Sony has said it won’t change its mind on killing PlayStation discs in 2028, while acknowledging “strong views” from the video game community.
The online backlash has seen gamers continue to call on Sony to U-turn on its decision, signing online petitions and swarming over PlayStation social media posts to express concern about video game preservation and ownership — even overshadowing the release of new games that have nothing to do with what’s going on at Sony. Meanwhile, backers of physical media have called on gamers to boycott PlayStation for a week in August to send a message to Sony that its decision to kill discs from 2028 is unacceptable.
Complaints have also come from other groups. The UK’s Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), for example, called Sony’s decision “a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice.”
Following the release of its first quarter financial results today, Sony held an investor-focused Q&A in which it answered questions from analysts. Inevitably, Sony was asked about its decision to stop selling PlayStation discs. In Sony’s first comments on the issue since the announcement was made on July 1, chief financial officer Lin Tao, speaking through a live interpreter during the call, signalled the company’s intention to go through with it.
Here’s the response in full:
“We announced that January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs. So, one-and-a-half years ahead. So we made this announcement at this time.
“There are various reasons we made this decision. The biggest being that the digitalization of contents overall has been progressing. That’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of contents, digitalization is progressing.
“And so when we think about the future — and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward.
“And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and 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, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases.
“And so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore.”
Essentially, Tao is saying Sony won’t budge despite the backlash. And in that final line is there a hint at a possible method for preserving physical discs digitally?
When Sony announced its decision it said it was 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.
“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.”
Reinforcing this trend, Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, said that just seven PlayStation video games had sold more than 100,000 physical units so far this year in the U.S.. Only two PlayStation video games sold more than 10,000 physical units in the U.S. during the week ending July 11.
There are of course instances of companies reversing controversial decisions amid a backlash, but, as analysts have told IGN, it remains unlikely that Sony will U-turn on this.
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.”
Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry analyst at Ampere, has said a lot has changed over the course of the last two generations. “Console gaming is the last hold-out for physical media in the gaming sector, but physical product has been declining in importance,” he said in a post on the Ampere website. “Back in 2013 when the PS4 launched, Ampere data shows that only 13% of total full games unit sales for Sony consoles were digital (including digital-only games). Fast forward to 2025, and this digital share of full game purchases stood at almost 80% of the total.
“Inevitably there will be concerns from PlayStation gamers around various aspects of this announcement including choice, accessing older physical games on new consoles, the ability to collect physical games, and game preservation, however the purchasing trends of gamers are clear.”
One analyst said fans of physical media had their chance and blew it, so there’s no going back. “If gamers and preservationists had bought more physical games, Sony wouldn’t have seen the digital sales ratios that justify this decision,” Robin Zhu, a games analyst at Bernstein, told the Financial Times.
For Sony, going all-digital for new game releases will earn it more money from every sale at a time when console sales are expected to plummet due to their rising cost. 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 downloads, however, the margins are much higher. For a first-party game sold via Sony’s own PlayStation Store, the company obviously keeps 100% of the revenue. For third-party games such as Call of Duty, meanwhile, Sony keeps a 30% cut (so, roughly $21 for a $70 game).
Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
