While Sony’s announcement about ending the production of PlayStation discs may have taken many by surprise, games industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls believes that it was an inevitability. In an interview with Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar), Harding-Rolls brought up the fact that physical game sales tend to be outside of Sony’s own ecosystem, which is another source of revenue that the company wants to cling to.
“I think this was always going to happen. Sales of physical games are pushing more revenue out of the ecosystem of Sony and its publishing partners, and they’re the ones that are bearing the costs. No fee for printing the disc and shipping it out means there’s more share for Sony and publishers.”
The fact that just about every company in the world has been feeling the sting of component shortages also doesn’t help matters. Harding-Rolls noted that console markets have been suffering due to this quite a bit, and might force Sony and Microsoft to charge $1,000 for their next-gen hardware. This will also end up further limiting the audience. Ending PlayStation disc production might have simply been a matter of cutting costs where it can for Sony.
“The console market is facing a serious situation, because this unprecedented increase in component costs is potentially undermining the viability of the whole sector. If you come to market with a device that is $1000, you are starting to limit your audience quite significantly. So, it’s about: ‘How can we viably get to market at a reasonable price point? How can we maintain the console market’s scale in the next generation?'”
As for the January 2028 deadline, Harding-Rolls believes that it is simply part of Sony’s console launch schedule, with the PS6 expected to either already be out by then, or close to being launched. This “generational timing” will help give Sony “a kind of clean cut for the beginning of the next cycle.”
Sony CFO Lin Tao has spoken about the backlash faced by the company since its announcements. During the Q&A part of an earnings call back in July, she spoke about the “future digital ecosystem”, and how Sony will have to pay attention to how it can engage with gamers.
“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing; that’s the big factor. It’s not just PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing. And so, when we think about the future – and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this – and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us.”
“Games are beloved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. And so, we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would continue to explore.”
