PlayStation disc petition approaches 200,000 signatures as backlash grows over Sony's decision to stop producing new physical media — firm still plans to produce optical media for existing titles, but new games will be digital only

News
By
Published

The Change.org campaign keeps climbing.

A photograph of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games in their cases.
(Image credit: Zak Killian/Future)

A Change.org petition urging Sony to keep making physical PlayStation games has passed 172,000 signatures, six days after the company announced that it intends to stop producing discs for new games in January 2028. The petition, started by Jade Pearce, CEO of Canadian retailer PNP Games, climbed from around 12,000 signatures on its first day to more than 172,000 by the morning of July 7. Sony hasn’t responded, and the factory that prints its discs has already started moving some staff and equipment onto a different product.

Pearce launched the campaign the same day as Sony's announcement, and it gathered 40,000 names within 48 hours. The petition contends that a boxed download code is a revocable license rather than owned property, references Sony's recent removal of purchased movies from customer accounts, and lists the used-game trade among the jobs at risk. "We are not against digital," Pearce writes. "We are against digital being the only option."

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad estimated that Sony sold more than 70 million physical discs in 2025, even with digital purchases sitting at roughly 80% of full-game sales. Sony's PlayStation social accounts have stayed dormant since July 1.

Latest Videos From

Sony DADC's plant in Thalgau, Austria, produces about 600,000 discs a day, roughly half of them PlayStation titles, and has begun shifting some workers onto optical microlens production, DADC CEO Dietmar Tanzer told Austrian broadcaster ORF Salzburg. The company has put €30 million ($34 million) into new equipment, according to Engadget, expects disc output to fall to about 10% of current volume by 2028, and plans to retrain roughly 300 staff rather than lay them off.

Optical microlenses steer and concentrate light across very small distances and appear in camera modules, AR and VR headsets, fiber-optic gear, and automotive lighting. Markus Streibl, head of micro optics at Sony DADC, said mass production could begin as early as 2027.

The PlayStation 6 is reportedly in development without a built-in disc drive, which would leave Sony's hardware team to reintegrate one if the company changed course. Sony's standalone PS5 disc drive has carried a one-per-order purchase cap since at least March last year, predating the disc announcement, and leaked PS6 specifications described in earlier reports frame any drive as an optional backward-compatibility accessory. Grand Theft Auto 6, easily the biggest game of the decade so far, will ship on PlayStation as a boxed download code with no playable disc, ahead of the 2028 cutoff.

Sony has told publishers they can still book disc runs for games released in 2027 or earlier, so existing physical libraries will keep working on supported consoles. Whether the fact that the petition is now pushing 200,000 signatures will compel Sony to move or abandon the January 2028 date is unclear; Sony delayed its 2021 shutdown of the PS3 and PS Vita stores after similar backlash, though that closure is now scheduled again alongside the disc decision.

Google Preferred Source

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Luke James
Luke James
Contributor

Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.  Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory. 

41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • derekullo
    The last physical game I bought was Wrath of the Lich King.
    I remember standing outside late night by a Gamestop!

    Just let it go!
    It's faster to purchase the game online and do a digital download than to call up Bestbuy or whatever physical vendor to see if they have a copy then drive there and get it and then install from DVD/Blu-ray.

    With modern games, even having the disc doesn't necessarily mean you can play offline.
    You sadly don't own the game either way.
    Reply
  • expunged
    Admin said:
    A Change.org petition urging Sony to keep making physical PlayStation games has passed 172,000 signatures.

    PlayStation disc petition approaches 200,000 signatures as backlash grows over Sony's decision to stop producing new physical media — firm still pl... : Read more
    This is dumb. The problem is not the physical disk, its the DRM, that disk does nothing if the "network service" that runs the online server is down. disk or no disk if you cannot install the game or connect you cannot play.
    Reply
  • chaos215bar2
    derekullo said:
    The last physical game I bought was Wrath of the Lich King.
    I remember standing outside late night by a Gamestop!

    Just let it go!
    It's faster to purchase the game online and do a digital download than to call up Bestbuy or whatever physical vendor to see if they have a copy then drive there and get it and then install from DVD/Blu-ray.

