Over the last couple of years, digital games have quickly replaced physical ones across the industry. Whether it’s services like Steam and the Epic Games Store taking over PC, the rise of Xbox Live, PlayStation Store and the Nintendo eShop or things like streaming and mobile games as a whole, it’s clear that digital games are becoming the default for companies and consumers alike.
And unfortunately, that seems to be only getting amplified in the next couple of years. Why? Because out of nowhere, Sony has announced that physical disc production is ending in 2028:
Here’s the statement from their official update:
As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.
Given digital games make up about 90% of video game purchases now, it’s not exactly unexpected. It’s something we always knew would come at some point down the line.
But it’s also something we refuse to support. For us, physical games not being available is a complete dealbreaker for a console. If we can’t get physical copies of games in any way, we have no reason to ever buy the system in question.
And well, there are many reasons for that.
First, it’s terrible news for collectors, archivists, video game preservationists and retrogaming as a whole.
With the main reason for that being that digital games are only available as long as the console they’re on is being supported, or future consoles support its online services. If the PlayStation 6 is digital only and stops being supported in 2032 or something, then that’s basically it for new players needing to access its games. They have to either hope they get remake or rereleased on another system, or find an existing console with the games already installed on it.
Which in turn causes even more issues. Was the game unpopular at launch? Yeah, then it’s basically dead. No-one’s ever going to remake it for a future system, nor bother porting it to future eShop style services. Just ask anyone looking for Game & Wario or Paper Mario: Color Splash in 2026.
So, every game on a digital only system has a countdown timer till it’s permanently unavailable. There’s no way to get it through secondhand shops or grey market sources, so your only hopes are manufacturer generosity or flat out piracy.
What’s more, that’s not even getting into how bad a deal digital only games are for consumers at the moment. Since on most consoles (and PC distribution services), you completely lack the ability to do any of the following:
- Buy used games from others players
- Sell games to other players once you’re done playing them
- Rent or loan them out to others in your family or friend group
- Be certain you have access to version 1.0 of the game
- Plus move them to other consoles if you get a second system
This makes them a worse deal than physical carts or discs all around, and removes the ability for consumers and businesses to put games on sale or make them available for wider audiences. It’s just one game per person per console, with no way to change that through any unofficial means.
Above: This video sure did age like milk, didn’t it?
In fact, this is why we decided to buy only physical copies of Switch 2 games when the system came out in 2025. Because well, we’d previously had experience playing digital games on Switch. It worked well enough when we had just one system, like in the mid to late 2010s…
But later on? It just became painful all around. If we wanted to play digital games on our OLED, we lost the ability to play them on our original Switch. Then, once the Switch 2 came out, migrating to that killed our ability to play most of our games on Switch 1.
This in turn killed much of our interest in making videos. If we wanted to play on version 1.0, we often couldn’t. We’d updated on our latest system, and it being digital only meant it was unavailable on our others.
Same with mods too. There are plenty of games we want to make videos on, but modding those games or editing our save files was the only practical way to speed up the research process. Due to them being digital purchases on newer systems, that was impossible, so our incentive to make those videos evaporated too.
There’s also the whole showing games to friends thing to take into account too. If we wanted to show people how awesome a physical Switch game was, that was easy. We just brought the game over, and they could enjoy it on their own system. We might lose some save data, but we’d have minimal luggage or hassle.
That doesn’t work for digital games. If we want to share those, we either have to bring the whole console, or go through all that hassle of making a virtual game cart and temporarily removing it from our library just to let someone else give it a try. We couldn’t just bring the game, and let them try it out.
So, digital games just became a nuisance to us. The whole idea of having to play them on a single console in a single situation just didn’t work out.
But our real fear isn’t any of this. It’s not a lack of used games. It’s not being unable to share games with others, or play them on modded consoles.
It’s what this move implies for the future.
Since well, the existence of physical games implies a situation where a game doesn’t have to be connected to the internet to function. Where owning a game means you own it forever, and no-one can suddenly take it away from you.
This may not technically always be true (since some games are reliant on an internet connection to function, and stores like GOG offer DRM free versions of digital games on PC), but the sentiment tends to be accurate overall. If we go out and buy a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for N64, it will work the exact same way it did in 1998. Same goes with a copy of Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, a copy of the Super Mario RPG remake for Switch or a copy of Donkey Kong Bananza for the Switch 2.
Physical copies of games tend to keep companies somewhat grounded. They encourage them not to lock everything behind an internet connection, or make games unplayable past a certain date or time.
Digital only removes that incentive. Now, there’s all the reason in the world to treat games like they’re under a perpetual rental license, and to ignore any and all rights that consumers might have for them.
Licensing/rights run out? Let’s just remove the whole game from your library, since you don’t ‘own’ it anyway! That’s what Sony did with a bunch of movies recently, and Amazon did with certain books people purchased for their Kindles.
Don’t want people to have access to the files at all? Eh, why not just make the console a streaming device that downloads data from some server farm somewhere, and requires an internet connection to function at all. As much as gamers hated Stadia, it was exactly what corporations wanted from video games.
And that’s the worst case scenario for everyone. No offline play, no mods, no rentals or resales, nothing. Just more corporate greed due to an obsession with control and following the Netflix model.
Physical games don’t technically prevent that nightmare scenario from occurring, but they do make it less tempting to go that route. They imply ownership and player control, and most companies tend to be fine with no upending those expectations too much.
Regardless, that’s Sony’s plan for the future. No more physical games after 2028, and even less user control of the games they buy due to corporate meddling and greed. Here’s hoping their plans change soon due to all the backlash online.
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