Playstation is is carried out with disksand this is a cheat for game preservation and game ownership. Well-deserved outrage notwithstanding, we can’t hold these scratch-prone optical frisbees as our saving grace. Discs are a dying medium and it’s time to think beyond them for the future of gaming.
Sony Interactive Entertainment told the players on Wednesday Starting in January 2028, they will not be able to purchase any new physical copies of new games. The fans were very moved by the news and I stand with them. I regularly enjoy the glow of my collection of physical games with sleeves in colorful, plastic packages that adorn my shelves. Some of the games in my collection are not available in any format other than their original discs. A 2023 report from the Video Game Historical Foundation found that nine of the past 10 games commercially unavailable, in large part because companies like Sony have not made them available digitally.
Game preservation was based on discs, but the physical environment is terrible for keeping game history alive. Compared to other storage options, game drives are hard and easily damaged. Blu-ray media degrades over time, meaning that games you like today may eventually become unplayable. In an ideal world, digital media would remain accessible as long as you keep moving it between drives.
Aside from today’s group of collectors and physical media enthusiasts, game drives are already obsolete in this era of fast SSD storage and more portable, high-capacity NAND flash storage. A sense of ownership is why a minority of dedicated players stick with discs.
The reality is that any digital content you buy on the PlayStation Store – be it a game or a movie – is a license to play or watch it on Sony’s consoles only. Sony’s terms of service can do that cancel their licenses at any time for any reason, so there is always the fear that you may lose access to the games you have purchased.
However, in this day and age, discs are not the best solution to this ongoing problem.
“PS4 SUPPORTS USED GAMES” ***huuuuge applause*** ““PS4 will not impose any new restrictions on your use of PS4 game discs.”
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 11, 2013
Sony is raking over the coals for its decade promises to support the games usedbut belies broader industry trends. Analyst firm Ampere reports that back in 2013, at the time of the PS4’s launch, only 13% of game purchases were digital. Fast forward to today: Sony claimed in its latest annual report that 78% of all sales through March 31 were digital sales. Ampere showed a similar figure based on its own data. The reason for this change goes beyond convenience. Gamers realized that discs were of little use, especially when many titles were not fully stored on disc.
sites like DoesItPlay offers an extensive list of games that are included in the full disc and require users to download some additional data. The majority of PS5 game discs (about 82%), according to community-driven reviews, don’t necessarily require additional downloads to play (although this may not account for additional in-game content or annoying bugs fixed by day-one updates).
Here’s the problem: many of today’s mainstream AAA titles don’t include all the data on disc and still require a download to be readable. For example, a game published by Sony Yōtei’s dream does not require downloading, however Gran Turismo 7 does. Other titles, e.g Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, it’s buggy as hell without an initial update that doesn’t exist directly on the physical disc.
Blu-rays aren’t the best medium for carrying today’s massive games. A standard Blu-ray the drive can only store 25 GB worth of data. A dual-layer drive can hold 50GB, while a triple-layer drive, the highest capacity the PS5 supports, is 100GB. many new titles like Forza Horizon 6, It will eat more than 130 GB of memory. Games it doesn’t have to be that bigEven with file compression and optimization, games on disc cost more to produce. It’s a hard truth to accept, but game sizes exceed the disk space on which they can be stored. Well, split the game into multiple Blu-ray discs, right? Depending on how games load certain background assets, this may not be possible. Multiple discs will also increase the cost of a physical copy.
And that’s not the only downside to the cost. The total cost to play game discs is more expensive on PlayStation. A disc drive for a 2023 PlayStation 5 slim or 2024 is $80 PS5 Pro. That means the top-of-the-line PlayStation now costs $980 just to play game discs later recent price increases.
According to Nintendo’s latest financial report, they are not in a position to go digital just yet.
Physical sales are still a large share. pic.twitter.com/IdYRWnB74L
— Stealth (@Stealth40k) July 2, 2026
There are exceptions, of course. According to data obtained from Nintendo’s financial earnings report, fans are still buying physical games in the form of game cards – a type of NAND flash memory. Playing cards are more portable and less prone to damage than discs. And yet, A push for Nintendo’s game key cards about Transition 2 and high price on physical Switch 2 games causes high cost of memory will inevitably force more players to the digital side.
Xbox may already have the solution to bring our gaming discs into a fully digital ecosystem. The Verge reports that Xbox may allow players to transfer their physical media to Microsoft accounts using the current generation console. If you sell the disc, you’ll lose the digital title, including access to Game Pass or the ability to play on PC via Xbox Play Anywhere.
We can do better than that. Instead of trying to preserve a dying environment, we should focus on forcing companies like Sony to make their digital ecosystems more consumer-friendly. GOG on PC allowing players to download their games and run them without a restrictive showcase. “Even if a game disappears from the GOG storefront, it never leaves your library. As digital ownership should be” GOG Posted in Xfollowing Sony’s news to discontinue physical PlayStation discs. While we may never reach this ideal on console, companies like Sony need to do more to make gamers happy. After all, the most noisy of them are those that appear during the presentation of the new console.
Even if a game disappears from the GOG storefront, it never leaves your library.
Just the way a digital property should be.
— GOG.COM (@GOGcom) July 1, 2026
Game ownership does not need to include a disc or game card. It can be something as simple as a badge on a box, as long as users have actual ownership rights to the software. We need more options to buy games outside of the PlayStation Store. Only this year, Sony settled a class action antitrust lawsuit argued that restrictions on in-game vouchers forced consumers to buy games only through PlayStation. Sony faces similar class actions In the Netherlands and Great Britainas well as smaller courts in Australia and Portugal, according to Game Business’ Chris Dring.
These lawsuits alone are unlikely to weaken Sony’s grip on the console ecosystem. On going uproar even though the physical game collection on my shelf is the last of its dying breed, it’s an opportunity to force real change in the way console manufacturers think about ownership.