    With modern games, even having the disc doesn't necessarily mean you can play offline.
    You sadly don't own the game either way.
    Where does this ignorant, defeatist attitude come from?

    The reason people are upset to see physical discs go is obvious. They're the last bastion where people can buy something with at least a modicum of ownership rights. Specifically, the ability to resell the game at a later point.

    Yes, the DRM is bad. Yes, otherwise single player games tied to servers for no other reason than to allow the producer even more control over when and how their game can be played is bad. But the physical disc at least represents an object that the producer and Sony cannot unilaterally revoke from your position.

    So, maybe people should stop coming into these threads and proclaiming that people should just give up and move on, and instead take a minute to understand what this is all about. That being, the complete destruction of the last vestiges of any level of actual control over the things people buy.

    Personally, if discs are dead, then for me, so is the entire Playstation platform. I have better things to spend my time and money on than a platform that's doing everything in its power to destroy the last vestiges of consumer rights.

    So no, I'm not going to "just let it go".

    Just because you value your rights so little that you can't even be bothered to make a trip to best buy to buy that game rather than spend the same amount of money — or more — on a digital purchase that comes with less control doesn't mean the rest of us are. And even entirely ignoring the consumer rights angle, having spent money on a disc drive only to have Sony come in and say that they're going to stop supporting that hardware without even waiting for the next console release is a huge slap in the face.

    Sony is speaking loud and clear here and with their recent removal of purchases from people's library. They do not care about you, and they do not care about the experience their platform provides. Maybe this strategy will work out for them, but I certainly don't care to be a part of it.
    Reply
  • TheyStoppedit
    chaos215bar2 said:
    Where does this ignorant, defeatist attitude come from?

    The reason people are upset to see physical discs go is obvious. They're the last bastion where people can buy something with at least a modicum of ownership rights. Specifically, the ability to resell the game at a later point.

    Yes, the DRM is bad. Yes, otherwise single player games tied to servers for no other reason than to allow the producer even more control over when and how their game can be played is bad. But the physical disc at least represents an object that the producer and Sony cannot unilaterally revoke from your position.

    So, maybe people should stop coming into these threads and proclaiming that people should just give up and move on, and instead take a minute to understand what this is all about. That being, the complete destruction of the last vestiges of any level of actual control over the things people buy.

    Personally, if discs are dead, then for me, so is the entire Playstation platform. I have better things to spend my time and money on than a platform that's doing everything in its power to destroy the last vestiges of consumer rights.

    So no, I'm not going to "just let it go".

    Just because you value your rights so little that you can't even be bothered to make a trip to best buy to buy that game rather than spend the same amount of money — or more — on a digital purchase that comes with less control doesn't mean the rest of us are. And even entirely ignoring the consumer rights angle, having spent money on a disc drive only to have Sony come in and say that they're going to stop supporting that hardware without even waiting for the next console release is a huge slap in the face.

    Sony is speaking loud and clear here and with their recent removal of purchases from people's library. They do not care about you, and they do not care about the experience their platform provides. Maybe this strategy will work out for them, but I certainly don't care to be a part of it.

    The digital only change should come as no shock to anyone. It was really just a matter of when. I have been telling people for years that this was coming. When PS5 Pro came out digital only, I told everyone I knew that PS6 would be only digital only, and soon physical disc production would stop. No one believed me. The writing has been on the wall for along time. TBH, I'm amazed that even PS5 and XSX has a disc drive. The DIY PC market has been without a disc drive since PS4 came out and its doing fine.

    I get it. You can't trade in digital games, lend them to a friend, pass them down to your kids, store them on the shelf as display, that sort of stuff. I get that. That sentiment is lost. The person to whom you were replying was not telling you to give up your rights. No one wants to give up their rights. But when the industry changes, sometimes its a little bit of both good and bad. That happens. I think physical discs are important too. They have their place. But there's a reality here: The industry is changing.

    Leave it to Wayne Gretzky to come up with the perfect quote about this whole thing: "I skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been." I think 99.999999999% of consumers saw this change coming from miles away, it was just a matter of when. 200K petition signatures won't do anything. 1M petition signatures won't either. 10M..... well... even that... would be the minimum and that probably wouldn't do anything either. Sony is already dismantling their disc factories.

    You have 2 options: You either fight a battle you can't win.... or.... you adapt. Learn how to adapt to the problem. Sony isn't going to change their mind over a petition. They have been planning this for a long time (in cahoots with Rockstar) .... as well as having been prepared for the backlash and petitions they knew were coming. They didn't care when they wrote the announcement. They didn't care when the petition reached 200K signatures, and they won't care when it hits millions.

    There is no law that says you have to buy a PS6. If disc-only gaming is a hill you will die on, there are 20-some consoles from 1985-2026 you can play with millions of games, knock yourself out, and play until you're blue in the face. But the reality is, the industry is changing. Change with it, or get out. I know thats tough words to here, I'm not any more happy about it than you are, but it is what it is
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    TheyStoppedit said:
    The digital only change should come as no shock to anyone. It was really just a matter of when. I have been telling people for years that this was coming. When PS5 Pro came out digital only, I told everyone I knew that PS6 would be only digital only, and soon physical disc production would stop. No one believed me. The writing has been on the wall for along time. TBH, I'm amazed that even PS5 and XSX has a disc drive. The DIY PC market has been without a disc drive since PS4 came out and its doing fine.

    I get it. You can't trade in digital games, lend them to a friend, pass them down to your kids, store them on the shelf as display, that sort of stuff. I get that. That sentiment is lost. The person to whom you were replying was not telling you to give up your rights. No one wants to give up their rights. But when the industry changes, sometimes its a little bit of both good and bad. That happens. I think physical discs are important too. They have their place. But there's a reality here: The industry is changing.

    Leave it to Wayne Gretzky to come up with the perfect quote about this whole thing: "I skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been." I think 99.999999999% of consumers saw this change coming from miles away, it was just a matter of when. 200K petition signatures won't do anything. 1M petition signatures won't either. 10M..... well... even that... would be the minimum and that probably wouldn't do anything either. Sony is already dismantling their disc factories.

    You have 2 options: You either fight a battle you can't win.... or.... you adapt. Learn how to adapt to the problem. Sony isn't going to change their mind over a petition. They have been planning this for a long time (in cahoots with Rockstar) .... as well as having been prepared for the backlash and petitions they knew were coming. They didn't care when they wrote the announcement. They didn't care when the petition reached 200K signatures, and they won't care when it hits millions.

    There is no law that says you have to buy a PS6. If disc-only gaming is a hill you will die on, there are 20-some consoles from 1985-2026 you can play with millions of games, knock yourself out, and play until you're blue in the face. But the reality is, the industry is changing. Change with it, or get out. I know thats tough words to here, I'm not any more happy about it than you are, but it is what it is
    Just because the change to digital comes as no shock does not mean people can not protest about it.
    They could go a long way to calm some people if they 100% guaranteed never to delete any item from your library. If the are forced to remove an item by a thrid party then a 100 refund should always be given!
    They should do something about them 500 films they deleted not long ago.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    TheyStoppedit said:
    The digital only change should come as no shock to anyone. It was really just a matter of when. I have been telling people for years that this was coming. When PS5 Pro came out digital only, I told everyone I knew that PS6 would be only digital only, and soon physical disc production would stop. No one believed me. The writing has been on the wall for along time. TBH, I'm amazed that even PS5 and XSX has a disc drive. The DIY PC market has been without a disc drive since PS4 came out and its doing fine.

    I get it. You can't trade in digital games, lend them to a friend, pass them down to your kids, store them on the shelf as display, that sort of stuff. I get that. That sentiment is lost. The person to whom you were replying was not telling you to give up your rights. No one wants to give up their rights. But when the industry changes, sometimes its a little bit of both good and bad. That happens. I think physical discs are important too. They have their place. But there's a reality here: The industry is changing.

