Sony announced at the beginning of July 2026 that they are going to end physical media production in January 2028. After weeks of online outrage and silence from Sony, the CFO, Lin Tao, has said, “We’re going to cautiously move this forward,’ during a Q&A section on 31st July 2026. As someone who sings the values of physical media, this is a body blow, and I will admit resistance will be an uphill battle. Sony is making this move because they can maximise revenue from digital sales, as they keep more of the money from these transactions, and they control the market since the only place to buy digital copies is the PlayStation Store. However, there are ways supporters of physical media can make their voices heard and cause Sony pain for their blatant greed.
The most obvious way to make our voice heard is financial. I personally buy physical copies of games whenever possible. I want to own my media, and physical media ensures that. In Sony’s 2025 Q4 earnings, 85% of game sales were digital, supporting Sony’s argument. However, these figures fluctuate because in Q2, 72% of game sales were digital, and digital sales increased by 2% from 2024 to 2025. Digital media has the advantage of convenience, but the PlayStation Store had a wider library because indie games, remasters, and cross-generation titles are only available digitally. This would help to push up the figures for digital sales.
Other forms of physical media have survived or are even thriving. Streaming was meant to be the death of the DVD, but because of an oversaturated streaming market, the complex web of streaming rights, and horror stories of people losing their digital media, people are turning back to physical media. In 2025, UHD Blu-ray sales in the USA increased by 12% and 19.5% in the UK. Companies like Criterion, Arrow, and Shout! Factory have become major film distributors. E-books were meant to be the end of physical books, but physical books are going strong. Sales of physical books increased by 0.3% from 2024 to 2025, and physical books dominate publishing sales by 3:1. Vinyl was seen as a dying form of media because of CDs, but it has come back to dominate the physical music market. Even CD sales have increased in the last quarter of 2025. Indie games that started as digital-only releases have earned physical releases, like Hollow Knight and Cuphead, so there was clearly demand for them.
The collector’s market is huge, and people who buy physical media are loyal customers. Nintendo have recently revealed that physical media made up to 38.5% of their game sales. Sega’s President and COO, Shuji Utsumi, stated that he still values physical media and that it is still a part of their game release strategy. Capcom have claimed an all-digital wouldn’t affect their business, but Christopher Dring, the editor-in-chief of The Game Business, revealed the sales ratio for Resident Evil Requiem. Whilst only 22% of sales were physical in the USA, physical sales were more significant in other countries. It was 55% in France, 51% in Japan, 43% in Australia, and 40% in the UK.. Corporations need to learn that America isn’t the only major market.
There have been major figures in gaming who have announced their support for physical media. These include Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser, Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard, and gaming legend Hideo Kojima. Even the former Sony PlayStation executive, Shawn Layden, has criticised Sony’s decision and believes it was based on spreadsheets. Supporters of physical media need more gaming companies and figures to show their support for physical media, as Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro advocated for physical media in the film industry.
Defenders of Sony argue that games are too big to fight on discs anymore. Insomniac Games blew that argument out of the water by announcing their upcoming title, Wolverine (a PlayStation exclusive), will be fully playable on disc. 4K Blu-ray can store up to 100 GB of data, which is enough for most games.
Sony still makes between $100 million and $130 million from physical media per quarter, which is still a significant source of revenue. Physical media is needed to keep the PlayStation games market competitive, especially for older games. Without physical media, Sony would have total control over pricing since the PlayStation Store would be the only way to buy digital games.
Sony’s attempt at monopolising the market has led to lawsuits being filed for anti-competitive practices. These actions are in the US, UK, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and the plans to end physical media production will harm Sony’s case. These are hefty lawsuits: in the UK claimants are after £2 billion, and the US case is for $7.85 million.
