Sony recently officially announced that starting from 2028, all new PlayStation games will stop releasing physical disc versions and will switch to digital distribution in the future. As soon as the news came out, it immediately set off a huge backlash in the global player community. Reddit, X, YouTube, and the official PlayStation community were almost completely flooded with relevant discussions. Many players criticized Sony for gradually abandoning the game collection culture. Some people are worried that the second-hand market, game preservation, and digital content ownership issues will become more serious in the future. Kotaku even described that PlayStation is now “being scolded almost everywhere it goes.”
What players are most unhappy about is not the lack of CDs
In fact, many players are not simply reluctant to part with CDs. What really arouses anger is that more and more people are beginning to question whether players “own” the game when all games become digital versions, or whether they just rent a usage right from the platform that may expire at any time. In recent years, events including the removal of digital movies, games, and “Stop Killing Games” have already caused many players to worry about digital content preservation issues. Now that Sony has officially announced that it will abandon physical discs for new games, this uneasiness has exploded.
Sony thinks this is a trend?
Sony said that digital versions of games currently account for about 80% of PlayStation complete game sales, so full digitization is in line with the market development direction and can also reduce logistics, manufacturing and retail costs. As for games that have announced physical versions before 2028, they will still be sold as usual and will not be affected by the new policy. However, for many players, even if they know that digitization is a trend, it does not mean they are willing to give up the right to collect, resell, and actually own games.
Especially in recent years, many works still require online verification and platform authorization even if they are purchased digitally, making players even more worried about whether the games they paid for can be played permanently once the store closes in the future.
You win the cost, but you may lose the player’s trust.
It is undeniable that digital distribution has long become the general direction of the game industry. However, this time Sony announced that it will completely stop launching new game discs, which once again brought the contradiction between “digital convenience” and “player ownership” to the surface. It can only be said that what Sony saved this time may be the cost of discs, but what players are most afraid of losing now is the game that truly belongs to them.