If Sony thought the comments about stopping production of games on physical discs were going to go away, it is not happening anytime soon.
It has been almost a month since they announced the discontinuation of discs and every single video they have posted on YouTube since then has, and continues to get, comments about their decision. Even Paw Patrol! Any remarks about the actual content of the videos is being drowned out.
At the start of July, Sony 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 feature a digital download code.
In the announcement, Sony’s Senior Director of Content Communications, Sid Shuman, wrote:
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 slide towards digital gaming has been rapid over the past decade, affecting different companies in different ways. Through FY25, 78% of all full PlayStation games sold were done so digitally, but year-on-year for Q1 of FY26, there’s actually a slight slide from 83% last year to 82% this year.
Of course, these statistics are based around all game sales, including the hundreds and thousands of indie games that were never going to be released physically, outside of special collector’s editions. That does skew the data and we know from data leaks that Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 had sales of around 54% on disc.
However, even for big name games, the sales numbers are still dropping. According to Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, only seven PS5 games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US during 2026. Additionally, you have publishers like Capcom who are already down to the single digit percentage in terms of physical games sold.
In a Q&A session with investors for the latest quarterly results, Sony is still going to “cautiously” go ahead with killing off disc media.
