Sony is ending PlayStation game discs: Here's when

Sony is putting an end date on the PlayStation disc. Starting January 2028, the company will stop producing physical discs for any new game released on its consoles, shifting all new titles to digital formats exclusively, whether purchased through the PlayStation Store or at retail.

In his PlayStation Blog entry from Wednesday, Sid Shuman, Sony's senior director of content communications, clarified the news, stating that it was just "a natural progression" prompted by the current trend of consumers preferring digital delivery over physical media. No games that were already out or would come out prior to January 2028 would see any changes made, retaining their disc form.

While Sony claims that they plan to continue offering their games via physical stores, this is probably going to be accomplished by selling boxed codes rather than physical discs, much like what Take-Two promised to do with Grand Theft Auto VI retail copies.

The company emphasised that their decision was not about removing the retail sales option but about giving customers more freedom of purchase.

With Sony’s timeline ensuring that there will be no new disc-based releases coming out after January 2028, many believe that it is an indirect message regarding the release of the next PlayStation generation.

According to Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, it “pretty much guarantees” that a PS6 will not be released until 2028 and also raises more questions about whether it would have a disc drive or not.

This development also brings up the concerns of the game preservation advocates once again because digital purchases are not ownership but merely licenses, which was confirmed by Sony in their statement saying that "digital buyers are purchasing a personal license for non-commercial use."

Sony’s discontinuation of Concord from digital stores just weeks after its release in 2024 is often used to show how such limitations apply to users.