launched a petition against Sony\u2019s decision to cease selling physical discs for video games in 2028<\/a>. As of July 20, the petition has received more than 333,000 signatures on Change.org.<\/p>\nDan Boissoneault, business and community development representative for PNP Games, said the petition has grown bigger than they anticipated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat number is big enough to make waves within the industry, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re hoping,\u201d he said. \u201cIf not only Sony recognizes that they may have made a misstep and they need to course correct, that the rest of the industry sees that physical media should not go away. It shouldn\u2019t be an all-digital future for this type of media.\u201d<\/p>\n
On July 1, Sony announced it will be ceasing production of physical game discs for its PlayStation consoles starting in January 2028, with all games going forward being released in digital formats only.<\/p>\n
In a statement announcing the change, Sony said the decision was due to changing consumer preferences.<\/p>\n
\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 the company said. \u201cThis transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.\u201d<\/p>\n
While not opposed to digital games, Boissoneault said not having physical copies hurts the ability for people to share games with others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 30 years, if I want to share a game with, say, a grandchild or something like that, I may not have the ability to do that at all, purely because of a company decision,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I don\u2019t specifically own that item, it\u2019s licensed and it doesn\u2019t belong to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said they want people to have the choice between physical or digital copies, rather than one single choice.<\/p>\n
Boissoneault noted in 2013, Microsoft attempted a similar change, restricting the trade of pre-owned games for their Xbox One console, but reversed its decision due to consumer backlash. That same year, Sony said PlayStation titles would not be subject to the same thing.<\/p>\n
Boissoneault claims Sony released the news on Canada Day and close to the Fourth of July long weekend in the United States, hoping it would be ignored. Instead, he said the opposite happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t see a current end to the petition; it\u2019s just going to keep rolling on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A petition calling on Sony to reserve its decisions to stop making physical copies of games in 2028…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[712,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-815218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}