Sony pushes forward with ditching discs, despite backlash

‘The digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor.’

Sony has received a lot of backlash from PlayStation fans since announcing that it’s killing physical game disc production, but that hasn’t swayed its decision. During Sony’s latest earnings call, chief financial officer Lin Tao said that while the company “put in a lot of thought and time” when considering the opposition put forward by its gaming community, Sony has come to the conclusion that it will “cautiously move this forward.”

“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 through an interpreter. “It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing.”

Sony’s plan to cease production of physical discs for new PlayStation games by January 2028 was announced earlier this month, and t he company has already begun repurposing its disc-manufacturing headquarters to work on optical microlenses instead. The decision to limit gamers to digitally downloaded games has since been loudly criticized by some PlayStation console users who feel it will negatively affect resale markets, true game ownership, and the preservation of gaming media. A weeklong blackout for PlayStation content has been organized in protest of the decision, which is set to start on August 23rd.

Sony’s claims around the ongoing digitalization of content do hold merit, however. Its latest quarterly earnings report shows that physical games earned the company just over $781 million in the 2025 fiscal year — a fraction of what it brought in for digital game sales (about $6.5 billion) and in-game purchases (about $8.4 billion) over the same period.