Video Games Are Not Discs: The End of Physical PlayStation Games Is Not the End of Video Games
Sony has confirmed that the production of physical discs for new PlayStation games will end in January 2028. After that date, new titles will be released only in digital format, either through the PlayStation Store or through retailers offering digital versions. Sony has clarified that games already released, or games scheduled to receive a disc version before January 2028, will not be affected by this transition. (blog.fr.playstation.com)
Naturally, this announcement has sparked strong reactions. For many players, physical media still represents a form of freedom: the ability to buy, lend, resell, preserve, and collect. The disc, the cartridge, the box, the manual, the object sitting on a shelf — all of this is part of the emotional history of video games. It is therefore perfectly understandable that the gradual disappearance of physical media feels like a loss.
But perhaps we should avoid turning this discussion into a simplistic opposition between “good” physical games and “bad” digital games. Digital distribution covers many very different realities today. There is the big business of closed platforms, where what we buy is sometimes less a game than a revocable right of access, tied to an account, a server, a store, and terms of service that nobody really reads. But there is also the digital world of small developers, games made in someone’s spare time, experimental prototypes, creations distributed for free or through pay-what-you-want models. Itch.io, for example, defines itself as an open marketplace for independent creators, with a strong focus on indie games. (itch.io)
This is where the debate becomes more interesting. Digital distribution is not only a tool for major platforms. It is also what allows a solo developer to release a game without going through a publisher, without manufacturing boxes, without negotiating shelf space in a store. It is what allows games for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Mega Drive, Game Boy, PC, browsers, or mobile devices to keep existing today — sometimes for free, sometimes for a few euros, sometimes simply out of passion. Digital distribution is therefore both the dream of total control for major corporations and the greatest distribution tool ever given to modest creators.
That is why we need to separate two things: the disappearance of physical media and the dispossession of the player. They are not exactly the same problem. A digital game can be properly distributed, without absurd restrictions, downloadable, archivable, playable offline, and preserved on a hard drive. And a physical game can be almost useless without a mandatory update, an active server, or a launch-day patch. The disc is no longer always the game. Sometimes it has become a trigger, an installation key, an incomplete fragment of a product that will continue to change for months or even years.
That is one of the paradoxes of our time. Many players defend physical media in the name of preservation, and they are not wrong. But at the same time, part of modern video game production has made physical media technically obsolete. Games are constantly patched, corrected after release, expanded, modified, sometimes transformed beyond recognition a few years later. A disc containing a broken, incomplete, or server-dependent version 1.0 does not have the same value as a complete cartridge from the 1990s. The medium still exists, but it no longer always guarantees the integrity of the work.
Conversely, digital distribution creates a huge problem of dependency. Sony has also announced the gradual closure of the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita, with a worldwide shutdown planned for July 2027 for both systems, although previously purchased content is supposed to remain downloadable “for the foreseeable future.” (blog.fr.playstation.com) That phrase says everything. “For the foreseeable future” does not mean “forever.” When a game depends on a store, an account, and a commercial infrastructure, it depends on the lifespan that the company is willing to grant it.
The issue of preservation therefore cannot be brushed aside. In 2023, the Video Game History Foundation estimated that 87% of classic games released in the United States were “critically endangered,” meaning unavailable through the regular commercial market. (gamehistory.org) That figure should make everyone pause. The market alone does not preserve video games properly. Publishers re-release what is profitable, forget the rest, sometimes lose rights, shut down services, and abandon entire catalogues. Physical media never saved everything, but a closed all-digital future risks increasing our dependence on the goodwill of platforms even further.
There is also the issue of the second-hand market. Once again, we need to be honest. Yes, physical media allowed games to be resold, lent, and circulated. It created a parallel economy that was very healthy for players. But today, the retro market and part of the physical market have also been damaged by speculation. Games that were once ordinary have become investment objects. The box, the cover, the shrink wrap, the manual, the PEGI or non-PEGI variant sometimes matter more than the game itself. Video game materialism has created a strange situation: some people are defending less the right to play than the right to own an object whose value keeps rising.
That was not exactly the spirit of the 1980s and 1990s. On home computers, we copied floppy disks with disconcerting ease. We exchanged games at school, between cousins, between friends. It was not legal, of course, but in the concrete experience of the player, the game was the program. If the copy worked, it was “the same game.” Nobody was asking whether the box was complete, whether the serial number matched, whether the cover insert had a crease, or whether the age-rating logo belonged to the right version. The center of gravity was the game itself, not its packaging.
Today, part of video game culture has reversed that relationship. We talk about heritage, but often think in terms of collecting. We talk about games, but look at market prices. We talk about preservation, but sometimes seal objects inside plastic cases. Collectors should not be dismissed: they have saved a huge amount of material that the industry would have forgotten. But we must also recognize that the love of physical media can become a love of rare objects, almost independent from the pleasure of playing.
That is why Sony’s announcement does not affect me as much as perhaps it should. It matters, of course, because PlayStation remains a major player. Sony says it had sold more than 93 million PS5 consoles as of March 31, 2026, which gives a clear idea of the brand’s weight. (sonyinteractive.com) But Sony is only one actor among many in video games. A very powerful one, yes, but not video games as a whole.
And that may be the essential point: in 2026, video games are everywhere. They are on PC, mobile, browsers, modern consoles, old machines, FPGA systems, emulators, homebrew cartridges, recreated floppy disks, itch.io, Steam, GOG, forums, game jams, GitHub. There are free games, two-euro games, experimental games, gigantic RPGs, ASCII roguelikes, shoot ’em ups for machines that have been dead for thirty years, rough little visual novels, game jam prototypes more sincere than productions costing 200 million dollars.
Sony can therefore make whatever decision it wants for its own ecosystem. It will be a loss for players attached to PlayStation and physical media, but it will not be the end of video games. It will mostly be a clarification. Major platforms want to control distribution, access, stores, accounts, updates, subscriptions, data, and margins. Fine. But video games are not limited to that.
A game, before it is a box, a disc, a cover, or a line in a digital library, is first and foremost code. It is an idea made playable. It is a system of rules, a feeling, a rhythm, a world, sometimes just a few pixels that are enough to create an adventure. The medium matters, of course. The conditions of access matter even more. But we should not confuse the gradual death of an industrial format with the death of an art form or a practice.
The real fight, then, is not simply to save the disc. The real fight is to defend the right to play, preserve, archive, transmit, and circulate works. That can involve physical media, DRM-free digital distribution, archives, serious re-releases, homebrew scenes, emulation, communities, and independent developers. The medium is only a means. The freedom of the player should remain the central issue.
So no, the end of discs on PlayStation does not make me want to mourn a lost golden age. It makes me want to look elsewhere. Toward independent creators. Toward old machines that refuse to die. Toward open platforms. Toward games that exist because someone, somewhere, wanted to make them. Video games have never fully belonged to Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo. And that may be the best news in this whole story.