User:~2026-907

2026-07-07T23:39:08Z

~2026-907: Identified myself on this temp account.

My username is TreezZ. If you need to contact me, you can reach me on email: treezz@the-wired.org

Sony discontinues physical media for PlayStation-brand hardwares

2026-07-07T23:08:46Z

~2026-907: Added section clearing up some misconceptions regarding physical games, as well as describing the real state of physical games.

{{IncidentCargo
|Company=Sony
|StartDate=2026-07-01
|Status=Active
|ProductLine=PlayStation
|Product=PlayStation 5,PlayStation 6
|ArticleType=Product
|Type=Discontinuation,Loss of Ownership,Digital Media
|Description=On July 1, 2026, Sony announced it will end physical disc production for new PlayStation games starting January 2028, making new releases digital-only.
}}

On July 1, 2026, [[Sony]] Interactive Entertainment announced that it will stop producing physical game discs for all new [[PlayStation]] titles starting January 2028, after which new releases will be sold only as digital downloads on the PlayStation Store or as digital codes at retailers.<ref name="blog">{{Cite web |url=https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/ |title=Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles |last=Shuman |first=Sid |date=2026-07-01 |website=PlayStation.Blog |publisher=Sony Interactive Entertainment |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260701120635/https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/ |archive-date=2026-07-01}}</ref> Games that already released, or that release on disc before January 2028, are not affected.<ref name="blog" /> Because a digital-only title has no disc to trade in or resell, the change ends the secondhand market that physical games support for every new PlayStation release after the cutoff.<ref name="guardian">{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/01/sony-playstation-digital-downloads |title=Sony will kill PlayStation games on discs in 2028 and offer digital downloads only |date=2026-07-01 |website=The Guardian |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260701192440/https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/01/sony-playstation-digital-downloads |archive-date=2026-07-01}}</ref> Sony framed the decision as following consumer preference toward digital; United States spending on new physical games had fallen to $1.5 billion in 2025, its lowest level since 1995.<ref name="cbs">{{Cite web |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sony-playstation-physical-discs-digital-2028/ |title=Sony to stop making physical discs for PlayStation starting in 2028 |last=Cunningham |first=Mary |date=2026-07-01 |website=CBS News |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260701150750/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sony-playstation-physical-discs-digital-2028/ |archive-date=2026-07-01}}</ref> The decision reverses the position Sony took in 2013, when it marketed the PlayStation 4 on used-game and disc-sharing freedom and published the "Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video" contrasting the PS4 with the Xbox One's used-game restrictions.<ref name="ad2013">{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA |title=Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video |date=2013-06-10 |website=YouTube |publisher=PlayStation (Sony Interactive Entertainment) |access-date=2026-07-02}}</ref><ref name="vice2026">{{Cite web |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/one-of-playstations-most-iconic-ads-has-backfired-after-13-years/ |title=One of PlayStation's Most Iconic Ads Has Backfired After 13 Years |date=2026-07-02 |website=Vice |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702161322/https://www.vice.com/en/article/one-of-playstations-most-iconic-ads-has-backfired-after-13-years/ |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

==The 2013 used game instructional video==
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 2013, Microsoft launched the Xbox One with a requirement that the console connect to the internet at least once every 24 hours, along with account-tied limits on trading, lending, and reselling games.<ref name="xbox-drm">{{Cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/xbox-one-needs-to-connect-to-the-internet-every-24-hour-511751949 |title=Xbox One Needs To Connect To The Internet Every 24 Hours |date=2013-06-06 |website=Kotaku |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260630151241/https://kotaku.com/xbox-one-needs-to-connect-to-the-internet-every-24-hour-511751949 |archive-date=2026-06-30}}</ref> Sony positioned the PlayStation 4 as the opposite. At Sony's E3 press conference on June 10, 2013, Sony's Jack Tretton told the audience the PS4 would not block used games and would not require an internet connection to play.<ref name="tretton">{{Cite web |url=https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/06/e3_2013_ps4_will_let_you_play_used_games_will_not_require_an_internet_connection |title=E3 2013: PS4 Will Let You Play Used Games, Will Not Require an Internet Connection |date=2013-06-10 |website=Push Square |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251113045624/https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/06/e3_2013_ps4_will_let_you_play_used_games_will_not_require_an_internet_connection |archive-date=2025-11-13}}</ref>

