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Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

blog.playstation.com

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Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#451

Post by self_awareness »

Well, if people would prefer physical discs over digital distribution and would insist of having a proof of ownership, I guess Sony wouldn't have a choice but to prefer physical distribution.

But since customers don't care, who else should care?

I always prefered physical disks. That was my #1 pro-console argument. Without those disks, I simply won't buy anything console related. I vote with my wallet, simple as that.

Of course I know that people will still buy digital disks and then cry when Sony will do something unthinkable like revoking access, but I guess that won't be my problem.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#452

Post by dogwalker5000 »

Marcan wrote: post #447
fcsp wrote: post #435

Great buildup on Sony's side to gain trust in this move in the gaming community ahead of this announcement when just this week they again pulled hundreds of "purchased" movies from customer's libraries without refund, reminding everyone that digital content is rented, not owned. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/sony-erases-digital-...

And don't forget closing the PS3 and Vita Playstation stores, which they announced at the same time: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta... This is a weird marketing strategy. They must feel free to do as they please since they know consumers are trapped.

> they know consumers are trapped.

Gaming is a luxury good. We can all just walk away.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#453

Post by soulofmischief »

This sucks, especially given the recent content rug pulls by Sony, but as someone who has never owned a current-generation console outside of the PS2/Wii, I'm out of the loop:

What percentage of game discs sold today are even playable without first connecting to the internet and downloading additional content? Not in defense of Sony, I just think this battle may have already been lost and not enough people noticed.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#454

Post by runarberg »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #413
runarberg wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know the stats but I would guess more people have DVD players then Blu-Ray, so it makes sense for libraries to rather offer DVDs. DVDs is also one of these things that is good enough. The jump in quality between DVD and Blu-Ray is very unnoticeable (when fully immersed) compared to e.g. between VHS and DVD (or even between vinyl and CD).

The jump in quality from DVD to Blu-ray is huge , as much as it was from VHS to DVD. Going to 4k from there isn't noticeable, but going to HD in the first place is massive.

VHS was bad quality, DVD had good enough. The jump from bad to good enough has a much better impact then from good enough to amazing. While most people will make the switch to go from bad to good enough, not many will make the effort to switch from good enough to amazing, unless they are pushed in that direction.

The jump between vinyl and CD was also massive, but vinyl was still good enough. what CDs had though over the massive sound quality improvements was the added convenience of playing specific songs, not needing to turn it over, or play on the move in your car/walkman/etc, and added features such as easy skipping, shuffle, ripping, etc.

I would wager that it were those extra features + added convenience (and the cheaper price) which got people to switch to CDs over the massive improvements of sound quality. Blu-Ray had exactly the same features as DVDs (until publishers artificially decided to skip adding extra content on their DVD releases), were exactly as convenient to playing DVDs, but were more expensive. So I think for most people it simply wasn’t worth their time to upgrade from if all they got was to bump their picture quality from good enough to amazing.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#455

Post by BillFranklin »

mrandish wrote: post #298

Between DRM, DLC, mandatory connectivity and the end of physical media, the future will look back on this era as the 'dark age' of digital gaming history. Maintaining activation servers, cloud storage and digital delivery costs money. If it doesn't disappear when the title reaches EOL, it certainly does when the company is gone or shifts business models. And draconian copyright laws create legal jeopardy around orpha…

I reckon Sony get a few more years of even more profitable rent seeking before the EU regulates them like Apple’s App Store and forces a game purchase to be valid on all platforms it’s playable on.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#456

Post by NegativeLatency »

dogwalker5000 wrote: post #452
Marcan wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget closing the PS3 and Vita Playstation stores, which they announced at the same time: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playsta... This is a weird marketing strategy. They must feel free to do as they please since they know consumers are trapped.

> they know consumers are trapped. Gaming is a luxury good. We can all just walk away.

Plenty of PC games, the linux distros that run steam are great too!

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#457

Post by kuerbel »

gambiting wrote: post #418
canthonytucci wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is there a lower form of “art” than always online AAA garbage? Im not going to lose any sleep over _COD 75: More of the Same Bullshit_ becoming lost media

I cannot explain how offensive this is to work of people who work on these games. Years and years of my life working on some incredible AAA games and you call it garbage because it's always online. Like, you think all the effort, all the actual art, music, writing, lore, world building....all of it garbage, because the game is online only? Do you think WoW is garbage and "art" in quotes? I mean, it's the internet, yo…

I don't know what you worked on but I'm sure it brought joy to a lot of people.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#458

Post by IshKebab »

phire wrote: post #23

With this news, I have to wonder how much longer bluray will live. Will we continue seeing new bluray releases of movies and TV shows for decades, or are their days numbered? The loss of console gaming presumably removes a guaranteed revenue source that was keeping Bluray pressing plants alive. Sales of DVDs and Bluray have been declining for years [1] [3] . Some people have been excited pushing the news that UHD blu…

Yeah I wouldn't give it more than 20 years. Obviously they won't suddenly stop; it will just be rarer and rarer for things to be released on bluray until it's only super popular stuff and collectors editions and things like that.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#459

Post by elAhmo »

vinyl7 wrote: post #394
alightsoul wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they weren't happy about people reselling their games for 5 dollars each, when they could charge 75 dollars to each of those people instead

Jokes on them if they think a significant portion of those sales will convert

Of course they will convert. Not all, but even a single person buying the game at full price is better than dozens of reselling transactions where Sony makes no money and is actually losing money as those people are not buying new games.

Not a fan of this of course, just saying it’s a calculated move they just copied from other industries. People complain and minority ends up following their principles, but similarly as with streaming, nearly everyone just has Spotify and that’s it.

Re: Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation

#460

Post by garciansmith »

0x457 wrote: post #237
garciansmith wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is control. You control the physical media. You can sell it, you can buy used games, let people borrow them, etc. This affects less people, but there are also many who like collecting them. Physical objects are nice, especially if you've been keeping all your old games for old consoles. Which also ties into control of course: you can still play your games, even if the companies that made them and the conso…

> One reason is control. You control the physical media. You can sell it, you can buy used games, etc. Unless that game ties to your account and disc becomes useless, or you game need a day 1 patch or day 412 patch or game is online or disc actually just a dummy that lets you download the game. Yes, the (in)convince of physical media totally worth it just so can sell what I got for $40/60/70 for $4 store credit at ga…

Games that require an online account, whether physical or not, are all bad, yes.

But a lot of games are playable just fine without any patches, and there are plenty of physical releases, especially of indie games, which come out after the digital release and include all the patches. And putting aside the nice aspect of owning a physical object (often with cool things like a manual or map in the past and still true with many indie releases now) you still have no control over digital downloads unless it's DRM free, and even then you need to keep back up copies because the service you downloaded it from might disappear.

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