    Leave it to Wayne Gretzky to come up with the perfect quote about this whole thing: "I skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been." I think 99.999999999% of consumers saw this change coming from miles away, it was just a matter of when. 200K petition signatures won't do anything. 1M petition signatures won't either. 10M..... well... even that... would be the minimum and that probably wouldn't do anything either. Sony is already dismantling their disc factories.

    You have 2 options: You either fight a battle you can't win.... or.... you adapt. Learn how to adapt to the problem. Sony isn't going to change their mind over a petition. They have been planning this for a long time (in cahoots with Rockstar) .... as well as having been prepared for the backlash and petitions they knew were coming. They didn't care when they wrote the announcement. They didn't care when the petition reached 200K signatures, and they won't care when it hits millions.

    There is no law that says you have to buy a PS6. If disc-only gaming is a hill you will die on, there are 20-some consoles from 1985-2026 you can play with millions of games, knock yourself out, and play until you're blue in the face. But the reality is, the industry is changing. Change with it, or get out. I know thats tough words to here, I'm not any more happy about it than you are, but it is what it is
    That's just it. From the posts I am seeing everywhere, people are ready to walk on Sony and go pc. I won't buy anything PS related myself unless Sony reverses course going forward. Sony has fudged the digital numbers as the leaked docs prove that when a game is released on disc it has a nearly 50%, more or less title depending, adoption rate on physical. Sony had to skew the data using digital only titles to make their argument look sound. They tried to play us as stupid and got caught.

    If you could back up games on PS drm free, sell/loan digital titles like physical AND there were multiple store fronts on PS... for me I'd not be happy but I'd live. But that is no where near the case so I am walkng on PS unless they reverse course and not looking back.

    On PC I can buy drm free or rip it out. I can back up my games. There are multiple store fronts. Or I can buy physical on Switch 2. Sony blew it. This is their XB1 moment and just like MS... it may kill their console and Sony has only itself to blame. When you screw your fan base over you better be ready to pay the price.
    Reply
  • TheyStoppedit
    thisisaname said:
    Just because the change to digital comes as no shock does not mean people can not protest about it.

    You can protest until your blue in the face. Sony knew full well all the backlash and protests were coming. They knew the changeorg petitions would come. They planned for it, and dont care

    thisisaname said:
    They could go a long way to calm some people if they 100% guaranteed never to delete any item from your library. If the are forced to remove an item by a thrid party then a 100 refund should always be given!
    They should do something about them 500 films they deleted not long ago.

    Okay, so a game is released on Sony store. After 5 years, they pull it due to licensing rules. That is: Sony has a LEGAL OBLIGATION to pull it due to licensing rules. Licensing terms and conditions are legally binding. Meanwhile, players have been playing it daily for 5 years and getting lots of entertainment and enjoyment out of that. So, Sony refunds them, and now they have recieved all that entertainment and enjoyment for free? You're telling me that the devs shouldn't be paid for their work when so many players were using it/enjoying it as intended? Try again
    Reply
  • TheyStoppedit
    atomicWAR said:
    That's just it. From the posts I am seeing everywhere, people are ready to walk on Sony and go pc. I won't buy anything PS related myself unless Sony reverses course going forward.

    And that's called freedom of choice. You are welcome to play any existing consoles that support physical media. Some people are content to stick with retro. You're more than welcome to do that

    atomicWAR said:
    Sony has fudged the digital numbers as the leaked docs prove that when a game is released on disc it has a nearly 50%, more or less title depending, adoption rate on physical. Sony had to skew the data using digital only titles to make their argument look sound. They tried to play us as stupid and got caught.

    Yep. Companies love to lie. They have been doing that for years, always have, and always will

    atomicWAR said:
    If you could back up games on PS drm free, sell/loan digital titles like physical AND there were multiple store fronts on PS... for me I'd not be happy but I'd live. But that is no where near the case so I am walkng on PS unless they reverse course and not looking back.

    Consoles are a very closed, lockdown environment unlike PC, so no, that's not going to happen. If you wanna dust off the old Super Nintendo and rip around rainbow road in your free time, go ahead. That is 100% DRM FREE.

    atomicWAR said:
    This is their XB1 moment and just like MS... it may kill their console and Sony has only itself to blame. When you screw your fan base over you better be ready to pay the price.

