It looks like Sony’s plans to end PlayStation disc production from January 2028 onwards have already started affecting companies’ plans. Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi, in an interview with GamesRadar, spoke about wanting to release some kind of physical edition for the upcoming title. However, what kind of release it would be, and whether it would even include a disc, remains in question.
“We’re still having internal discussions on what the exact SKU product lineup is going to be for Revelation, so I can’t say anything particularly definitive at this point in time. But I am working to make the arrangements to allow us to have some kind of physical edition,” Hamaguchi explained.
On the subject of the future of physical media in the games industry, Hamaguchi admitted that “the general trend is for things to shift away from physical towards downloadable games.” However, he noted that he enjoys an aspect of collecting physical media that leads to fans bringing their special edition grabs to events to get autographs.
“But that’s obviously talking about the trend,” he said. “Personally, here at something like Fan Fest or at community events for games that I’ve worked on, I really think that people bringing up things, asking for autographs – I think that’s lovely. I think it’s a wonderful culture and it would be a shame to lose that. I want that to remain.”
However, even if games stop including discs in their physical releases, Hamaguchi believes that “there will always be some kind of physical or packaged edition. Maybe you’ll have a box with the code inside it, or maybe key cards like Nintendo’s doing, or a boot disc or something. I feel like there’ll always be something, and I hope there will be.”
He went on to discuss some of the technical limitations that tend to be imposed by physical storage mediums like discs or game karts. It is worth remembering that both Final Fantasy 7 Remake on PS4 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PS5 were released with the game data split over multiple discs.
“Obviously, say, if you’re talking to Nintendo, there’s considerations about the storage limits on key cards and things like that, and then other platforms about how much you can put onto a disc. Each platform and first-party have their own specific rules and regulations that we need to take into account, and think about what format is actually going to be best for the game. These are the discussions that we’re having at this point in time. I do hope that we’ll be able to come up with something that is as close as possible as to what players and fans are going to want, but you’ll have to look forward to future announcements for that.”
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2, and is slated to be the first entry in the remake trilogy to come out across all platforms simultaneously. For more details about the RPG, check out how the team has been “very mindful” about feedback it got about Rebirth’s minigames. Also take a look at how the team wants to avoid open-world fatigue with Revelation.
