Sony just told the disc holdouts no, and the numbers explain why

Seven. That’s how many PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical units in the U.S. so far this year, according to Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana. During the week ending July 11, only two PlayStation games cleared 10,000 physical units.

Keep those figures in your head, because they’re the whole argument.

Sony said today it isn’t reversing its decision to stop manufacturing PlayStation game discs in 2028, while acknowledging the “strong views” coming from players.

The first word from Sony since July 1

The comment came after Sony’s first quarter financial results, during an investor Q&A with analysts. Chief financial officer Lin Tao, speaking through a live interpreter, gave the company’s first response on the subject since the announcement landed.

“We announced that January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs. So, one-and-a-half years ahead. So we made this announcement at this time,” Tao said.

“There are various reasons we made this decision. The biggest being that the digitalization of contents overall has been progressing. That’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of contents, digitalization is progressing.

“And so when we think about the future, and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward.

“And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us. Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases.

“And so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore.”

Read that last line twice. There may be a hint buried in it about preserving physical discs digitally. Or it may be exactly what corporate non-answers usually are.

The backlash has been loud, and organized

Players have signed online petitions and swarmed PlayStation social media posts with concerns about preservation and ownership. New game releases with nothing to do with any of this have been buried under the noise.

Physical media backers are pushing a PlayStation boycott for a week in August to make the point that killing discs from 2028 is unacceptable.

The complaints go past players, too. The UK’s Digital Entertainment and Retail Association called Sony’s decision “a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice.”

Sony’s original framing: we’re just following you

“In response to shifting trends in consumer preference, new games will be released on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sid Shuman, Senior Director, Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, said in a post on PlayStation Blog.

“As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical 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.

“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. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”

Why a boycott won’t move the needle

Companies do reverse unpopular calls. Analysts think this isn’t one of them.

Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, ran the math on protest cancellations and found it doesn’t come close.

“I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision,” Toto said. “They of course knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass.”

“Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users,” he continued. “Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let’s say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just 1% of that business gone, of course not enough for Sony to start rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.”

Two console generations rewrote the ratio

Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry analyst at Ampere, laid out how fast the ground moved.

“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.”

One analyst put the blame back on the people complaining. “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, said.

Follow the 30%

Here’s the part that makes a U-turn close to unthinkable. Going all-digital on new releases pays Sony more per sale, right as console sales are expected to plummet on rising hardware costs.

On a first-party disc like The Last of Us, Sony keeps roughly 65% of the money. About 30% goes to the retailer, another 5% or so to manufacturing. On a physical third-party game such as the Activision-published Call of Duty, Sony collects a licensing fee, likely around 15%.

Downloads flip that. A first-party game sold on Sony’s own PlayStation Store returns 100% of the revenue to Sony. A third-party download like Call of Duty hands over a 30% cut, roughly $21 on a $70 game.

Twenty-one dollars a copy, no plastic, no shelf space, no retailer taking a slice. Against that, half a million cancelled subscriptions is a rounding error, and Sony knows exactly which number it’s watching.