Despite widespread public backlash, Sony has reaffirmed its plan to transition PlayStation to an all-digital platform during the company's FY26 Q1 earnings call. The company is moving forward with ending the production of physical game discs in January 2028. After this date, the company will no longer manufacture physical media for new game releases. This decision gives PlayStation fans and retailers a little over a year and a half to prepare for the change.
When asked about Sony's decision to end production of physical game discs during the Q&A session, Lin Tao, Executive Officer and CFO for Sony, replied that:
"On this point, we announced that January 2028 onwards, we will no longer be manufacturing game discs. One and a half years ahead. We made this announcement at this time. There are various reasons we made this decision."
Tao further explains the rationale behind the digital paradigm shift, a move that was met with negative criticism from PlayStation fans and parts of the industry.
"The biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing. That’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of contents; digitalization is progressing. When we think about the future, we put in a lot of thought and time; we cautiously considered this, we came to this conclusion, we’re going to cautiously move this forward.
To this decision, we have received various opinions; people have strong views. We understand that the community has put forth those views to us.
Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people; it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. We understand those emotions. We want to consider that."
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According to Sony's financial results for FY26 Q1, which covers the period from April to June, the company raked in $1.2 billion in digital game revenue. In stark contrast, physical game sales brought in only $128 million for Sony, meaning digital revenue was more than 9X higher than physical sales. The growth in digital sales and the disparity with physical sales shows why Sony is eager to go all in on digital.
Sony was asked directly about the impact of discontinuing physical discs. In response, Ishii, a Corporate Communications executive at the company, provided the following statement:
"Well, up until 2028, well, at this point in time, well, we are not seeing any impact on our business as of now. Going forward, about the content sales, I think a large part is already digitized.
Therefore, as a result of the discontinuation of a disc, we don’t see that there will be any negative impact on our business. However, as I already said, the users, the players, have attachments, and we have to think about how to respond to that feedback."
Phasing out game discs will undoubtedly have a significant financial impact on gamers. Physical game discs not only provide ownership, but they also come with the benefit of resale. Gamers can recoup some of what they paid for it once they are finished playing. The extinction of game discs represents the loss of the ability to share physical games with friends and family. The PlayStation platform does not support sharing digital games, unlike services like Valve’s Steam Families or Nintendo’s Virtual Game Cards.
Game discs enable gamers on a tight budget to purchase second-hand copies of games at great prices at their local game stores or online marketplaces. For instance, used copies of The Last of Us Part I, which came out four years ago, go for as little as $25, while the digital version remains priced at around $69.99 on the PlayStation Store. Even during major promotional events like Days of Play or Black Friday, digital discounts have rarely brought prices below $29.99. Second-hand physical copies are simply a more affordable choice for many players.
Without game discs, PlayStation console owners will have to rely more on internal storage, and when that depletes, they will have to expand the storage with the best PS5 SSDs. The issue is that SSDs are ludicrously expensive right now due to the storage shortage, which could last way beyond January 2028.
The discontinuation of physical discs does not just affect consumers but also retailers. However, Sony expects limited business impact in that aspect since the digital transition has somewhat started a long time ago. Tao elaborated, "For the last 30 years, we have been selling PlayStation, and the retail partners have always been important to us. With the completion of the disc production, we communicated this at an early stage so that we have enough time to be able to listen to various partners’ voices.”
Tao continued, “In North America, this has already happened, but without discs. In the package, there’s a code. That’s how they sell in North America. About the retailers, there are regional characteristics. For each regional partner, we try to have thorough dialogues so that we can end up in a win-win situation. Now, the differentiation from PC. We don’t feel that the disc is the factor to differentiate from the PC."
Gamers are actively voicing their opposition to Sony’s move away from physical media. DoesItPlay, a community dedicated to game preservation, has organized a large-scale boycott dubbed #PSBlackout, urging PlayStation users worldwide to turn off their consoles for an entire week, from August 23 to August 30. The X post has amassed over 1.8 million views and 7,500 shares, but it is uncertain how many users will participate. In addition to this digital protest, a Change.org petition with more than 350,000 signatures is asking for Sony to reconsider its decision to end physical game production.
Sony has been winding down its physical media production over the years (for example, physical boxes with a download code), so it was just really a matter of time before the PlayStation ecosystem adapted to the changes. Unfortunately, the die is cast, and there are rumors that Sony has already started repurposing its factories for other endeavors. There is little to no hope that Sony will reverse its decision to discontinue physical game discs.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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TerryLaze Reply
Who are people supposed to boycott?????usertests said:Ball's in your court, ponies. Boycott and prove that you're not cattle.
Even if sony takes it back and makes discs again doesn't mean that devs will suddenly pay to make more physical games again...sony is stopping disc production because devs, sony included, just don't make enough money from this feature anymore.
