Sony to 'Cautiously Move Forward' With Ending Physical Game Discs Despite Backlash - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2026 / 3,019 Views
Sony Group Corporation chief financial officer Lin Tao during the latest earnings call with investors for Q1 of fiscal year 2026 said they are aware of the backlash following the announcement they are ending physical game discs for new PlayStation games on PlayStation consoles starting in January 2028.
"We announced that from January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs, so one and a half years ahead," said Tao via Sony's interpreter.
"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 PlayStation, but for all kinds of contents, digitalization is progressing.
"So when we think about the future, 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, 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. Thank you very much."
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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The fact that they’ve only responded to their investors rather than addressing their playerbase after a month is pretty telling. Leads credence to the claims that Sony feels they’re too big to directly address players.
You would think the backlash over the decision and the PSN outage the other day would be enough to convince them to change their mind, but I guess not.
The outage the other day was a few hours 1 day and because of an AWS issue based on things. Most people didn't even notice it.
They've done their research, and the backlash must've been mostly of expected scale.
That's a shame.
I hope PS ends.
Absolute bullshit, even worse that they only talked about it to investors.
Seems like it's time for Playstation to go away.
So, which company is going to replace Sony? Certainly not Microsoft, they are much worse than Sony. Nintendo has the toy console market tied up, but they have never made a console aimed at adults. The rest of the competitors died out long ago. Steam Deck? They had the potential, but the price is way too high to be any real competition (and does it even have any option for using physical media?). Sony has no competition, so they are in no real danger despite the dozens of disc fanboys raging all over the internet.
Personally, I can't remember the last time I put a game disc into either of my PS5s. I do play blu-ray movies on occasion. I have bought 1000s of video games over the decades. I have never sold a single one of them, so I really don't care about that aspect at all. I used to buy used games at Gamestop (and such), but I got tired of buying them at a 10% discount compared to new games. Now I just load my psn wishlist with games I am interested in and buy them when they are 50%+ off. So much easier. I no longer waste time going through bargain bins at a store. I spend my time playing games instead.
The main thing keeping physical media afloat was the shear number of people around the world with very limited internet. Now that Starlink is available in the vast majority of countries, that is a rapidly fading issue.
"Nintendo has the toy console market tied up, but they have never made a console aimed at adults."
uhhh what? this is an absolutely bizarre statement. Many millions of adults play on Nintendo. What are you like a teenager trying to relive the "nintendo is for kiddies" nonsense from 25 years ago?
"it's time for Playstation to go away." I gave an exaggerated response to this kind of exaggerated comment.
I've owned several Nintendo consoles. They make good stuff. They know their market pretty well and they cater to it. They are not in direct competition with Sony. They are only in semi-competition. Obviously lots of adults own and enjoy Nintendo consoles, as they should.
There is a difference between adults playing games on a Nintendo console and Nintendo releasing a console aimed at them.
It's not a bad thing to be aimed at a younger audience. A product whose target audience is rapidly greying is a product that is living on borrowed time.
Honestly, if you’re that sure of yourself, go apply at Microsoft, because they’re really struggling with Xbox.
It would actually do them some good.
The other consoles 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Xbox is on its knees.
And it’s the same fight as PlayStation with full digital: they want to push Game Pass as hard as possible.
Even if they added a disc drive, it would only be temporary — for physical games, it would just delay the inevitable.
And PlayStation could counter them directly on price, since their console would be cheaper without a disc drive.
Nintendo is 10 years behind the competition.
Big third‑party games already struggle to run at 1080p 30 fps on a 2025 console that costs almost €500.
Already on its knees compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X… so imagine when the next generation arrives.
Nintendo doesn’t even try anymore:
ports on ports, remakes on remakes, no new IPs, always the same franchises looping endlessly.
And PC?
Way too expensive for most players.
Good luck building a PC on the level of a PS6 for $1000 — it’s impossible.
Even worse for someone starting from scratch.
The PS6 will sell extremely well, and Sony knows perfectly well that most people will flip their stance once the big games drop.
Especially since we don’t even know PlayStation’s strategy for the PS6 yet — Sony probably has plans they haven’t revealed.
I’m not worried about them at all.
You might want to consider your own side over the billion dollar company once in a while.
You are not the part that will benefit from anything this decision will bring to the industry.
Again, keep laughing, better do it right now tho, you'll realize no company is your friend sooner or later.
No business lasts forever. Will this kill Sony? No, but no one is too big to fail.
Sony is more than just Playstation. Sony is a one of the big 3 in music, 10% of the movie industry, top 3 in cameras, basically the top in headphones. PS is the bread winner sure but they have other things.
In gaming, only one major platform is offering physical for the foreseeable future.
Vinyl selling more and more
Cds selling more and more
Even fuugcking cassetes are selling more and more.
But sony is like"nope fuugk gamers lets end physical"
they trying to squeeze every penny they can
no disc, no purchase for me
Translation:
"Physical Games account for nearly 20"% of sales, when available in physical format...
But we want more money and control"
Just a bunch of jibber-jabber
all about the profit, sony going to squeeze all they can.
"We have received various opinions". That's one way to put it.
Physical games are a niche, at least for modern consoles in a lot of markets. That being said, Sony is still very dumb with this. And this just adds to the dumb decisions they have been making for a while. With prices and other factors, it doesn't look good for PS6.