The same day, Sony published a short video titled ''Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video'' on its official PlayStation YouTube channel.<ref name="ad2013" /> The clip runs about 22 seconds: Shuhei Yoshida, then president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, and Adam Boyes, then vice president of third-party relations and developer technology, demonstrate how to share a game on the PS4, with one man handing the other a physical game case over the on-screen line ''"This is how you share your games on PS4."''<ref name="ad2013" /><ref name="eurogamer-video2026">{{Cite web |url=https://www.eurogamer.net/playstation-old-anti-drm-video-ps4-physical |title="RIP PLAYSTATION 1994-2026" - Players are flocking to Sony's old PS4 anti-DRM video in the wake of its shock decision to scrap physical games |date=2026-07-02 |website=Eurogamer |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702104743/https://www.eurogamer.net/playstation-old-anti-drm-video-ps4-physical |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

[[File:PlayStation-2013-used-game-instructional-video.png|thumb|center|upright=2.4|Sony's 2013 Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video, on the official PlayStation channel, shows Shuhei Yoshida handing a physical game case to Adam Boyes above the line about sharing games on PS4.<ref name="ad2013" />]]

Nine days later, on June 19, 2013, Microsoft dropped the Xbox One's 24-hour check-in and its used-game restrictions.<ref name="xbox-reversal">{{Cite web |url=https://newatlas.com/microsoft-reverses-xbox-one-drm-always-online/27987/ |title=Microsoft reverses Xbox One DRM and always-online policies |date=2013-06-19 |website=New Atlas |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250214223931/https://newatlas.com/microsoft-reverses-xbox-one-drm-always-online/27987/ |archive-date=2025-02-14}}</ref> GamesRadar, writing after the 2026 disc announcement, noted that Sony had used the same pro-physical, game-sharing messaging to promote the PS4 against the Xbox One that the 2026 decision now walks back.<ref name="gamesradar2026">{{Cite web |url=https://www.gamesradar.com/games/just-one-generation-ago-playstation-couldnt-shut-up-about-how-great-physical-games-are-keep-it-forever/ |title=Just one generation ago, PlayStation couldn't shut up about how great physical games are |date=2026-07-01 |website=GamesRadar+ |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702212531/https://www.gamesradar.com/games/just-one-generation-ago-playstation-couldnt-shut-up-about-how-great-physical-games-are-keep-it-forever/ |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

==Background==
Sony had moved its hardware away from physical media for several years before the 2026 announcement. The PlayStation 5 range had included a Digital Edition, a version sold without a disc drive, since its 2020 launch.<ref name="guardian" /> In late 2023, Sony revised the PS5 so that the disc drive became a detachable accessory rather than a built-in component, and the add-on drive had to be connected to the internet to pair with the console during setup.<ref name="vgc">{{Cite web |url=https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/setup-images-confirm-new-ps5s-disc-drive-requires-online-pairing-before-use/ |title=Setup images confirm new PS5's disc drive requires online pairing before use |last=Robinson |first=Andy |date=2023-11-01 |website=Video Games Chronicle |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260309120104/https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/setup-images-confirm-new-ps5s-disc-drive-requires-online-pairing-before-use/ |archive-date=2026-03-09}}</ref> Reporting on the detachable drive noted that players and preservationists worried the drive could stop working if Sony's pairing servers were ever taken offline.<ref name="vgc" />

The shift tracked a broader collapse in physical sales. According to Circana, United States consumer spending on new physical video games fell to $1.5 billion in 2025, the lowest figure since the firm began tracking the metric in 1995, down from a peak of $11.6 billion in 2008.<ref name="cbs" /> The Guardian reported that digital sales had reached nearly 80 percent of the market by 2025, citing Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis.<ref name="guardian" />

==Announcement==
Sony published the decision on July 1, 2026 in a PlayStation.Blog post by Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, and linked to it from the official @PlayStation account on X.<ref name="blog" /><ref name="xpost">{{Cite web |url=https://x.com/PlayStation/status/2072289330287222812 |title=@PlayStation post announcing the end of physical disc production for new games |date=2026-07-01 |website=X |publisher=Sony Interactive Entertainment (@PlayStation) |access-date=2026-07-01}}</ref> The post stated:

