Sony Suggests Retailers Can Still Sell a Code in the Box After End of Physical Game Discs - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2026 / 3,262 Views
Sony Group Corporation chief financial officer Lin Tao during the latest earnings call with investors for Q1 of fiscal year 2026 suggests retailers could continue to sell a code in the box following the end of physical game discs in January 2028.
"For the last 30 years we have been selling PlayStation and retail partners have always been important to us," said Tao via Sony's interpreter.
"With the completion of disc production we communicated this at an early stage, so that we have enough time to be able to listen to various partners' voices.
"In North America this has already happened, but without discs in the package there's a code included, that's how they sell in North America. There are regional characteristics for each regional partner, so we’ll try to have thorough dialogue so that we can end up in a win-win situation."
Tao also mentioned they are aware of the backlash and said "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."
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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Moving to fully digital and still producing plastic waste for no reason, lol.
Anything but provide options for the customers, that is a no-no.
Since they're salable and transferrable, same as a full physical copy, they do have some value.
Why on Earth would anyone want to buy a code in a box rather than just download the damn game straight from the PSN? Do they really think retailers' business are not gonna be harmed by this stupid decision?
Same reason gift cards exist if I were to guess.
give me a gift card so i can by a code in a box
For 'those that love to do Christmas and birthday shopping. People that love to shop, don't want to pick up only gift cards. A box seems more physical than a gift card. Still a terrible choice.
Some people want the box for collections. I am not an acutal fan of collecting discs but I love Steelboxes.
It's still silly to me though having a steel box without a disc. Whether on display or not, it doesn't get viewed without also viewing the disc.
A lot of people seem to be overlooking the key point of not having bank details to use for psn i.e. a kid.
A lot of parents will not want their kids to have access to their cards.
It's a way to get games retail shelf exposure, I suppose. But retailers are going to devote less space to game systems without any other product on shelves, i.e. games.
Retailers would buy them in bulk for a cheaper price. They could decide to discount them compared to Sony's digital store.
Fuck Sony.
No, I don’t want a code in a box. That’s the worst of both worlds.
I guess retailers will get a commission on sale, which is good for them. There are alot of adults that shop for kids and such, getting opinions on what game is good and such.
For the consumer though who buys games for themselves, its pointless.
This reminds me of the Xbone damage control saga back during 2013.
Microsoft would state you could do something in response to a complaint, but then there would be a bunch of asterisks attached to that statement, for example:
"our system isn't really an always online system (but you do have to connect to the internet to authenticate every 24 hours)" or "you can lend a game to a friend (but only one friend and then it's stuck to them forever)"
Meanwhile the customer just wanted to play games, and do what they were used to.
Gee thx sony!! A code in a box.
Yaaay
Said no one ever.
Well expect GameStop, Game, VGP and others to close their business next year. Sony tries hard to kill games retailers so bad. This will backfire them. Games retailers provide free marketing to them for years
Lewl
No surprises here.
I think unless the code in a box has a manual, music CD, or goodies, it is quite pointless.
Just have a physical gift card with a download for the specific game (like you see sometimes at Target and other retailers) as an option to gift a game to someone.
Er.. yeah we know, that was literally part of the first blog post. This said, the bigger question is if they are doing an API connection to their store allowing retailers to sell game codes direct and at prices they can control? If they don't, well, Sony will get sued out their arse and companies will actually have valid cases as at the moment they keep failing because Sony just point at everyone else and stores and say "Well, options." Lack of options means more control by Sony and therefore more lawsuits by consumer organisations.
Plus it will also mean you can buy any game from a retailer not just "codes in a box" games. At the moment the only way to buy Hades 2 on PS is via their store. When Baldur's Gate 3 first released it was digital only (and even then only way to buy it physically was part of a collector edition), there was no other option, digital or nothing for months from Larian. Sony's needs to open up their market more to allow retailers to sell games they never could before, which gives customer more options and more places to buy and Sony a revenue stream they technically didn't have before as some consumers might not actually ever buy digital and therefore never actually buy games from their store.
I think retailers will continue to pay wholesale as they have done for years now. This is good because we will actually get sales for digital goods outside of PSN which is better than what exists now for digital. Hopefully this allows digital only games to be sold in places that aren't just PSN now. If it just a code in box then, again, the retailer is only gonna pay wholesale.
This is the ideal scenario. We already have stores connected to Sony's API to provide gift cards and the codes attached to them, there is no reason that cannot be opened up to all games and at that, place like ShopTo offer discounted credit year round so the same will happen with games, hopefully.
