Japan Pushes Back on Sony's Disc-Free PlayStation Plan

Sony has told players that new PlayStation games will stop shipping on disc from January 2028, and the pushback has reached its home market. On July 1, the company announced it would drop disc-based production for all new PlayStation titles from that date, after which new releases will sell only in digital form on the PlayStation Store and at retailers. Developers and fans in Japan have joined the wider backlash over preservation and ownership, and one of the country's best-known designers weighed in without naming the policy at all.

Hideo Kojima reposted comments he first made in August 2021, two tweets warning about the risks of a digital-only future.

"Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved."

— Hideo Kojima

Kojima's two tweets landed at a useful moment, given how much of the Japanese reaction centered on losing control of purchased games. Shueisha Games' Masami Yamamoto, who has spent decades making games inside the Sony group, looked at it from the production side. He said dropping the disc version would give teams about a month and a half more to polish the master, since a disc build still has to reach a finalized state free of serious flaws even with day-one patches now standard. On an ideal schedule, he added, the master should be done two months before release.

thwaf/reddit

Much of the concern is commercial as well as sentimental. Japan's second-hand game shops stand to lose ground in a disc-free market, and one point players kept raising is that discs are part of why some pick PlayStation over PC. Buyers cited disc copies and limited physical editions as reasons to choose the console version. Voice actor and gamer Masaru Yoshimura said browsing PlayStation titles in stores was his hobby and that the change made him too sad. I think that reaction gets at the real cost here, because a policy framed around convenience quietly removes the shelf, the case, and the resale that a lot of players built their habit around.

The timing sharpened the anger. Sony made the disc announcement the same day it confirmed the closure of the PS3 and PS Vita online stores, and shortly before it deletes more than 550 movies bought by PlayStation users with no refund. One person asked whether corporate decisions could make digitally bought games unplayable at any moment. Another summed up the mood on X.

"Owning things seems like it's becoming a value from the past, doesn't it?"

— X user

Sony's own numbers explain the direction. In its PlayStation blog post, the company described the shift as adapting to consumer trends, noting that the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces discs. It reported that 78% of game sales in 2025 were downloads, a figure that also includes titles with no physical release. Sony has already started reassigning disc production staff to other parts of the business, and a recent IGN poll found 90% of readers oppose an all-digital future.

Sony has since told partners that discs won't vanish overnight, according to Game File: publishers can still order disc-based games, and physical retail copies will continue, though many will ship as a digital code in the box rather than a playable disc. The company hasn't said how long that transitional phase will run, and it has stayed silent on social media amid the backlash, with some PS Plus subscribers now urging cancellations in protest. Former PlayStation CEO Shawn Layden told Eurogamer the shift was always a spreadsheet call, noting that digital already accounts for 95% of Sony's revenue and asking what incentive remains to support the roughly 5% still tied to discs.

The trend runs past Sony. If physical releases survive, they look set to become code-in-a-box products like the discless physical version of Grand Theft Auto 6 that drew complaints last month. Reports point to the same setup for the next generation: the PlayStation 6 and Xbox's Project Helix are both said to be launching without disc drives, with insiders placing the PlayStation 6 in autumn 2027. The disc decision also lands as Sony narrows access elsewhere, having confirmed it will stop bringing its single-player titles on PC. I don't expect Sony to reverse course, and its recent statements read like a company that has already priced in the outrage. It also drew mockery from outside gaming, with the UK Domino's account joking about switching to digital pizza and KFC piling on in the same spirit.

Read also, Hideo Kojima's horror project OD is safe from Microsoft's planned Xbox restructuring, IGN has confirmed, even as reports suggest several other studios could close. Kojima has said he wants OD as scary as possible, with motion capture underway and a cast that includes Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and the late Udo Kier, who was 3D-scanned before his death in November 2025.