Sony Discs Fade Out Like Apple's Computer Drives

Sony announced dropping disc-based game releases starting in January 2028, and analyst Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners argues the shift was always coming. In a post on X/Twitter, the Niko Partners director of research and insights compared it to Apple pulling CD drives from its laptops in 2008. Complaints ran high then, he said, and nobody makes them now.

Ahmad framed the change as inevitable for consoles. If not the PS6, then the PS7. Full-game digital sales have climbed from under 10 percent before the PS4 to about 80 percent on PlayStation today, and over 90 percent on Xbox, a figure that surprised him. Microsoft did not act first. Those numbers count digital-only games but leave out DLC, microtransactions, and subscriptions, so the real digital tilt runs deeper.

He backed the point with the current state of the PS5. Around half the userbase subscribes to PS Plus and has built up digital libraries. Sony earns more from add-on content and in-game purchases than from physical and digital full-game sales combined. Half of the most-played PS5 games in May, including Fortnite, GTA V, and Call of Duty, do not ship on disc at all. More than 30 percent of PS5s sold lack a disc drive, and the sell-through rate on digital-only units now runs above 50 percent.

Ahmad separated the market trend from Sony's own push. He called it a platform-led move to raise revenue per user, not only a response to demand. On a $70 third-party game sold digitally through PSN, Sony keeps $21, roughly double what it makes on the same sale at retail. Physical revenue now accounts for just 5 percent of Sony's total game software sales, even though discs make up a larger share of units. Around 70 million PS5 discs sold last year, near 20 percent of unit sales, down from 120 million in the console's launch year.

The second driver is the PS6 launch window. Ahmad expects consoles to cross $1,000 as memory costs climb, which pushes Sony toward a smaller, higher-spending audience rather than a $199 mass-market device. He put the company's stance in blunt terms.

"We already have a device that can play discs, and it's called the PS5."

— Daniel Ahmad, paraphrasing Don Mattrick

The third driver is control. Physical games can be resold, gifted, or refunded, and digital games carry none of those rights by default. Ending discs shuts out the used market and keeps every sale inside a closed, high-margin ecosystem, the same logic behind Sony's retreat from PC ports.

The backlash has substance behind it. A petition against Sony dropping discs on Change.org has passed 270,000 signatures, started by Jade Pearce of Canadian retailer PnP Games, and campaigns under #BoycottSony and "No Disc, No Buy" keep spreading. Former PlayStation CEO Shawn Layden said Sony weighed dropping discs during his tenure, with digital already at 95 percent of revenue.

Regulators offer little. An EU commissioner says there is scant legal ground to stop the phase-out: consumer protection commissioner Michael McGrath called distribution a matter of commercial and contractual freedom, days after the European Commission declined the Stop Killing Games push for preservation rules in favor of a voluntary code of conduct. Ahmad lands on the same ground the petitioners do, arguing the real conversation is consumer rights, gifting, family sharing, and refunds, not discs alone. Nintendo, for its part, still backs physical on Switch 2, even through game-key cards, and prices digital versions $10 cheaper.

Setting the analysis aside, this reads to me like the floppy disk all over again, an organic retreat from the medium rather than a betrayal of it. There is a version of this I actually like: from 2028 on, discs turn into retro objects, and each passing year makes collecting and hunting them a more rewarding hobby. The part worth fighting is narrower. Buying a game becomes buying a license to play, not a copy you hold, and I think that is the genuinely bad turn, one we will drift into so gradually that we stop owning anything digital and only rent access without noticing the line we crossed.

What I would want is an exception for the people who still care: publishers and developers free to press their own disc runs, or to ship games on dedicated memory cards boxed in place of a disc. Ahmad hinted at something adjacent, saying Sony could keep physical alive for a few more years through a limited-run model or at a higher price than the digital version, and that used physical games help overall affordability even on a $1,000 console. Neither of us expects Sony to build that door.

Ahmad also called Sony's rollout a mistake. He doubts the company will reverse course but expects it to clarify points it should have addressed up front. A disc-to-digital program or a confirmed PS6 disc add-on, he argued, would have softened the backlash. Xbox is reportedly testing its own way to digitize physical collections.

Read also, Valve will stop producing physical Steam gift cards, phasing them out as retail stock runs down through the end of 2026. Valve tied the decision to fraud, since scammers lean on prepaid codes that are hard to trace once shared. Digital Steam wallet codes and online gift cards will remain, and the cards will stay on shelves until the existing supply sells through.