Sony’s No More Discs Debacle Was Inevitable, But The Worst Is Yet To Come

Well, it finally happened. Sony has announced that PlayStation disc production will come to an end by 2028, which subsequently creates the implication that the future PS6 console will be digital-only. 

Naturally, a lot of folks are upset by this, and I'm certainly among them. But I can't really say I'm surprised. I'm a PlayStation girl through and through, but years after buying the console at launch, I still only own a few physical PlayStation 5 discs. The vast majority of my PS5 collection is digital, largely because I'm too impatient to wait for a copy to arrive in the mail, or trek out to GameStop to buy one. And I'm clearly not the only one in this boat--Sony stated that the transition to digital-only games is a result of changing market trends. Essentially, Sony sells way more digital copies than physical ones, and third-party publishers also benefit more from digital game sales than physical ones.

While I completely understand the outcry--especially given the increasing support for media preservation as more and more games become inaccessible for modern players--I do fear we're focusing on the wrong thing here. Physical media is not indestructible. Cassette and VHS tapes fall apart, discs get damaged or develop disc rot, your little brother shoves peanut butter in your game cartridge--shit happens. Shit happening is why I prefer a digital game collection over a physical one. If something goes wrong, I can re-download the game from the PlayStation Store. But now, the question becomes, "How long will the PlayStation Store be available on my console?"

Sony quietly slipped in another announcement alongside the news that it's going all-in on digital game libraries: By this time next year, the PlayStation Store will no longer be available for the PS Vita or the PS3. That means any Vita- or PS3-exclusive game that isn't downloaded to the device by July 2027 will be gone from the virtual storefront for good. If you can somehow find the physical discs of these games later on, you will still be able to play them on a Vita or PS3, but unless Sony works to make those discs playable on current-gen consoles or ports the digital copies of these games to the current PlayStation virtual storefront, it will be very hard to find a way to play them. The problem isn't digital games themselves, it's the fact that the move to digital-only forces players to rely solely on Sony's goodwill when it comes to making sure the games they've paid for are still actually playable.

We've already seen this happen with Nintendo. In March 2023, Nintendo killed off Miiverse and ended Nintendo eShop support for the 3DS and the Wii U. If, say, you're a Zelda fan looking to replay all the games before the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time comes out, you're a bit screwed when it comes to getting your hands on Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD. Both games are only available for the Wii U (yep, still no Switch port for the third best-selling Zelda title ever released), and with the eShop inaccessible, your only choice is to try to find a physical copy of the game on eBay, where physical copies of Twilight Princess HD are going for over $100.

If Nintendo (which still very much makes physical games) refuses to keep some of its most iconic titles playable, what hope do PlayStation users have? Furthermore, what is this going to do to the PlayStation 6? I'm assuming backward compatibility is off the table, since this thing presumably won't have a disc drive, so your physical PS5 games will remain playable only on PS5. 

Speaking of the PS5, the disc-drive-less version of the console is cheaper than the standard version, but somehow, I don't get the feeling that players will be rejoicing in the streets when Sony finally announces the price of the PS6--though I'm sure Sony will have some excuse why this presumably disc-driveless console needs to cost an exorbitant amount of money. I'm also curious about how much storage it will have. As it stands, I frequently have to remove games from my PS5 to make room for new titles; I'm interested to see if the PS6 will come with the extra storage space needed to support an all-digital game library, or if Sony will simply encourage users to purchase an additional hard drive to store all their games on. With the cost of SSDs shooting skyward as a result of AI use, there's a very high likelihood that the price of Sony's next console will be downright eye-watering if it does include enough storage for an exclusively digital game collection. 

But at the end of the day, the big question isn't how much Sony's next console will cost, how much storage it will have, or how often game licenses will need to be checked. The real question is how long Sony plans to keep the PlayStation Store online--for both the PS5 and PS6--and what plans (if any) it has to ensure games that players have purchased remain accessible.

The even bigger question: How long are lawmakers going to wait around while gaming giants restrict consumer access to items they have rightfully purchased? With Sony's move to all-digital, the company has effectively assumed complete control over every title's pricing. No more Black Friday deals on Amazon, and gone is the ability to pick up a game pre-owned. Surely the corporate control has to stop somewhere, right?

In all the uncertainty, one thing is painfully clear: The amusing contents of Sony's iconic Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video no longer apply.