In early July, Sony announced that it would cease production of game discs for PlayStation consoles. Some players began to criticize the company's decision.
The Digital Foundry team conducted a poll on their YouTube channel: “Sony has announced that it will stop releasing physical copies of PlayStation games from 2028 – should it reconsider its decision?”; ultimately, after 54 thousand votes, over 85% voted for the option “Yes, physical copies are still important.”
However, gaming industry analyst from Bernstein, Robin Zhu, noted that players' words do not match their actions. According to him, physical copies were actually poorly bought – Sony managers received data on low disc sales, which prompted them to decide to stop further disc releases:
If gamers and game preservation advocates bought more physical copies, Sony would not have seen the digital sales ratios that justify this decision.
Robin Zhu explained that it is more profitable for Sony to sell digital versions of games:
Selling digital versions of games actually provides almost 100% additional margin… the cost of physical media, delivery, and retailer markups can exceed 20% of the retail price
Analyst Serkan Toto said that they thought “they could [abandon discs] when PlayStation 6 comes out,” but Sony did it during the PS5's lifecycle. He expects Microsoft “to do exactly the same in the next generation.”