Playstation to Discontinue the Production of discs Starting in 2028

Published 2 weeks, 6 days ago by (Updated 2 weeks, 6 days ago)
Playstation to Discontinue the Production of discs Starting in 2028

It's the end of an era! Sony just announced that, starting in January 2028, they will stop the production of discs for PlayStation games. It sounds like this will not be limited to first-party titles, but will also affect third-party publishers. According to Sony, this is to align with current consumers trends, which overwhelmingly prefer digital to physical. This is after the news that GTA VI won't have a physical release come November.

PC gamers are all to familiar with this situation, as games haven't been released in nearly a decade (probably more) on the platform, thanks in large part to the advent of Steam. While Xbox hasn't made any formal announcement on the matter, their recent console release doesn't come with a disk drive. It seems Nintendo is the last bastion of physical media, though their use of game-key cards makes that future iffy (even though first-part titles still come on card).

Quote From 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.  

We’ll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that’s at retailers or PlayStation Store. We remain committed to delivering a world-class gaming experience to our fans and we thank you for your continued support.  

What do you think of this change? Are you mainly a digital buyer, or do you prefer the certainty of disks? Let us know in the comments below!

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Just a guy with opinions video games who decided to share it with everyone against their will :P. I specifically like single-player games and card games, though usually not what's most popular at the moment.

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Comments

  • I'm of this opinion that this is total bullshit, and we should all be upset about it. I buy a lot of digital games - Steam is what it is, and the majority of my time is on the platform - but that doesn't mean I automatically want my games to be digital. I still buy PlayStation discs and Switch carts, I still want my products to be physical, even if Steam is super convenient. If Steam had a physical route, I would use it; to remove this option entirely because Sony thinks it's what the customer wants is absolute garbage. The industry has been chipping away at the physical medium for years - a lot of games literally have no physical edition - and they point at that and go "see? People prefer digital!" No, you pricks, we just didn't have a say in the matter. Putting digital download codes inside the physical cases was a total insult, but now they're putting a bullet between the eyes of the case itself, and blaming the customers for their actions. It's disgusting.

    And don't get me started on "product licenses": going fully digital means they can take your games away from you at literally any point they want, and since you only bought a license, there'll be nothing you can do about it. Steam may come crashing down one day, ripped apart because "boo monopolies", and that'll be a fucking tragic end to my library.

    If Sony doesn't reverse course, then I'm done being a PlayStation fangirl. I've owned every console of theirs except a PS4 (because of monetary reasons), but I won't be buying the next one.

  • Damn.

    We all knew this was going to happen eventually, but there's no date that I was expecting it to come at, so it still hits like a brick.

    Staff

  • The end of an era.

    I can't say that I'm surprised though. Nintendo, who has the highest costs for media due to flash chips, is even going the route of cutting costs on their physical distribution so for the discs, ending the production completely just makes sense.

    I don't even hate it.

    As someone who does prefer to buy physical games, for PS5 and Series X I'd say my split was 60/40 leaning in favor of digital. It's clear that digital is the big winner and we're going to only see the gap widen so there has to be a turning point. PS5 Pro has the disc drive as an expensive addon; Writing has been on the wall now since that released.

    I am curious though if this means the PS6 is going to by discless and if that means it will also not have a bluray player at all, even as an accessory. I don't buy a lot of movies, but when I do, I always get them on 4K bluray so it was nice to have a player attached to a gaming console instead of needing yet another device in the entertainment stack. I'm certain I'm in the minority there but it would be just a little sad to lose optical media, or the choice of it, entirely from game consoles. Maybe Xbox will go hard on television again lmao.

    • Depends a lot on how far they are into designing/producing the thing, but it's entirely possible they'll drop the disk drive. If they wanted to go with the replaceable drive like the PS5 Slim/Pro, they'll probably just leave that as part of the console, but it won't be used.

      Staff