Re: They're still a bunch of dicks even when they act kind
"Also, there is the fear that making the games the same price or cheaper than disc based versions will hurt the brick & mortar stores."
From a customer perspective whether this is Sony/Microsoft price policy is largely irrelevant, its just part of the supply chain. But customers do understand that whilst purchasing a physical product they have an asset they could sell on, additionally there are media and production costs which a customer will understand - when it comes to buying an electronic only product, there is absolutely no resell value in it, and the only cost to the store is bandwidth. So customers expect that to be cheaper.
I'm not aware of the commercials Sony operates on with the studios. But this is the a similar argument to books. eBooks are predominantly cheaper and co-exist with brick-n-mortar stores, there have been a few casualties, but that is evolution weeding out the old.