No physical editions of PlayStation games come January 2028

It always seemed inevitable, yes, but now that the time has finally come, it does not feel any less jarring: Sony just announced that it will be ending production of physical discs for PlayStation games in January 2028. This does not just mean that Sony’s own PS5 games will be going digital-only from that point on, it actually means that all new PlayStation games, including the ones developed and published by third parties, will only be available on the PlayStation Store going forward.

The importance of Sony’s decision cannot be underestimated because, simply put, it marks the end of an era for the video games business as a whole. When the market leader of a specific segment makes a move of this kind, it sets a trend every other platform holder will sooner or later follow – and, truth be told, Microsoft has been moving in the same direction already, leaving Nintendo as the only one still offering games in the form of cartridges for the Switch/Switch 2 (even if that too is not a given anymore). PC games have long abandoned optical media, so it was only a matter of time that Sony and Microsoft followed suit.

Sony and others are said to be working with retailers in order to still offer certain new PlayStation games in some kind of physical form – but that form will not be a disc anymore. There’s already talk about e.g. hard paper or hard plastic cards carrying downloadable codes, which obviously still lead to a digital purchase, but are sold at a brick-and-mortar store so they can be bought along with other goods or wrapped as gifts. It’s not clear yet whether retailers are interested in following this approach with anything but the most popular games out there, but it’s safe to say we’ll have a good idea about that way before January 2028.

To be clear, all PlayStation games released between now and January 2028 can still get a physical, disc-based edition – and yours truly actually expects that many major releases within that timeframe will actually get one. But now that Sony’s announcement is made, it’s also highly likely that most publishers of PlayStation games are now re-evaluating their options and/or plans accordingly… so availability of disc-based editions of said games will definitely be getting progressively lower as a result.

As one expects, there’s already a lot of chatter online about what Sony’s move might mean for the PlayStation6, which is currently expected in either Q4 2027 or Q1 2028. Well, this almost certainly looks like a disc-less gaming console now: the best we can hope for the PS6 is to either be compatible with the current PS5 optical drive accessory somehow or support a new, external optical drive consumers can purchase separately in order to play their PS4 and PS5 disc-based games. That would also require some software development work on Sony’s part, which the company may or may not feel obliged to do, so… we’ll see.

An inevitable decision, but consumers get the raw end of the deal

Sony’s announcement comes at an interesting point in time, as the matter of physical copies of games is still widely discussed online thanks to Take Two’s decision to go digital-only with Grand Theft Auto VI – certainly for the launch window of the title, maybe forever as many seem to believe. An outspoken part of the gaming community vehemently objected to these news, but whether that knee-jerk reaction will have an actual impact on that particular game’s long-term success remains to be seen.

What is clear from these discussions online, though, is that many consumers still just want to have a choice between digital and physical forms for their games – an option they will officially not have anymore in 2028 when it comes to PlayStation titles. This is, in fact, the most important aspect of this announcement: by making the final step towards digital game delivery, Sony – and, presumably, Microsoft – will be essentially taking away all the rights consumers have when purchasing a physical product, offering in exchange a much more limited digital license which players have far less control over.

Unlike physical discs, digital licenses cannot be lent to friends and family, they cannot be resold and they are forever tied to one specific consumer digital service profile, so they are not transferable. Digital licenses also require Internet access (once or several times) for authentication of legal purchase, so they are unusable for always-offline play, although that’s obviously less of a problem these days than it used to be. Still, a digital-only future for video games means that the second-hand market is effectively killed, allowing platform holders to control pricing of all releases, new and old, on their digital storefronts as they see fit.

With sales numbers seemingly being so overwhelmingly skewed towards digital delivery already, though – Sony itself reported as recently as early May that just 15% of all PlayStation game purchases were physical during the first quarter of 2026 – it’s hard not to think of all this as inevitable. The convenience of digital purchases and immediate downloads is undeniable, there are frequent sales on the PlayStation Store that make it easier to find high-quality games for less, while Internet connectivity is all but absolutely necessary for most games anyway nowadays, due to network-focused features and numerous patches.

It’s true that now – less than two years away from the next PlayStation devices and thirteen years since players started building digital game libraries playable on those devices – it may indeed be time to accept this as inevitable. Still, it’s just frustrating to watch even more consumer rights taken away, even more control on the entertainment content players purchase handed over to publishers. It’s hard not to think that its a heavy price to pay for convenience and that platform holders get a much better deal out of this than their customers do.

Since it was the same customers, though, who drove digital delivery to an astonishing 85% of total game sales, is there room for objection now? Everyone can answer that for themselves.