Sony's Largest PlayStation Disc Plant is Reassigning Staff to Work on Micro Optics - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 July 2026 / 6,857 Views
Sony’s largest production plant working on PlayStation discs, based in Thalgau, Austria, has been producing 600,000 discs every day. This number is expected to drop over the coming months and will hit zero come January 2028, which is when PlayStation will no longer release games on physical discs.
The CEO of DADC Dietmar Tanzer speaking to Austrian news site ORF.at revealed about 50 percent of the discs it currently produces are for PlayStation with about 20 percent of that being for new orders.
"PlayStation is currently about 50 percent of our volume and about 20 percent of that is new orders," said Tanzer. "We are talking about 10 percent of the volume in 2028."
The production plant has 300 employees and they were informed on Wednesday there will be a restructuring following Sony's decision. The plant has been expecting this change for sometime and recently around €30 million were invested for the production of optical microlenses at the plant.
Sony DADC’s head of Micro Optics Markus Streibl said the tech will become a new area of business for Sony.
"Micro Optics is a miniaturization of optical systems and elements and is used to focus and direct light in the smallest of spaces," said Streibl. "One application would be, for example, a car turn signal that is projected onto asphalt."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Excuse me.
Fuxk sony
The more I stop and think about this, the more I feel the industry has moved on from me so I need to move on from it.
I can’t say I’ll give up gaming all together but I’ll be far more prepared to wait for major price cuts to the big games before purchasing, as opposed to rushing out day one.
Should also encourage me to gradually work through my backlog.
Just turn around and look behind you. See all those consoles? They stretch all the way back to the 70's. And there are tons of stores now, physical stores, that sell all those consoles and all those amazing, ionic games. There are conventions dedicated to it. Passionate fans, left and right to meet and become friends with. The hobby of gaming has never been better for physical collecting. Perhaps this is just the beginning of your journey.
They are cooking with a receipe that make piracy relevant again.
Well, more relevant than now.
Pre-Order any Blu-Ray media or lose it to scalpers. It's gonna be a tough year and a half.
Very sad. I love the possibility of buying and selling physical games. I miss this feature!
One of the major advantages of Playstation vs PC.
I hope PS6 will have some kind of optional disc drive. I would love to see PS5 drives working on PS6.
Sounds like all physical games leading up to 2028 will be short printed. No more waiting for sale and just pre-order all upcoming physical games right away for me.
I wonder if this will affect blu-ray movies too, or will soon follow.
Sony and Rockstar definitely colluded to roll this out.
The factory began this process in 2024, if not earlier.
10 years no new Mario game.
A re-release of Mario Kart 8 from the Wii U is better than World, and all we really want is the 120hz patch for the old game, not the new one. Same thing the Switch Smash Bros is just a worse version of the lower latency Gamecube or Wii game.
Breath of the Wild is almost 10 years old now, nothing since.
Donkey Kong Country is one of the best game series of all time and they messed up Returns and Tropical Freeze and Bananza imo. Original trilogy had better controls than the new games.
I'm in the mood. Best to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition again :)
mario wonder is like new super mario bros, tiny team, 2d game, that is not a AAA mario game also
I agree Tropical Freeze is pretty good (and much better than Returns) however it still controls worse than the SNES game
the character is not responsive and they took away the roll to mid air jump that made the original game special
the main thing i dislike about tropical freeze is the movement demands you have a partner, in the DKC games you move by yourself and the difficulty is properly scaled for one character moving by itself
once you lose your partner in Tropical Freeze the game feels off
You might not be a fan of the game, but Wonder is a mainline Triple A Mario game.
Same with Odyssey (which I forgot about) which was 9 years ago but was another major Mario release.
I’ve admittedly never played through the original DKC games. I do need to give them a proper go some day.
Maybe you lost the spark, that’s normal when you grow up and take on responsibilities.
Mario:
2017: Super Mario Odyssey
2017: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (with DLC until 2023)
2017: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
2018: Mario Tennis Aces
2018: Super Mario Party
2019: Super Mario Maker 2
2019: Yoshi’s Crafted World
2020: Paper Mario: The Origami King
2021: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
2021: Mario Golf: Super Rush
2022: Mario Strikers: Battle League
2023: Super Mario Bros. Wonder
2024: Mario & Luigi: Brothership
2024: Mario vs. Donkey Kong (remake)
2024: Mario Party Jamboree
2025: Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 HD (remasters)
2025: Mario Kart World
The Legend of Zelda:
2017: Breath of the Wild
2018: Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
2019: Link’s Awakening (remake)
2020: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020)
2021: Skyward Sword HD (remaster)
2023: Tears of the Kingdom
2024: Echoes of Wisdom
2025: Switch 2 Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom
2025: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment
2026: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Donkey Kong:
2018: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze port
2025: Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (remake/port)
2025: Donkey Kong Bananza (Literal Gem)
only one of those is a proper mario game
breath of the wild is great, but honestly it's a wii u port, there's only one mediocre (tears of the kingdom) zelda game in the last 10 years also since the Switch came out
1/1/0 for those IPs in the last 10 years (remember when we got a new SquareSoft RPG every year? or more than one?)
Bananza is interesting but is not a Donkey Kong Country game imo, and they also changed how he looks
anyways i think i'm selling my gaming PC, hope the Ocarina of Time Remake is good because man SLIM PICKINGS for this year
Nintendo has a problem getting games out
You don't get to decide what game is 'proper'. Not with that taste in videogames.
what are you talking about, i like Mario 3D World, Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, and Donkey Kong Country 1-3, you think that is bad taste? :p
I never said "bad" taste. I said "that" taste: inconsistent and chaotic.
also hilarious as everyone agrees that Mario Odyssey is the only proper mainline Mario to come out in the last 10 years
only you are trying to make that statement controversial
substitute "main" for "proper" then if you don't like the word :)
You can't possibly be arguing based on what "everyone" thinks when your arguments are significantly different to those of everyone else.
that's not true, i said only one major Mario game has come out in 10 years, that's what the majority of people think
you're the one pretending otherwise, the minority view is yours
Looking for a modern game?
Stellar Blade.
Space Marine 2.
Lego Batman.
Pragmata.
Fantasian Neo Dimension.
Adventures of Elliot.
They are all ok.
