Sony will not reverse plan to end physical PlayStation games in 2028, analyst warns

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The collective industry isn't too happy with Sony right now after the company's decision to unilaterally move away from physical discs in 2028. Despite uproar from multiple corners, including studios both indie and triple-A, one consultant warns we shouldn't count on Sony walking back this choice.

"I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision. They knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass," Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, tells IGN as he weighs up the numbers.

"Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users. Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus," he comments. "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."

As much as I try to maintain optimism, my pragmatic side agrees with Toto's argument here. Sony will have punched these numbers many times, looking at the impact from all sorts of angles, and come to the most cost-effective solution. Digital simply allows the corporation to maximize profits and control distribution to a greater degree.

There are a lot of regular PlayStation players who have already transitioned to an entirely non-physical library, bolstered by the robust selection on PlayStation Plus. This shift won't change how they acquire or play their games, and it'll take large numbers of that install base canceling their subscriptions in order for a protest to matter within Sony. (Of course, even people who don't buy physical games benefit from the presence of physical games immensely .)

I say this as someone who believes we should do it anyway, because physical media matters.

Sony's already begun transitioning a disc manufacturing plant over to another industry, so at least some jobs have been protected in the wake of all this.

PlayStation's disc-less future could "heavily influence" Xbox and Nintendo's approach to physical games, former Sony boss says, calling the decision "dramatic."