    No. XBOX 2880 will most likely be all digital. Fortunately, we have a product for those who absolutely must have physical media. It's called.... well. I dunno... PS5, Nintendo Wii, XBox 360, PS2, many others. Go get a dreamcast if you want, 100% DRM FREE. That's called freedom of choice. You're more than welcome to do that.

    I don't mean to sound cynical, I'm just telling it like it is. Sony is changing their ecosystem. You are welcome to take part, and you are welcome to walk away. That is up to you as the consumer. Do what works for you. But it is what it is. Dont fight it. Adapt
    Reply
  • sausages2020
    chaos215bar2 said:
    Where does this ignorant, defeatist attitude come from?

    The reason people are upset to see physical discs go is obvious. They're the last bastion where people can buy something with at least a modicum of ownership rights. Specifically, the ability to resell the game at a later point.

    Yes, the DRM is bad. Yes, otherwise single player games tied to servers for no other reason than to allow the producer even more control over when and how their game can be played is bad. But the physical disc at least represents an object that the producer and Sony cannot unilaterally revoke from your position.

    So, maybe people should stop coming into these threads and proclaiming that people should just give up and move on, and instead take a minute to understand what this is all about. That being, the complete destruction of the last vestiges of any level of actual control over the things people buy.

    Personally, if discs are dead, then for me, so is the entire Playstation platform. I have better things to spend my time and money on than a platform that's doing everything in its power to destroy the last vestiges of consumer rights.

    So no, I'm not going to "just let it go".

    Just because you value your rights so little that you can't even be bothered to make a trip to best buy to buy that game rather than spend the same amount of money — or more — on a digital purchase that comes with less control doesn't mean the rest of us are. And even entirely ignoring the consumer rights angle, having spent money on a disc drive only to have Sony come in and say that they're going to stop supporting that hardware without even waiting for the next console release is a huge slap in the face.

    Sony is speaking loud and clear here and with their recent removal of purchases from people's library. They do not care about you, and they do not care about the experience their platform provides. Maybe this strategy will work out for them, but I certainly don't care to be a part of it.
    Hear hear. I literally just signed up to call this guy a fool... But you put it far more eloquently. I most certainly will be done with playstation if this goes ahead.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    TheyStoppedit said:
    And that's called freedom of choice. You are welcome to play any existing consoles that support physical media. Some people are content to stick with retro. You're more than welcome to do that



    Yep. Companies love to lie. They have been doing that for years, always have, and always will



    Consoles are a very closed, lockdown environment unlike PC, so no, that's not going to happen. If you wanna dust off the old Super Nintendo and rip around rainbow road in your free time, go ahead. That is 100% DRM FREE.



    No. XBOX 2880 will most likely be all digital. Fortunately, we have a product for those who absolutely must have physical media. It's called.... well. I dunno... PS5, Nintendo Wii, XBox 360, PS2, many others. Go get a dreamcast if you want, 100% DRM FREE. That's called freedom of choice. You're more than welcome to do that.

    I don't mean to sound cynical, I'm just telling it like it is. Sony is changing their ecosystem. You are welcome to take part, and you are welcome to walk away. That is up to you as the consumer. Do what works for you. But it is what it is. Dont fight it. Adapt
    Defeatist take. Stand up against this. Anything less is either full on fan boy status, overly cynical or plain cowardly. Nothing changes unless we consumers force change. We've forced change with XB1 on physical drm/always online, we destroyed the rtx 4080 12GB launch and forced Valve to allow refunds. I see no difference here.

    You are not wrong about one very important thing... we consumers can choose to not part in Sony's new ecosystem. I encourage everyone who has in the past to not support them going forward. If Sony lost 20-40 percent of their user base out if this, they likely will change their mind or if they lose more consumers they could lose their platform altogether. This move by Sony is the most anticonsumer move they have ever made and nearly everyone is outraged by it. So yeah I'll play my retro consoles or emulate them on my PC before I spend another cent on PS. The king is dead... long live PC/Nintendo the new kings.
    Reply