It seems inevitable that a fully digital future will soon be upon us. Over the last decade, the share of digital game sales in the PlayStation and Xbox ecosystems has risen meteorically, and both platforms offer more discless digital-only hardware options at this point than ones that also support physical media. So surely, its only a matter of time before we get digital-only consoles, right? After all, its beneficial to both Microsoft and Sony to not have to share margins on their game sales with retailers, manufacturers, and all the other logistics suppliers involved in physical medial. It feels tempting, then, to say that the PlayStation 6 will surely be a digital-only console.However, its not quite that straightforward. From Sonys perspective, there are a lot of factors to consider, as tempting as it may be to remove the physical option entirely. Relationships with retailers are chief among those, since Sony needs retailers to be happy if they want them to carry the PS6 in sufficient numbers and hardware sales themselves are fairly low-to-no margin. In other words, the only way the PlayStation 6 will be a profitable venture for retailers at all, the only way it is worth it for them to actually sell the thing, is if they also get to sell games with it. They can (and do, and will continue to) make money off of accessories (such as controllers, headsets, what have you), and digital coupons and vouchers too, to be fair. But without the ability for them to sell games as well, the money they make from console sales will be very limited.There are ways to offset this problem, of course, but they arent entirely practical. For example, one easy way to sidestep the problem is to make the console itself high margin for retailers. The easiest way to do that is to not subsidize the console and sell it at loss. In fact, more often than not, that has been Sonys entire modus operandi since the day that they entered the industry- to sell subsidized hardware at loss, and then make up that money via ecosystem and software revenues). But the problem there is that that either means Sony sells a very expensive console for instance, there was no way to sell a console like the PS5 for $399 at launch in 2020 like Sony did, without taking a hit or that they sell a reasonably priced machine that is still high margin itself, but then they end up having to sell far weaker hardware than PlayStation fans and the industry expects from them (like what Nintendo does).There are other things Sony could do. For example, allowing digital coupon and voucher sales in stores for not just PlayStation Plus subscriptions and PSN credit, but also directly for games. This is something Sonys competitors already do- Switch owners, for example, can buy digital codes for several major first and third party games directly from retailers. This isnt even limited to just the bigger releases either. Even indie titles such as Hollow Knight or Dead Cells can be purchased directly as a code in this way. Sony used to do this as well, but they discontinued the venture a few years ago, and locked down digital sales exclusively to PlayStation, because otherwise they have to share their cut with the retailers that carry and sell their codes. But its obviously not an unsolvable problem. Sonys competition already takes the hit to their revenue, and Nintendos ecosystem generates far less revenue than Sonys (meaning Sony can more than afford the hit, such as it is).However, even this solution presents a problem, which ties into another major factor for Sony to consider when it comes time to ponder a shift to a digital-only console. Of all the console manufacturers, PlayStation is the one with the biggest global presence, the one that is sold in more major markets in the world than either Nintendo or Xbox. This is a major advantage to Sony that cannot be downplayed at all, and a huge reason for the gigantic sales Sony enjoys with each console is the incumbency they enjoy in so many global markets, where console gaming may as well be synonymous with PlayStation.This isnt just limited to affluent markets such as western European or southeast Asian nations either. Sony is huge in multiple developing and emerging markets, such as India, China, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. And many of these are markets where internet connectivity to facilitate gigantic multi-hundred GB downloads is not necessarily a given, and any product that requires that for basic functionality in this case, a game console playing games is a non-starter in several of those markets as a result. So if Sony wants to decide to simply forsake its presence in several global markets (or be relegated to an extremely small niche of the market), then and only then going digital-only is a viable option.That said, Sony may have engineered a solution that lets them have their cake and eat it too. The modularity of the current PlayStation 5 models (both the Slim, and the Pro) may be a hint. It is very easy for Sony to sell a console that doesnt have a disc drive, and sell the disc drive as an add-on option, the way it has been doing this generation. This not only has the desired effect of creating a digital-only default (and most of the mass market will not bother ever upgrading past the base option), but it also keeps a physical option open.That latter factor means its an easier transition to digital-only for those consumers who will go kicking and screaming into a discless age, but it also keeps the console viable in those aforementioned global markets where a digital-only system would be unviable. In fact, Sony could feasibly take it one step further, and sell region-specific SKUs that come with the disc drive already included and attached in markets like India or Brazil, while continuing to sell the discless version of the console as the default option in markets like Europe or North America.Something like that definitely might work, and is closer to what would be feasible for Sony to do next generation. It not only creates a gentler transition for customers, it also gives them continued viability in other markets where internet infrastructure is not yet comprehensive enough to support a digital-only console. It may not be exactly what Sony ends up doing, but whatever the path they choose is, it is extremely likely that it will be a moderate, gentler nudge towards a digital-only future rather than a full-throttled, forced push. Smaller and iterative steps that encourage customers to go digital-only are likely to be the sum of what Sony does with the PS6. If there is ever a digital-only PlayStation console, it will come further in the yet more distant future- PlayStation 7, perhaps?Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.