<blockquote>''"[P]hysical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format."''<ref name="blog" /></blockquote>

[[File:PlayStation-blog-physical-disc-2028-announcement.png|thumb|center|upright=2.4|The July 1, 2026 PlayStation.Blog post states that ''"physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028."''<ref name="blog" />]]

The announcement covers the manufacturing of new game discs only, not the disc drives already sold or the older physical games consumers own.<ref name="blog" /> The blog post did not say Sony would remove disc drives from existing PlayStation 5 hardware. The Guardian reported that analyst Daniel Ahmad said the move all but confirmed the next console, the PlayStation 6, would be digital-only.<ref name="guardian" />

==Consumer and industry response==
The announcement drew complaints from players online.<ref name="guardian" /> The change also affects retailers and rival storefronts. Reporting on the announcement noted that a digital-only catalog leaves no discs to trade in and eliminates the used-game business that specialist retailers rely on.<ref name="guardian" /> GOG, a PC storefront that sells games without digital rights management, restated after the announcement that a downloaded game it sells cannot be revoked or removed from a buyer's library, and the physical-media publisher Lost in Cult said it was ''"deeply saddened"'' by the end of PlayStation discs.<ref name="ign">{{Cite web |url=https://sea.ign.com/playstation-5-3/245019/news/we-are-deeply-saddened-games-retailers-and-historians-respond-to-playstation-abandoning-physical-media |title='We Are Deeply Saddened': Games Retailers and Historians Respond to PlayStation Abandoning Physical Media |date=2026-07-01 |website=IGN |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702075410/https://www.ign.com/articles/we-are-deeply-saddened-games-retailers-and-historians-respond-to-playstation-abandoning-physical-media |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

After the announcement, Sony's 2013 used-game video resurfaced and recirculated widely.<ref name="eurogamer-video2026" /> Vice wrote that Sony had become the first major console maker to fully embrace the trend it once mocked.<ref name="vice2026" /> Eurogamer reported that the top comments on the resurfaced video had turned against Sony, including the line ''"You've become the villain you mocked."''<ref name="eurogamer-video2026" />

==Preservation concerns==
The Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit that works on software preservation, criticized the shift toward digital-only distribution.<ref name="ign" /> The foundation has found that 87 percent of classic video games released before 2010 are critically endangered.<ref name="vghf">{{Cite web |url=https://gamehistory.org/87percent/ |title=87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games |date=2023-07-10 |website=Video Game History Foundation |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702035504/https://gamehistory.org/87percent/ |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref> In October 2024 the United States Copyright Office declined to grant an exemption to the anti-circumvention rules of [[DMCA Section 1201]] that would have let libraries and archives offer remote access to out-of-print games; the Entertainment Software Association had opposed the exemption.<ref name="dmca2024">{{Cite web |url=https://gamehistory.org/dmca-2024-statement/ |title=Statement on the DMCA 2024 triennial review ruling |date=2024-10-25 |website=Video Game History Foundation |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260625202655/https://gamehistory.org/dmca-2024-statement/ |archive-date=2026-06-25}}</ref> Foundation director Frank Cifaldi agreed with the assessment that, absent a legal alternative, piracy is ''"the only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now."''<ref name="pcgamer">{{Cite web |url=https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/they-refuse-to-offer-a-meaningful-alternative-game-preservation-leader-agrees-that-piracy-is-the-only-preservation-option-for-a-discless-future/ |title='They refuse to offer a meaningful alternative': Game preservation leader agrees that piracy is the only preservation option for a discless future |last=Park |first=Morgan |date=2026-07-01 |website=PC Gamer |access-date=2026-07-01 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702080724/https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/they-refuse-to-offer-a-meaningful-alternative-game-preservation-leader-agrees-that-piracy-is-the-only-preservation-option-for-a-discless-future/ |archive-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

[[File:VGHF-87-percent-classic-games-endangered.png|thumb|center|upright=2.4|The Video Game History Foundation's study page reports that 87 percent of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered.<ref name="vghf" />]]