Besides buying physical media, there are two other financial methods to make Sony listen. The most immediate way is cancelling PlayStation Plus subscriptions. There have been plenty of people on social media who have cancelled their subscriptions, but it’s not an accurate measure. People who are more pro-physical are less likely to have a PlayStation Plus account because it’s used for online multiplayer. Online campaigners have called for a PlayStation Blackout from 23rd August to 30th August 2026, but for it to have any impact, a sizeable number of users need to join in, and there would need to be more than one Blackout week.
The consensus online has been hostile to Sony’s action, at least in my experience. The initial reaction was universally negative towards Sony, but there has been more pushback from Sony supporters. The issue with social media posts is that they are not a barometer, since the people who post online are the most passionate and don’t reflect real life. Sony has been burnt by an online campaign because they took the Morbius movie memes seriously and re-released the film, so it flopped for a second time.
Fan campaigns have succeeded. The most notable was the backlash against The Super League. Clubs like Real Madrid, Juventus, and Manchester United planned to form a competitor to the Champions League, but the reaction was so fierce that it collapsed immediately. More recently, it was leaked that Gianni Infantino planned to sell a minority stake of the World Cup to private equity, and Infantino and FIFA were forced to backtrack. Infantino’s position as FIFA President seems more precarious because of his overt corruption and greed. Gamers are frustrated that game companies have exploited them, whether through attempts to bring in a live service model or force through microtransactions.
There have been rumours that Sony is looking to allow advertising in their games. At this point, it feels like Sony are trolling people with an obvious attempt to add another revenue stream at the detriment of the gaming experience. Gaming is an expensive hobby, generating up to $31 billion in annual revenue, and that’s still not enough. Adverts would be worthless if there’s no one there to see them.
In the long term, gamers against Sony’s decision will refuse to buy the PS6 when it’s released. The PS6 does not sound appealing. It’s rumoured that the console could cost $1,000 or more due to the RAM shortage. Combined with the lack of discs, the PS6 offers no benefits over a PC. It wouldn’t be a multimedia device, just an expensive way to play video games. A gaming PC would cost more than a PS6, but people use them for more than just playing games.
Early decisions and reveals can make or break a console’s fate. The Sega Saturn was notoriously difficult to develop for, and Nintendo’s devotion to cartridges led many game companies to develop for the first PlayStation instead. The PS3 had a high price point, leading to the Xbox 360 dominating the console market in North America. The Wii U was a notable failure for Nintendo because of its odd multi-screen concept and only managed 13.56 million sales. Microsoft seemed to sabotage the launch of the Xbox One because they announced their plan to control the second-hand market, and the console would need to be online to function. Sony mocked their rivals because of this. If the rumours about Project Helix having a disc drive and backwards compatibility are true, then Microsoft look likely to be top dog in the next console generation. It would be bitter irony for Sony.
Some may call me a luddite for supporting physical media, but I believe in ownership, and I see it as a consumer rights issue. Sony wants a monopoly on distribution. The people and companies that say physical media doesn’t matter, like Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take Two Games, and Capcom, are thinking of the financial returns; they don’t care about gamers or consumers. The current political climate has become more hostile towards corporations and the tech oligarchy that has been forming. Americans have become more resistant to the construction of AI data centres, and AI in general. Elon Musk is one of the most hated men in the world, and figures like Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg aren’t far behind. Speaking as a consumer, these people and companies need us more than we need them, and we should show it.
I have started a couple of petitions on the British Parliament’s website to raise awareness. The first is about bringing consumer protections for people who have bought digital media. I believe a digital media purchase should be more than a licence with an arbitrary time limit. People should be able to keep it forever or get a refund or partial refund if it’s taken away. The second petition is for the break-up of Sony and Microsoft’s digital storefront monopoly. If Sony wants to railroad us into a digital-only landscape, then they should face competition for digital purchases. If you are a British citizen or UK resident and believe in this issue, please sign and let your voice be heard. I have also written to my MP to raise the matter. Hopefully he will ask a question in Parliament, but probably he will write a polite letter to the appropriate minister and the minister would respond with a polite letter back. There is no harm in contacting your local representative since there are elected to raise issues on your behalf.
