Sony has announced that, from January 2028, they will no longer produce physical discs for PlayStation console games. From that point onwards, any boxed releases sold by retailers will be digital only.
Sony’s Senier Director of Content Communications Sid Shuman states:
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.
The announcement follows on from Take Two’s decision to release GTA 6 without a disc in the retail version of the game, and will instead ship a code in the box. What was heralded as a potential beginning of the end for physical game media is now made a reality by Sony taking a hard and fast platform-level change.
This also clearly indicates that the next PlayStation consoles will be digital-only, and while the shift towards digital purchases has been pretty rapid over the past decade, it’s still a shame to see this change coming. Sony will still be maintaining a retail presence as a kind of competition to the PlayStation Store, but this is also a new way to lock in gamers to their ecosystem.
Finally, with no reason for a disc drive in the next generation of console, PlayStation hardware designers are going to have to find some other reason to make the PS6 weirdly bulbous and unstable when placed on a flat surface.
Source: Sony