You would have to boycott every single dev there is that has any digital games at all...meaning you would have to stop playing new games completely. -
hotaru251 Reply
game devs dont care about that. They just make games they dont think about the disc copies. even if they did...enoguh discs are sold to cover cost of doing it (disc media is cheap as heck)TerryLaze said:sony is stopping disc production because devs, sony included, just don't make enough money from this feature anymore.
Going all digital has a risk of impacting sales as well as storage is costly (especially for now and foreseeable future) -
TerryLaze Reply
I would need to see numbers on this, operating a disc pressing factory can't be that cheap, and I also don't know how much the protections add to the cost.hotaru251 said:game devs dont care about that. They just make games they dont think about the disc copies. even if they did...enoguh discs are sold to cover cost of doing it (disc media is cheap as heck)
Game devs will care a lot about it if sony has to force them to commit to a certain number of discs they would have to buy from sony, no matter if they want to or not, if they want to sell any games on their platform at all, because they sure as heck are not going to pay for running the fab without winnings out of their own pocket.
Minimum order quantity is already a thing that happens with physical media at nintendo. -
atomicWAR No disc no buy. It is that simple. Haven't touched my PS since the annoucement. Only log in to psn to protest online. I am done with Sony if they don't back track.Reply -
Phaaze88 Sony only speaks in money(what company doesn't). If you go back, they still win.Reply
Abandon them completely, or bend over for Daddy Sony. -
Azzers Reply
Isn't it quite obvious they're supposed to boycott Sony? This is the issue with boycotts, or many of these movements in general: they're inhabited by people with no self control or no ability to say no to themselves. This is why the blowback to $99 games failed; everyone just thought "well I can just boycott Doom: The Dark Ages" and as a result id software got smoked with layoffs and the prices became 99 dollars as every other game got protected by Doom getting torched.TerryLaze said:Who are people supposed to boycott?????
Even if sony takes it back and makes discs again doesn't mean that devs will suddenly pay to make more physical games again...sony is stopping disc production because devs, sony included, just don't make enough money from this feature anymore.
You would have to boycott every single dev there is that has any digital games at all...meaning you would have to stop playing new games completely.
It was borderline sad listening to people say how good that game turned out to be and realizing it failed due to weak people making it the sacrificial game and giving Microsoft a pretext.
So yes, maybe you skip the consoles for a generation or two. Hell I did it decades ago, so it's certainly not impossible and there's plenty of PC games you can play during that time which you can offload onto other media if you prefer. It's the same hubris movies had taking place in Xbox/Sony HQ: that people can't waste their time doing something else instead.
Dev's don't care; distribution is another business and they really only care what part of the per unit price they get to keep and what the distributor is going to pay them. If someone invents a "Thimble Distribution" and it makes the Developer's bottom line go up, they'll do that. -
TerryLaze Reply
So proving to sony that they were right in that people prefer all digital, that's what PC is, is somehow boycotting sony?!Azzers said:So yes, maybe you skip the consoles for a generation or two. Hell I did it decades ago, so it's certainly not impossible and there's plenty of PC games you can play during that time which you can offload onto other media if you prefer.
That people move over to a completely all digital platform will somehow make sony go back to physical?!?!
That makes some kind of sense? -
dimar At thas point PlayStation will be a locked down PC with a locked down app store, so that you could play 2 exclusive games a year. A normal PC makes more sense. And you can backup your games from NAS to Blu-ray disks to even tape if you wanted to. I'm done with Sony.Reply -
LordVile Reply
Doom didn’t sell well because it’s a single player game that launched with gamepass. Why would I buy the game when I can play it through in a month on gamepass?Azzers said:Isn't it quite obvious they're supposed to boycott Sony? This is the issue with boycotts, or many of these movements in general: they're inhabited by people with no self control or no ability to say no to themselves. This is why the blowback to $99 games failed; everyone just thought "well I can just boycott Doom: The Dark Ages" and as a result id software got smoked with layoffs and the prices became 99 dollars as every other game got protected by Doom getting torched.
It was borderline sad listening to people say how good that game turned out to be and realizing it failed due to weak people making it the sacrificial game and giving Microsoft a pretext.
So yes, maybe you skip the consoles for a generation or two. Hell I did it decades ago, so it's certainly not impossible and there's plenty of PC games you can play during that time which you can offload onto other media if you prefer. It's the same hubris movies had taking place in Xbox/Sony HQ: that people can't waste their time doing something else instead.
Dev's don't care; distribution is another business and they really only care what part of the per unit price they get to keep and what the distributor is going to pay them. If someone invents a "Thimble Distribution" and it makes the Developer's bottom line go up, they'll do that.