Sony earlier this month announced plans to end physical game disc production for all new games released on PlayStation consoles beginning January 2028. The consumer electronics giant has already started the transition.
According to an ORF Salzburg report spotted by The Verge, Sony’s disc plant outside of Salzburg, Austria currently makes 600,000 discs every day. But that figure will soon drop significantly. Dietmar Tanzer, head of Sony’s Digital Audio Disc Corporation, said PlayStation discs account for 50% of the plant’s daily volume. He estimated that disc production in 2028 will be at about 10% of where it is today.
The good news is that the 300 workers at the plant won’t be laid off once the PlayStation discs stop rolling off the line. Instead, the facility is transitioning to manufacturing optical microlenses, and it’s already invested 30 million Euros in the equipment needed to produce them. As the report points out, some employees have switched over from disc production, and Sony plans to retrain staff “on a large scale” before launching mass production of optical microlenses as early as 2027.
The bad news is that PlayStation users will no longer have a physical copy of purchased games, a change that’s sparked outrage in the gaming community. Canadian retailer PNP Games started an online petition urging Sony to change its mind, and nearly 300,000 have already signed on in support.
PNP CEO Jade Pearce told IGN that Sony killing PlayStation discs could have far-reaching negative effects beyond just angering gamers.
“Physical games support an entire industry that an all-digital future quietly erases: retailers, distributors, manufacturers, warehousing and logistics, the pre-owned and trade-in market, and the collector and preservation community,” she said.
Sony justified the decision by noting that the “general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” but promised to “prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that’s at retailers or online.”
