{"id":776171,"date":"2026-07-03T09:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776171\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:29:08","slug":"sonys-playstation-puts-a-nail-in-physical-medias-coffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776171\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony\u2019s PlayStation Puts a Nail in Physical Media\u2019s Coffin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bad news for fans of physical media<\/a>: Sony has announced that it is abandoning game discs.<\/p>\n

In a blog post<\/a> published Wednesday, Sid Shuman, senior director of global content communications at PlayStation, wrote that from January 2028, \u201cphysical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued.\u201d Shuman added that the decision is down to \u201cconsumer preferences\u201d and the broader entertainment industry shifting away from physical discs to digital, and that he feels \u201cthis is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blog is a mere three paragraphs but raises several questions about Sony\u2019s decision and its impact across the console gaming industry going forward. The main one that many gamers are likely leaping to, though, is \u201cWhat is Sony thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sizing Errors<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s decision does have some merit. The vast majority of video game sales \u2013 across the entire industry, not just PlayStation \u2013 are digital downloads. There\u2019s a convenience to being able to buy, install and play from your couch that even online shopping for a physical copy cannot match. A digital-first approach also expands the market for smaller developers and publishers, who can deliver their games to players without worrying about the added cost and stress of production or distribution.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the industry, many \u201ctriple-A\u201d games are now bigger, in file size, than can fit onto a physical disc in the first place. A triple-layer 4K Blu-ray can hold 100 GB of data; for games already exceeding this limit, the \u201con disc\u201d release is usually a bearer token or installation pack for the digital edition. There\u2019s no viable successor disc format, and even if there were, speed matters too \u2013 a solid-state drive can load and run a game much faster than data read from an optical disc. Maintaining disc releases when they no longer meet the needs of gaming as a medium is a bit of a fool\u2019s errand, especially as Valve\u2019s Steam Machine<\/a> is about to make an all-digital claim to players\u2019 living room gaming time.<\/p>\n

However, there is also backlash against an all-digital future for the medium. The much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI has made waves over the past week after developer Rockstar Games confirmed it would only arrive as a digital release<\/a>, and \u201cphysical\u201d copies would contain only a download code<\/a>. While Rockstar\u2019s decision is probably down to all those issues with getting a massive game onto discs in 2026, the furor shows there is still demand for physical releases.<\/p>\n

Who Owns Your Games?<\/p>\n

At the moment, the move has a whiff of Microsoft\u2019s disastrous reveal of the Xbox One in 2013. Back then, it planned to effectively neuter the secondary market<\/a> by locking discs to specific consoles. Under the earliest iterations of the plans, once you\u2019d installed the game you\u2019d bought, the disc itself became a glorified coaster \u2013 trading it in, reselling it or even returning it would have been so laborious and bureaucratic that it became unfeasible. The move was hugely unpopular, and Microsoft was forced to backtrack. Sony canning discs entirely risks making the same mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bad news for fans of physical media: Sony has announced that it is abandoning game discs. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,337209,105,3975],"class_list":["post-776171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-gadgets-wearable-tech","tag-technology","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}