Sony’s controversial decision to kill PlayStation 5 discs could have some upsides, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has said.
Speaking yesterday during the company’s most recent investor Q&A, Guillemot was asked by an analyst for his thoughts on Sony’s bombshell announcement that it would discontinue discs for new PS5 games from January 2028 onwards, announced earlier this month.
Perhaps predictably, Guillemot did not strike too downbeat a tone in his answer — in contrast to the huge wave of negative backlash from fans that has been seen online, across social media, livestream comments and an enormous petition. Indeed, Guillemot suggested that some positives would come from the move.
“What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market,” Guillemot noted. “There’s also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines and being able to be only digital will help to have a more accessible machine, I would say.”
Ultimately, Guillemot concluded that Sony’s decision would likely not impact the wider industry too much — regardless of the passionate response by actual gamers, which Sony is seemingly doing its best job right now of ignoring.
“There are plus and minus,” the Ubisoft CEO concluded, “but we think it will not disturb too much the industry.”
Guillemot’s comments reflect the fact that the vast majority of game purchases are already digital, following the rise of downloads over the past decade. Indeed, Sony’s rationale for ditching discs is that it’s simply following consumer trends. “In response to shifting trends in consumer preference, new games will be released on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sid Shuman, Senior Director, Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, said in a post on PlayStation Blog, effectively telling gamers that this outcome was in a response to their own spending habits.
“As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.
“This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
Still, the online blowback to Sony’s announcement has been huge, with the most vocal proponents of physical releases leading the charge, citing concerns over game ownership and preservation among the key issues. This week, a former God of War developer revealed that Sony knew its decision to kill PlayStation 5 discs would spark outrage, and reportedly issued staff with the “strictest” social media guidelines to stop them from publicly commenting on the controversy.
But Sony seems unlikely to change course, and it has already begun reassigning staff involved with disc production. Cruically, Sony simply earns more money from digital games — at a time when consoles sales are being impacted by rising costs. For a first-party PlayStation game such as The Last of Us, Sony will only keep around 65% of the money from a physical copy, with around 30% going to the retailer and roughly another 5% on manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, for a physical copy of a third-party game such as the Activision-published Call of Duty, Sony will get a licensing fee, likely around 15%. For digital sales, Sony keeps 100% of first-party game revenue, and a far better cut from third-party titles.
Like it or not — and many won’t — financially it’s hard to argue with Guillemot’s assessment, even if it will likely only stir up more frustration among fans. Speaking to IGN, analysts have all said similar. Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, suggested that even if half a million people cancelled their PlayStation Plus subscription in protest, it would be just a drop in the ocean for Sony.
“I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision,” Toto told IGN. “They of course knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass.
“Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users,” he continued. “Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let’s say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just 1% of that business gone — of course not enough for Sony to start rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.”
Image credit: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
