It’s been an entire month of wall-to-wall backlash since Sony announced it would stop making PlayStation discs in 2028. Nearly every social media post from PlayStation has been filled with negative comments, petitions have started to emerge, and countless articles have been written. Now, for the first time since that announcement, Sony has officially commented — but don’t get your hopes up for anything changing.
During a Q&A session following its Q1 2026 earnings report, Sony CFO Lin Tao commented on the ongoing situation, as reported by Kotaku — saying via an interpreter,
““We announced that from January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs, so [we announced it] one and a half years ahead,”“We announced that from January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs, so [we announced it] one and a half years ahead,”
She continued,
“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that digitalisation of contents overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalisation is progressing. And so, when we think about the future, 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.”
This decision, of course, has proven wildly unpopular. Even a handful of game creators and developers have come out in support of physical media. Sega president Shuju Utsumi said the company still values the culture of physical media, but a “digital shift” is crucial. And Final Fantasy 7: Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi said he’s working to ensure a physical release of the game, but can’t promise anything.
But the backlash seemingly hasn’t been enough to sway Sony from its current course.
“To this decision we have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forward those views to us. Games are loved by many people, it’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases, and so we understand those emotions,” Tao explains, “We want to consider that, and in the future digital ecosystem ‘how do we engage the gamers’ is something that we would like to continue to explore.”
At the moment, all physical disc production for PlayStation games is planned to stop as of January 2028.
