Sony has officially confirmed that it will be ending the production of physical discs for PlayStation consoles, starting January 2028. In a new blog update, the company says that it made the decision based on how physical game disc sales have begun to decline, and in the future, all new games–both first- and third-party–will be available through the PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.
Sony added that this new transition “has no impact” on games that have already been released or will be released. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today,” the company added, while emphasizing that it will “continue to prioritize” resources on where consumers can access its games.
The writing has been on the wall for years now, as recent reports from Sony have indicated a massive shift from physical to digital. PlayStation owners overwhelmingly purchase games digitally when compared to physical editions, and one of the biggest games of the year, GTA 6, will also be available purely as a digital product. While a “physical” edition will be sold at retailers, this is essentially a code-in-a-box copy. It’s also worth noting that both Sony and Microsoft released versions of their flagship consoles in 2020 that did not include a disc drive, and Sony’s PS5 Pro doesn’t ship with one by default (but it can still be added via a modular attachment).
The other knock-on effect is that the next PlayStation console will not include a physical media drive for its base model, as Sony aims to keep costs down. “This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest,” Ampere Analysis senior games research analyst Piers Harding-Rolls said to Game File. Even physical copies of games don’t contain the full experience on the disc, with many acting as an authentication key while all game data is copied to the console–a process that usually requires a hefty download as well.
On top of all this, Sony has also announced that it will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita.