Sony Responds to Backlash Over PlayStation’s Physical Disc Future

Sony finally addressed the backlash caused by its decision to end production of physical disks for all new PlayStation 5 games starting in January 2028. The announcement was met with significant pushback from gamers anticipating the end of the used-games market, and many PlayStation fans have since tried to pressure Sony to change its mind.

After staying silent for almost a month, Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao finally addressed the situation during the company’s latest earnings call (via Kotaku). And unfortunately for PlayStation gamers, the company will go forward with its plans to ditch physical games.

“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor,” Tao said during the Q&A session earlier today. “It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing.”

The exec also said that the company “put in a lot of thought and time” into the decision, but it’s still “going to cautiously move this forward.” Lao also added that gaming is “connected to people’s fond memories in many cases, and so we understand those emotions.” However, she concluded that “in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore.”

The path forward for Sony is to replace physical discs with digital codes. That way, it will still be possible to find PlayStation games at retail stores, though digital codes can’t be resold once they’ve been claimed by customers.

During the earnings call, Lao brushed off concerns about the end of PS5 physical discs possibly hurting the PlayStation business. Lao pointed out that the PlayStation ecosystem will still remain attractive for gamers looking for a curated experience with more affordable hardware compared to PC.

“The curated content is one of our strengths, and the game environment being stable, that’s another strength. And compared to the high-end gaming PC, our product is more affordable. So we don’t feel that the disc itself is a strong factor for differentiation. Going forward, we can coexist peacefully with PC games,” the exec said.