European Union Cannot Stop PlayStation and Others From Ending Physical Media - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 10 July 2026 / 12,730 Views
European Union Commissioner for Consumer Protection Michael McGrath speaking to reporters in Strasbourg's European Parliament (via Irish Mirror) said there is nothing they can do to stop PlayStation and others from killing physical media.
"It does come down to commercial and contractual freedoms, and companies are free to offer games and services in the manner that they see fit, provided that consumer rights are fully protected in line with national and EU law," said McGrath.
"At this time, we did have to consider a European citizens initiative on this question of whether games should continue to be available after a new edition of the game has been brought forward."
PlayStation announced earlier this month it is ending physical game disc production for all new games released on PlayStation consoles starting January 2028. All new games from this date released on PlayStation consoles on the PlayStation Store and at retailers will be in digital formats only.
There were reports PlayStation did not warn publishers, business partners, or even branches in other markets ahead of the announcement.
PlayStation's India operations were not told about this change and at the time of the announcement were negotiating deals with local distributors and retailers to invest in and set up exclusive PlayStation brick-and-mortar stores with a goal of having around 100 of these in India by 2028.
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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So they can go after Apple and force them to sell digital apps and games as THEY (the European Union) see fit. They can go after Nintendo and force them to sell hardware as THEY see fit. But when it comes to Sony, well... nothing they can do? Yeah. Something isn't adding up, here. A lot, actually.
Must have been paid off by Sony.
They can't say Nintendo needs to put the actual game on their cardridge either or Xbox on their discs. EU can do a lot but it's not a magical bullet. Still it does a lot more for consumer rights against tech giants than US, Japan or other developed nations.
There is nothing stopping them from, at the very least, making it a law that when you purchase a digital game, it's 100% yours. The company that sold it to you cannot alter it without your permission. Cannot strip content, music, or anything else out of it without your permission. Cannot take it away on a moments whim like they did to all those movies recently. Must provide the ability for you to lend, resell, and share the game with anyone you choose etc.
Okay but that's not something they have made law yet. campaign for that to be the case first.
Then consumers need to advocate for such a law as loudly as possible.
Consumers can with their wallets.
Yes and No
We cant force them to keep printing games, but we can choose to NOT reward them for doing so by shrinking their business
I already moved to PC prior to the hysteria (more consumer choice and options)
But this move was conformation that I previously made the right choice
To be fair pc already moved digital as well and most pc gamers are trapped in Steam. Hell the fanbase can even get angry if you have an epic account.
PC did not go digital as a result of the decision of a single company. It was a free market decision. Likewise, there are multiple stores to buy games from, including key resellers.
Good. Happy for Sony and the free world.
Good dog too !
You do realize company freedoms do not equate and can sometimes be contradictory to individual freedoms? In this case I kind of agree with you though, it's frustrating but not a goverment level issue.
Good dog.
Free to buy games from a singular controlled source, with full price and sales regulation by a single distributing company. The freedom to be restricted.
No but they can force competition by making Sony open up their store or platform for competition from other stores. This is mainly what is needed, plus refund, return and exchange policies.
Get to it!!
No, they cannot force PlayStation to open its store to others, simply because customers already have alternatives to buy their games. There are three options: boxed games with codes, PSN cards, and the PlayStation Store. Nintendo and Xbox are also alternatives for PlayStation customers. So Sony is within its rights: it has no obligation to open its store to others.
I think this is the most important point, albeit it of course is tangential to the interests of people who actually just want to buy physical media games. But the removal of the option of physical media for new games could also be seen to remove Sony´s best defence against locking down the Playstation´s software: physical retail provided competition to their own game distribution i.e. Playstation store.
IMHO it´s actually questionable if it would be in Sony´s interest to do this, if it opens up their consoles to independent stores that give zero or minimal cut to them. Although considering the likely entrants would be existing online PC game stores, and that field is dominated by Steam which takes a similar cut as Sony... Which is shielded from price competition by their contracts they force on publishers to not sell games at lower price to consumer (which prevents other game stores from competing on basis of lower price). That contract is of course horrible and outrageous, but as long as it stands, I don´t think Sony would actually have to worry about price competition from 3rd party game stores, not to mention Sony could likely get away with their own paralllel anti-competitive contract terms (like demanding day 1 releases, or other terms to prevent other stores from having more attractice offer to consumers).
That said, IMHO the best angle to go after the cutting off of new physical games would be that it is destroying the value of existing consoles with disc drives, preventing them from being used as they were designed to be and consumers purchased them for (in case of newer models, the drive was explicitly purchased independently). Sure, on it´s own , Sony only enabling digital games isn´t different than any other platform which might never have offered physical software, but in the case of Sony having sold consumers physical drive enabled consoles, that ¨independent business decision with publishers¨ is sabotaging the core functioning of products they sold to consumers. That probably wouldn´t go anywhere in the US, but perhaps it has a chance in other jurisdictions (although I wouldn´t wait for corrupt Irish tax shelter - US corporate proxies to jump to do anything about this).
That's bullshit. -_-
why? do you like government control?
That's a lie. They could definitely do something about it, but obviously doing so would be very complicated unless they wanted to really disrupt the market. I guess it's close enough to the truth in practice.
Gamers are silly if they think regulators and governments can tell a company what physical media they can sell their software on.
Best approach is for those wanting physical media to stop buying from PlayStation once physical is ended.
Everything the EU has done has always been symbolic anyway. Being allowed to resell licenses is great, but oh wait, you can't sell them because they're tied to your account and your account only! EU courts get too much hype.
If the EU isn't do shit then its actually over.
no kidding
This makes sense because they would have to mandate it for others including indies and other platforms holders like Valve and all the publishers featuring on PC, Microsoft and Nintendo and thats not even practical.
Well good luck sony
