An independent retailer has launched a petition calling on Sony to reverse its decision to ditch discs on PlayStation consoles, garnering over 115,000 signatures so far.
PNP Games, a Canadian independent video game retailer, launched the change.org petition asking fans to join it in telling Sony to keep physical PlayStation games. At the time of this article’s publication, the petition had 115,471 signatures.
Sony sparked a significant backlash last week for its decision to do away with video game discs on PlayStation consoles from 2028. That doesn’t just affect PS4 and PS5 games; most analysts agree that the PS6 will launch without a disc drive, too. Sony’s heavily criticized announcement hit the mainstream with the likes of KFC, Domino’s and even celebrity comedians dunking on it. An IGN poll asking, ‘Do You Support an All-Digital Gaming Future?’ suggests the vast majority of gamers are not in support of Sony’s call here.
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Meanwhile, Sony has come under fire from some developers, publishers, and retailers, the latter of whom stand to lose out when new PlayStation games start coming out with just a download code in a box. Jade Pearce, of PNP Games, pointed to ownership and preservation issues, and said Sony’s decision will cost jobs.
“Physical games support an entire industry that an all-digital future quietly erases: retailers, distributors, manufacturers, warehousing and logistics, the pre-owned and trade-in market, and the collector and preservation community,” Pearce said.
“That is thousands of jobs and countless small businesses. Ending physical media removes consumer choice, weakens local economies, and hands a few platform holders total control over how, and whether, you can access the games you buy.
“We are not against digital. We are against digital being the only option. A large and passionate community still wants a real, physical game they own outright, and Sony is about to take that choice away.”
The comments on the petition are along the lines you’d expect: very much against Sony’s anti-disc push. “I’ve been a gamer on the PlayStation platform since the PS1 days, and many of my favorite games have been on PlayStation systems, whether as exclusives or simply a preferred platform,” said Stephen from Sun City Center, Florida. “However, I’m a physical media gamer, and I refuse to support any gaming company that tells me I don’t have the option to own physical media. I hope Sony will reverse this decision, but if not, then they will cease to get business from me after January 2028.”
Sid Shuman, Senior Director, Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, said in a post on PlayStation Blog that the decision was “in response to shifting trends in consumer preference.”
“This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Shuman continued. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry analyst at Ampere, has said the data backs this up, and that a lot has changed over the course of the last two generations. “Console gaming is the last hold-out for physical media in the gaming sector, but physical product has been declining in importance,” he said in a post on the Ampere website. “Back in 2013 when the PS4 launched, Ampere data shows that only 13% of total full games unit sales for Sony consoles were digital (including digital-only games). Fast forward to 2025, and this digital share of full game purchases stood at almost 80% of the total.
“Inevitably there will be concerns from PlayStation gamers around various aspects of this announcement including choice, accessing older physical games on new consoles, the ability to collect physical games, and game preservation, however the purchasing trends of gamers are clear.”
Harding-Rolls also suggests Sony has money on its mind. Selling games digitally makes games companies more money than selling games in boxes, where publishers take about 50% of the sale price. Sony takes a 30% cut of game sales on the PlayStation Store, leaving 70% for publishers. When PlayStation goes 100% digital from 2028 onwards, the game companies including Sony will make more money overall from software sales.
Meanwhile, ditching a disc drive would in theory make the PS6 cheaper to produce amid the ongoing RAMpocalypse fueled by the AI boom. Analysts believe the PS6 will launch late 2028, given PlayStation will ditch discs from January of that year. It’s thinking ahead.
The question is, will Sony reverse its decision? Will petitions like this one and all the online backlash have any impact at all? It seems unlikely. Sony’s share price enjoyed a bump following the announcement, which suggests the market is in favor of it (unsurprising, given it will in theory make the company more money). One analyst said fans of physical media had their chance and blew it, so there’s no going back. “If gamers and preservationists had bought more physical games, Sony wouldn’t have seen the digital sales ratios that justify this decision,” Robin Zhu, a games analyst at Bernstein, told the Financial Times.
“Digital game sales carry essentially 100% incremental margin… the cost of the physical package, shipping and retailer margins can be more than 20% per cent of sticker price.”
Photo by YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.