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PlayStation has suddenly told its audience to brace themselves for an entirely physical media-free future. The news comes just days after the company unapologetically informed users it was about to permanently delete more than 550 Studio Canal-distributed movies from the PlayStation Network – and literally remove them from the accounts of any customer who previously purchased them.

It’s honestly one of the baffling corporate failures to read the room since Microsoft handed Don Mattrick a microphone and allowed him to discuss how the Xbox One probably wasn’t going to suit someone serving on a nuclear submarine . That is, PlayStation is following up a brazenly anti-consumer rugpull of digital content with fresh confirmation that ALL PlayStation content from 2028 onwards will be exclusively digital.

The timing would be hilarious if it wasn’t so appallingly offensive.

However, the facts are in, and the standard has been set: you cannot trust digital purchases, and you cannot trust the corporations that offer them.

While I maintain a library of physical games I love – and I regularly browse charity stores and my local CeX for hard copies of things I know I’ll enjoy having stashed on a shelf – allow me to qualify that I have indeed purchased and downloaded many digital games over the decades, via console and PC storefronts. Provided they always remain available to redownload – even if delisted from sale – it’s a compromise I’ve been willing to concede, for now. Credit where credit’s due, it’s been a pretty workable arrangement to date. For instance, when the disc tray on my Xbox 360 turned to dust during the production of a recent racing game retrospective I put together to celebrate IGN’s 30th anniversary, I found myself pulling down 20-year-old, long-delisted DLC on a replacement console without much fuss.

Of course, as much as I appreciate this functionality, I’m not going to celebrate it. The ability to simply re-download content we’ve purchased in the past should be a bare-minimum service. I’m not asking for content to be hand delivered to me; I’m asking for a server to be left switched on. If non-profits like the Internet Archive can do it, I’m sure commercial video game juggernauts can manage likewise.

On the flip side, I have never, ever purchased a movie digitally. My household still subscribes to several streaming services, and I’m content enough with their convenience for the time being, but my movie collection is otherwise strictly physical. Prior to entering the media industry I worked at Blockbuster Video during the transition from VHS to DVD, which is where my collection started. I’m hesitant to put a figure on its current size on the off chance that my wife reads this, but I will admit I’m… deeply nostalgic about video stores. Like, proper deeply. If I can’t visit them anymore, building one around me was the next best thing. Now I can work at IGN while still ensconced in a video store. It’s the best of both worlds.

At any rate, I’ve never had an interest in starting a digital library of movies beholden to any one vendor. I’ve just never trusted the concept. Frankly, the Studio Canal debacle on PlayStation Network is all the reason I need to ensure I never will.

The ability to simply re-download content we’ve purchased in the past should be a bare-minimum service.

Sony discontinued the ability to make movie and TV purchases and rentals on the PlayStation Store back in August 2021. However, users were still able to watch the content they’d purchased beyond that cut-off. However, it appears those purchases were always on a ticking clock. Whatever agreement Sony and Studio Canal had for that content to remain hosted on PSN for people who bought it has either lapsed or completely imploded. We can’t know, because neither company has explained or apologised for it. IGN has sought comment. At the time of writing it hasn’t been forthcoming.

For the corporate bootlickers in the back, we’ve read the legalese. You don’t need to parrot it back. We’re all aware of the insidious terms and conditions that companies apply to transactions for digital media in order to be able to snatch it away without consequence. We’re aware of the fact that, despite companies being clearly permitted to use words like “buy” and “purchase”, we’re only ever really leasing a license to access content – a license companies can revoke at their discretion.

The fact remains is this: if someone entered my home and scooped up my copies of Terminator 2, This Is Spinal Tap, Total Recall, Cliffhanger, Highlander, Leon, First Blood, and whatever else they saw fit to steal – that’s theft. That it happens with a line of code being rewritten or deleted doesn’t make it less so.

So what exactly does an exclusively digital future really look like?

It looks like shit.

