Sony refuses to back down from killing physical media despite massive backlash; I hope Xbox doesn’t follow their example, even though it’s likely it will

Developer July 31, 2026No Comments

After weeks of backlash and ridicule from gamers, fast-food companies, game designers like Hideo Kojima, and even a politician, Sony has finally made an official response to all criticism launched at the company for its decision to end physical game disc production for PlayStation consoles from 2028 onwards.

This response comes from Sony’s first-quarter financial report for 2026, where during a Q&A session, Sony’s Chief Financial Officer, Lin Tao, was asked about this controversial decision via a live interpreter who pointed out Sony had already announced its plan to end game discs a year and a half in advance.

Sony responds to the backlash over ending PlayStation discs. “We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward…” pic.twitter.com/qRKkEX6TN3July 31, 2026

Lin Tao answered with, and I quote from the translated interpreter (as saved via an X post by @ethangach), “There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing; that’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content; digitalization is progressing.”

Windows Central’s take

A character in a yellow and black costume lies on the ground, surrounded by flames, with a serious expression against a dark background. — I’m just as tired as Wolverine here is regarding these corporations destroying physical media. (Image credit: Sony)

So, the bottom line is that Sony decided to kill physical media for games because it simply wasn’t profitable for them anymore, without any care for people crying out for better digital ownership rights or how unviably pricey their products are becoming.

I mean, if Sony really cared about people’s feelings regarding media, it wouldn’t have delisted over 500 movies from people’s accounts without giving them refunds or making it harder to get into anime by jacking the price of Crunchyroll subscriptions.

Now, Microsoft could take advantage of this situation by announcing that it will continue to support physical media for its future Xbox consoles.

However, I highly doubt that, considering that Microsoft is reportedly planning to convert game discs into digital copies through its secret ‘Positron’ project, hinting that the Xbox Helix will also drop physical media too.

Either way, between Sony’s abandonment of physical media, Microsoft blocking people’s hacked accounts without backing up their data, and realizing that modern Xbox game discs can’t function if Xbox Live goes down, my faith in digital media has been dropped to an all-time low.

I don’t care if the vast majority of the gaming audience buys games digitally; if there’s no way to physically preserve games or at least have digital copies not be beholden to online subscription services or Digital Rights Management licenses, we will have wasted our time and money on glorified digital paperweights that we don’t even own.