It matters to consumers because businesses have greater financial power to pressure Sony into reducing prices than individual consumers.

Additionally, businesses will not only sell Sony codes. They won't be like car dealerships, tied to 1 manufacturer. Due to this, they'll have even greater incentive and negotiating position to pressure Sony as if Sony doesn't want to play ball, the sellers can start promoting non-Sony products to consumers.

With direct sales only, Sony can have perfect vertical integration: they make the console hardware, they make the custom OS, they own the game publishers, they own the developers, and they own the store that sells games too. That's beneficial only to Sony.

What prevents Sony from charging the retailers $60 for the code to a $60 game?

Congratulations, you can buy anywhere you want. You don’t have to buy from Sony. It just costs more.

Yeah, that’s gonna be real great for making games cheaper for you.

How do they have any power over Sony at all? Sony is telling them we don't even want to sell you codes at all, we don't want your business, go away. They have 0 leverage, Sony isn't going to negotiate with them. Sony will charge them the max they are allowed so that they can't make a profit and stop trying to resell.