditions now stay above the main window
• Game Recording
  • Fixed some cases where playback would jump to an unexpected point in the timeline when reaching the end of a play session or clip
  • Decreased performance impact of game recording for some D3D12 games on Windows
• In-Game Overlay
  • Fixed frame rate hitches in D3D11 and D3D12 games when taking screenshots on Windows
  • Fixed rendering the overlay and using other overlay related features (screenshots, game recording, etc.) in Vulkan games that create multiple windows.
• Big Picture Mode
  • Added explicit warning text to power menu confirmation dialogs when proceeding will shut down an active game
  • Updated default artwork when an app does not have library or hero artwork
  • Reorganized the idle timer settings when on battery and AC power
• Steam Input
  • Improved CPU performance at runtime and in configuration loading
  • Added information about which configurations are compatible in the configurator browser when using a game that requires Steam Input API
  • Fixed the controller support widget showing "This game doesn't support controllers" for unreleased games that don't have controller support information yet
  • Fixed controllers not using the desktop configuration on the desktop UI login window
  • Added the missing settings for adjusting emulated joystick adaptive centering on trackpad
• Linux
  • Improved download speeds on high latency connections.
  • The "Select compatibility tool" dropdown is now always visible.
    • The recommended compatibility tool, or steam runtime for native games, now shows at the top of the list as the "Default" option.
    • Compatibility tool aliases, e.g. "Proton Stable", can now be selected from this dropdown.
  • The SteamOS compatibility dialogs will now show in desktopUI when installing games not verified for that HW
  • On Desktop Linux we will now show the SteamOS unsupported dialog when installing games that are known to not work with Proton
  • Improve distro information collection for hardware survey, preferring data from /etc/os-release.
• SteamRT3 Experimental Beta
  • Fixed "Add a Non-Steam Game" showing an invalid list of applications.
  • Fixed the "Run Steam when my computer starts" toggle.
• Remote Play
  • A PIN is no longer required to download an app to a remote device. A PIN is still required to Install and Stream from a remote device.
  • Adding Download Complete notification for a remote download if you initiated the download on your current device.