==Ownership and regulatory context==
[[File:The Crew PS4 retail disc.png|thumb|right|upright=0.85|A retail PlayStation 4 disc of ''The Crew''; the game stopped working when Ubisoft shut down its servers in 2024, so the disc no longer plays.<ref name="crew">{{Cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-killing-games-the-crew-lawsuit-shutdown-offline-1851695302 |title=Ubisoft Facing Lawsuit Over Shutting Down Always-Online Game |last=Zwiezen |first=Zack |date=2024-11-19 |website=Kotaku |access-date=2026-07-02 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250902181021/https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-killing-games-the-crew-lawsuit-shutdown-offline-1851695302 |archive-date=2025-09-02}}</ref>]]

For games available on disc, players have more freedoms with transferring ownership between friends, family, and reselling their copy on third party stores such as [[eBay]] or [[GameStop]]. In addition, without the option to buy a physical copy of a game, pricing on digital stores such as the PlayStation Store becomes the only place to legally acquire games on the console.

Contrarily to a fair amount of misconceptions and misinformation that roams around the internet, the vast majority of current day physical releases are fully playable off the contents of the disc, offline, and with no server connections or downloads required: the number sits at around 80% of PS5 games<ref>{{Cite web |title=DoesItPlay? |url=https://www.doesitplay.org/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260702145231/https://www.doesitplay.org/ |archive-date=2026-07-02 |access-date=2026-07-07 |website=DoesItPlay?}}</ref> with a physical release, where 65% are fully playable as expected, and 15% have minor bugs or minor content missing, but are otherwise fully playable. In addition, when it comes to PS4/PS5 games, there are no console-level restrictions placed on disc games: all PS4 models and original model PS5's can be acquired and can play disc games throughout their entire lifetimes, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBVhsLglz9s without ever being forced to make a connection to the internet and/or Sony's servers].

This means that physical copies of video games retain an important role in preservation, media ownership, and long term accessibility. Physical media, alongside DRM-free digital media, remains a consumer-respecting choice for acquiring games that are developed with a sustainable, nonrestrictive, and non-predatory goal in mind.

Unfortunately, the advantages of physical media aren't of much use when this isn't the case: online-only games are developed with a mandatory, constant online connection to the publisher's servers as a form of [[Digital rights management|digital rights management]]. This type of restriction is executed at a publisher level, and as such, games can be arbitrarily rendered inoperable: the publisher revokes the game through the server connection it requires, no matter the format the game ships on, and as a result, the game is no longer playable in any capacity.

Ubisoft's 2014 racing game [[The Crew|''The Crew'']] shipped on disc for PC and consoles, but it required a constant connection to Ubisoft's servers; when Ubisoft shut those servers down in 2024, buyers could no longer play it even from the disc they owned.<ref name="crew" /> The shutdown drove the [[Stop Killing Games]] campaign, which formed over ''The Crew'' and presses publishers to leave games people have bought in a playable state after support ends.<ref name="skg">{{Cite web |url=https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ |title=Stop Killing Games |website=Stop Killing Games |access-date=2026-07-02}}</ref>

California's Assembly Bill 2426, signed September 24, 2024, restricts sellers of digital goods from advertising a transaction with the words ''"buy"'' or ''"purchase"'' when it grants only a license.<ref name="ab2426">{{Cite web |url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426 |title=AB-2426 Consumer protection: false advertising: digital goods |date=2024-09-24 |website=California Legislative Information |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240529010825if_/https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426 |archive-date=2024-05-29}}</ref> The bill describes such a license as one whose access the seller may unilaterally revoke.<ref name="ab2426" />

[[File:California-AB-2426-digital-goods-bill-text.png|thumb|center|upright=2.8|California Assembly Bill 2426 bars a seller from advertising a digital good with the terms ''"buy"'' or ''"purchase"'' when the transaction confers only a license.<ref name="ab2426" />]]

==See also==
*[[Dead game list]]
*[[PlayStation]]
*[[Sony]]
*[[DMCA Section 1201]]
*[[Video game preservation]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sony]]
[[Category:PlayStation]]
[[Category:2026 incidents]]
[[Category:Digital rights management]]

Consumer Rights Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:~2026-907

Sony discontinues physical media for PlayStation-brand hardwares