Sony’s recent announcement that it is going to end the production of PlayStation discs in January 2028 has drawn the ire of retailers in the UK. The country’s Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) has condemned Sony’s decision on the basis that it will harm retailers as well as customers.
“PlayStation’s announcement that major games will no longer be available on disc is a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice,” said ERA CEO Kim Bayley in a statement to The Game Business. “Every year, millions of gamers still choose to buy physical copies because they value true ownership. A disc can be shared with family, traded in, collected, preserved, and crucially, still played years from now. A download licence often offers none of those freedoms.”
Bayley has cited consumer data indicating that there is still a market of customers younger than 25-years-old that use discs, and has noted that the market is still valued at £300 million as of last year. This demonstrates “that there remains a substantial and committed audience for boxed games,” she said.
“Retailers see this demand every day. Physical games continue to bring people into shops and give consumers real value through gifting, collecting, and resale. The industry should be embracing every legitimate way consumers want to buy games, not narrowing their choices. Digital distribution has transformed gaming and is hugely popular, but it should complement physical formats, not replace them.”
The crux of the argument also revolves around offering more choices for consumers. “Removing discs doesn’t represent progress – it simply removes choice,” Bayley explains. “That’s bad for gamers, bad for retailers, and ultimately, bad for the long-term health and preservation of our games industry.”
Retailers have a vested interest in games still being sold through physical media, such as discs in the case of PlayStation and Xbox, and Game Cards in the case of Nintendo. The stores often also tend to facilitate a second-hand games market where players can sell back titles they are done playing to the stores, which can then offer those same games at discounted prices without having to pay any extra fees to platform owners. While retailers will still be able to sell games through the use of redeemable keys – as will be the case with Grand Theft Auto 6 in November – the production of discs coming to an end will also mark the end of the second-hand market for new releases.
In its announcement from earlier this month, PlayStation said that the decision was “a natural direction” for the company that would align it with how the gaming market has changed, with digital game sales “significantly” outpacing physical discs. In the following days, the announcement has gone on to draw quite a bit of backlash, with many gamers taking to signing online petitions in an attempt to change Sony’s mind.
Unfortunately, however, analysts believe that this backlash won’t really change much since going fully digital is too lucrative an opportunity for Sony to give up. Niko Partners’ Daniel Ahmad recently compared the decision to a similar one made by Apple in 2008 when it stopped including disc drives in its computers.
