With all of the stories of the cost-cutting going on in the games industry in recent years, it was only a matter of time before one of the biggest publishers took the step that physical collectors were dreading. On the heels of Rockstar announcing that Grand Theft Auto VI would not be on disc, Sony has announced that they will be ceasing production of physical game discs in 2028.
Per PlayStation Blog, PlayStation’s senior director of content communications, Sid Shuman, stated that as “consumer preferences” and the broader entertainment industry shift from physical media to digital, PlayStation will be following suit, ending physical game disc production for all new games starting January 2028. New games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.
This transition will have no impact on games that have already been released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.
Shuman stated that the decision to end physical disc production was a “natural direction” for Sony Interactive Entertainment to go, in order to adapt to consumer trends for digital media over physical discs. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
How this will affect other publishers producing their own discs remains to be seen.
This news also comes after Sony had announced earlier this week that their licensing agreement with StudioCanal had expired, meaning that it would be delisting nearly 500 films from its online library on September 1, including titles that customers had previously purchased and were tied to users’ accounts.
Sony has not revealed any details on compensation or refunds.
And if Xbox wasn’t already planning to slash and burn enough already, it’s now being reported that Xbox’s upcoming Project Helix console will not have a disc drive. Furthermore, according to The Verge, Microsoft is exploring a way to digitize a user’s physical game collection with a disc-to-digital feature.