I’ve already had an appetiser of it. In 2024, Ubisoft announced The Crew – a full-price, premium game with multiple pieces of paid DLC in the form of car packs and major expansions – was to be nuked from existence and removed from the libraries of customers who bought it . Ubisoft was hit with a lawsuit over it, which it responded to by insisting that buying a game only gives players a “limited license to access the game.”

The explanation went down like a lead balloon.

It’s an imperfect example, since not even owning The Crew on disc helps in this particular instance. Despite having full support for single-player progress, it’s an online-only game, and the discs are now worthless. It was, nonetheless, an effective glimpse at a future where games can be yanked away, leaving consumers conned out of their cash.

Consumers gain nothing of worth from an all-digital future.

What do we lose? Let’s dig.

We’re now staring down the barrel of a future where the PS6 doesn’t come with a disc drive . Separate reports are indicating that Xbox may also be moving away from physical media, and that the next-generation Project Helix device will also not feature a disc drive. It’s a philosophy that will likely sideline anyone with a curated collection of physical games, or even a hybrid library that’s part disc, part digital. So it’s a rake in the face for backwards compatibility, and an entirely unappealing future for vintage gamers – the support of whom laid the bedrock for the business today.

How long will publishers continue to invest in the sorts of single-player games many people still crave if it becomes apparent the audience isn’t fully migrating to digital?

What impact does an all-digital future have on certain genres of games? An uncertain one, at best. No one is denying the seismic shift in consumer preference, or how digital game sales do indeed eclipse physical sales, broadly. However, as noted in a 2025 analysis from The Game Business , there are certain genres of games that still sell well on disc. At least across the UK, single-player, story-driven games and family games have regularly seen much stronger physical sales than typical. That is, almost half of Hogwart’s Legacy, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Resident Evil 4 Remake sales were physical. In the case of Spider-Man 2 and Astro Bot, the figure was reportedly over half. How long will publishers continue to invest in the sorts of single-player games many people still crave if it becomes apparent the audience isn’t fully migrating?

What does it mean for game preservation? Nothing good. Archivists, historians, and museums have been fighting a frustrating battle with the games industry for years, and removing physical games from PlayStation’s future is not going to help in the slightest. Certainly not when trade groups like the US Entertainment Software Association are so demonstrably against the concept of game preservation that it actively maintains the process of restoring old games is illegal “hacking”, and lobbies against academic institutions being permitted to take measures to preserve old games and keep them playable for future generations.

What does it mean for games with limited lifespans due to licensed characters, cars, or music? It means no discovery after the fact. Right now a kid entering the gaming community today can use second-hand marketplaces to wind back the clock and experience games that are no longer available digitally. Weren’t born when the first Forza Horizon game came out, but adore Forza Horizon 6? Well, you can’t download most of them anymore, but there are still discs out there in the wild for you to collect and keep. The same goes for all kinds of delisted gems, from Driver: San Francisco to Driveclub, or old Bond and Spider-Man games. How does this work a decade into an all-digital future? It doesn’t.

What does it mean if you gravitate towards older, used games – an entirely understandable approach considering cost-of-living spikes? You can’t. What does it mean if you just want to gift a game to someone and watch them install and play it immediately after unwrapping it? You can’t. And what does it mean for people who want to share games with their friends or family? Well, it’s simple.

They can’t.

And here we were, labouring under the impression PlayStation completely understood that one-step process.

Whatever gave us that idea?

Let’s reiterate: PlayStation has announced the discontinuation of physical media immediately after telling its customers it was going to delete 550 movies from the accounts of people that paid for them. It’s either baffling naivety, or colossal arrogance. Neither one of those are strong characteristics; I just don’t know which it is.

I’ll tell you what I do know, though. I know that I’m not excited about a prohibitively expensive game console that won’t play my old physical games, upon which anything I purchase could be removed without a speck of a refund or a hint of regret.

It sure ain’t much of a sales pitch.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.