{"id":3081,"date":"2026-07-01T22:17:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3081"},"modified":"2026-07-01T22:17:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:17:45","slug":"playstation-physical-games-discs-stop-production-preservation-retail-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3081","title":{"rendered":"The funeral for PlayStation discs has begun"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Cody Spencer, the co-owner of the small games retail chain Pink Gorilla Games, put it well when I asked about the impact of Sony\u2019s recent announcement that it will stop making discs for new games starting January 2028. \u201cIt\u2019s sad to see. This decision is only a negative for gamers. We\u2019re losing the ability to sell games, to share games, and to own games.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sony\u2019s announcement has been devastating news for many in the games industry. Not just players, but also groups like independent retail stores and preservationists that try and make gaming more accessible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is unfortunate news for those who still prefer buying games on physical media, and is certainly a significant hit to consumer rights, the resale market, and game creators whose businesses rely on the physical market,\u201d Frank Cifaldi, executive director of the Video Game History Foundation, says in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Boutique publishers are also lamenting PlayStation\u2019s announcement. \u201cWe are profoundly disappointed by Sony\u2019s decision to suspend physical games production in 2028,\u201d says iam8bit in a statement<\/a>. \u201cPhysical games are vital to games preservation, ownership, and consumer choice, values that have guided iam8bit since our first physical release in 2016. Our commitment to these values remains unchanged. Long live physical media.\u201d Lost in Cult, in its own statement<\/a>, says that it aims to \u201cdo everything in our power to preserve video games to the best of our ability and will continue to do so for as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the move isn\u2019t exactly unexpected. For a long time now, video game sales have primarily been digital \u2014 just look at Capcom saying that<\/a> 93 percent of its game sales were digital over its last fiscal year. Still, it\u2019s disappointing for people who want to have games in a more tangible form than as data on a hard drive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The reality is that, despite the outcry, things aren\u2019t going to be different for most people right away. \u201cPhysical sales of new PlayStation 5 games have been declining for some time,\u201d Spencer says. \u201cSo immediately after the switch to digital only I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll see much of a change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In five to 10 years, Spencer expects to see \u201cincreased prices for the physical titles printed before 2028 and a niche but strong demand for our products.\u201d While that\u2019s good for business, \u201cI\u2019d personally rather not have [that] be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even further down the road, \u201cthe very idea of physical video games will be foreign and more seen as a novelty, which will not be good for us at all,\u201d Spencer says. \u201cOur type of store may be seen more like a record store. A place for largely the most passionate fans of the medium rather than a spot everyone goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sony has already been inching toward a potential digital-only future for a while now. The PS5, after all, launched in 2020 with a cheaper version without a disc drive, and the PS5 Pro requires a separate disc drive purchase if you want to play physical games at all. And this generation isn\u2019t even the first time Sony has launched digital-only hardware; 2009\u2019s PSP Go handheld didn\u2019t have a UMD drive, Andrew Borman, director of digital preservation at The Strong National Museum of Play, reminded me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe challenges of digital preservation aren\u2019t new\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe challenges of digital preservation aren\u2019t new, nor are they exclusive to the video game industry,\u201d Borman says, pointing to things like required online connectivity, frequent game patches, and \u201cmuch of the game development process happening only using digital tools.\u201d But he says that \u201cit is important that we act now to preserve the history of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Borman says there will always be a market for used and new physical games, pointing to the resurgence of vinyl records. But losing the option of physical PlayStation games still stings. \u201cFrom a consumer perspective, choice matters, and losing that choice is unfortunate, especially for those who may not have reliable or fast Internet connections \u2014 or just like to feel ownership over their purchases,\u201d Borman says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cifaldi says that the shift won\u2019t have \u201cas much of an impact as you might expect\u201d to the work of professional preservationists. \u201cThe reality is that this continues to be a trend,\u201d Cifaldi says in a slightly different version of the statement sent to The Verge<\/em>. \u201cSony PlayStation isn\u2019t the first ones doing this nor will they be the last, as the vast majority of video games produced over the last two decades were not made for dedicated home video game consoles, let alone pressed to physical media. And even when they were released on physical media, a day-one digital patch was all but guaranteed, meaning that even though a disc is preserving data in an accessible way, it may not represent the game that people actually played. Museums and archives like ours have been preparing for this future for a while, with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn\u2019t going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is worth noting that platform holders are doing some<\/em> preservation to make their older games available to play. Sony has an IP Preservation team<\/a>, Microsoft has made a bunch of older games playable on modern Xbox hardware thanks to the backward compatibility program<\/a>, and the Nintendo Switch Online retro catalog is jam-packed with classics, including titles from as recent as the GameCube era<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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GTA VI<\/em>, which will be sold in physical stores but only as a download code in a box, is likely a preview of what\u2019s to come. Since it won\u2019t be sold on a disc<\/a>, you can\u2019t sell the game, borrow it from a friend, or come across a cheap used copy for a fraction of the $79.99 price<\/a>. People might put up with that for GTA VI<\/em>, one of the biggest games of all time, but it won\u2019t feel so good when it\u2019s the experience for every video game box on the shelf in a store.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cifaldi is calling on trade groups such as the Entertainment Software Association, which has opposed preservation efforts in the past<\/a>, to \u201coffer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research.\u201d Cifaldi says that the industry \u201cneeds to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because expecting museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto VI<\/em> and hope it\u2019ll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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