Backers of physical media have called on gamers to boycott PlayStation for every week in August to send a message to Sony that its decision to kill discs from 2028 is unacceptable.
The Does it play? X / Twitter account, which is a fierce critic of Sony’s plan to dispose of PlayStation game discs, issued a call to arms that has been viewed on the social media platform nearly 1 million times.
“Sony wants to desert fans? Let’s give them a small taste of their very own medicine!” the Twitter account said. “Along with other creators we call for a 1 week #PSBlackout in August. No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony’s platforms.”
Sony’s rationale for ditching discs is that it’s simply following consumer trends. “In response to shifting trends in consumer preference, latest games might be released on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sid Shuman, Senior Director, Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications, said in a post on PlayStation Blog.
“As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry proceed to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all latest games releasing on PlayStation consoles might be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, latest games might be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or might be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.
“This can be a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the overall preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
Reinforcing this trend, Mat Piscatella, Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, said that just seven PlayStation video games had sold greater than 100,000 physical units thus far this 12 months within the U.S.. Only two PlayStation video games sold greater than 10,000 physical units within the U.S. throughout the week ending July 11.
Nonetheless, for the reason that announcement, gamers have called on Sony to U-turn on its decision, signing online petitions and swarming over PlayStation social media posts to specific concern about video game preservation and ownership — even overshadowing the discharge of latest games that don’t have anything to do with what’s happening at Sony.
Complaints have also come from other groups. The UK’s Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) called Sony’s decision “a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer alternative.”
In an announcement published online, Kim Bayley, CEO of ERA, said its data shows that 25% of under 25s use discs for gaming, and that discs should remain as a alternative on top of digital.
“Yearly, tens of millions of gamers still decide to buy physical copies because they value true ownership. A disc might 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 said.
Does it play? and other critics of Sony have remained determined to proceed the fight. Here’s the boycott statement in full:
If history has told us anything, it’s that video game boycotts rarely end in the motion they desire. It probably doesn’t help that Metal Gear Solid 4 will finally escape PS3 prison via Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 that week. There are in fact instances of firms reversing decisions amid a backlash, but, analysts have told IGN, it stays unlikely that Sony will U-turn on this.
Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, suggested that even when half one million people cancelled their PlayStation Plus subscription in protest, it could be only a drop within the ocean for Sony.
“I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony is not going to reverse this decision,” Toto told IGN. “They in fact knew what the net response would seem like, they usually now wait for this storm to pass.
“Sony has over 120 million energetic PlayStation users,” he continued. “Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, for instance 500,000 cancel in protest, that may be just 1% of that business gone — in fact not enough for Sony to start out rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.”
Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry analyst at Ampere, has said loads has modified over the course of the last two generations. “Console gaming is the last hold-out for physical media within the gaming sector, but physical product has been declining in importance,” he said in a post on the Ampere website. “Back in 2013 when the PS4 launched, Ampere data shows that only 13% of total full games unit sales for Sony consoles were digital (including digital-only games). Fast forward to 2025, and this digital share of full game purchases stood at almost 80% of the full.
“Inevitably there might be concerns from PlayStation gamers around various elements of this announcement including alternative, accessing older physical games on latest consoles, the flexibility to gather physical games, and game preservation, nevertheless the purchasing trends of gamers are clear.”
One analyst said fans of physical media had their likelihood and blew it, so there’s no going back. “If gamers and preservationists had bought more physical games, Sony wouldn’t have seen the digital sales ratios that justify this decision,” Robin Zhu, a games analyst at Bernstein, told the Financial Times.
For Sony, going all-digital for brand spanking new game releases will earn it more cash from every sale at a time when console sales are expected to plummet as a consequence of their rising cost. For a first-party PlayStation game reminiscent of The Last of Us, Sony will only keep around 65% of the cash from a physical copy, with around 30% going to the retailer and roughly one other 5% on manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, for a physical copy of a third-party game reminiscent of the Activision-published Call of Duty, Sony will get a licensing fee, likely around 15%.
For downloads, nevertheless, the margins are much higher. For a first-party game sold via Sony’s own PlayStation Store, the corporate obviously keeps 100% of the revenue. For third-party games reminiscent of Call of Duty, meanwhile, Sony keeps a 30% cut (so, roughly $21 for a $70 game).
Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You may reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.