Like all technology, video games have evolved over the years and for the most part, those advancements have been welcomed. But Sony’s recent announcement that it will cease producing physical video games has rattled fans, particularly those who rely on selling and buying used games. The move could be a major setback for the global second-hand gaming market, estimated at nearly $7 billion.
Why is Sony ending physical discs?
The quintessential game disc is “going away, at least on PlayStation,” Kotaku said. Sony, the company behind the iconic console, is set to end production of physical discs for all first-party and third-party PlayStation games in January 2028. Games released before 2028 will “continue to have physical versions, but everything that comes after will be digital-only.”
The majority of all new games are sold digitally, but “many fans still prefer to own their games on discs,” said Kotaku. The end of discs doesn’t “necessarily preclude Sony and other companies from still selling game boxes in brick-and-mortar stores.” They would just have to “download codes inside, similar to this fall’s Grand Theft Auto 6.” But it’s unclear if the PS6 will “even have a disc drive, either built into the console or as an optional external attachment.” Sony has not confirmed the console’s features yet; many “have assumed it would be backwards compatible with the current generation of games,” including the physical disc versions.
Sony was “clear as to why it’s making the change,” said The Verge. Sundowning physical media is a “natural direction” for the company to “adapt to consumer trends,” as the “general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Sony said in its announcement. The transition will enable Sony to “align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
The company’s financials “prove it, too,” said The Verge. In the fourth quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, the “full game software digital download ratio” of games on PS4 and PS5 was 85%, Sony said.
How will second-hand gaming be affected?
One of the biggest losers due to Sony’s controversial decision to abandon physical discs is the second-hand game market. The market for used games will “keep shrinking and eventually disappear,” Kazunori Ito, the director of equity research at Morningstar, said to CNBC.
If this is the future of gaming, then “brick-and-mortar game retail is doomed,” even though, historically, at least one-third of games have been sold as used, Michael Pachter, the managing director of strategic planning at Wedbush Securities, said to CNBC. This is an “extremely anti-consumer decision” that has no “legitimate justification and communicates a disdain for players,” Michael Futter, the cofounder of video game industry consultancy F-Squared, told the outlet.
Even comedian Trevor Noah weighed in on PlayStation’s news. For a lot of gamers, physical discs are the “only way they could afford to play games because they could get them secondhand,” he said on X. You could also “give games to your younger siblings, which is a great way to introduce them to the games you were playing.”
Games preservation group DoesItPlay is planning an “economic and gameplay blackout” for the week of Aug. 23. The “PSBlackout” calls for players to keep their PlayStations powered off the whole week. “No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony’s platforms,” said the announcement on X. However, the “efficacy of these player-organized boycotts” is “dubious at best,” said PC Mag.
In the past, companies have undone controversial choices after experiencing heavy backlash, but analysts believe it “remains unlikely that Sony will U-turn on this,” said IGN. “I sympathize with physical media fans,” but Sony “will not reverse this decision,” Serkan Toto, the CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, said to the outlet. They knew what the “online reaction would look like,” and now they “wait for this storm to pass.”
Sony has over “120 million active PlayStation users,” Toto added. Even if “500,000 cancel in protest,” that would be just “1% of that business gone,” which is “of course not enough for Sony to start rethinking.” Digital is “just too lucrative.”