While there have been many from inside and outside the gaming industry criticizing Sony for its decision to end the production of PlayStation discs in January 2028, one analyst believes that these efforts won’t ultimately amount to any change in the company’s plans. Speaking to IGN, Kantan Games CEO Dr. Serkan Toto has said that Sony is simply waiting for the backlash to pass it by.
Dr. Toto noted that player protests don’t really matter much, since even half a million PlayStation Plus subscribers cancelling their subscriptions will amount to little more than a drop in the ocean for the company.
“I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision,” said Dr. Toto. “They, of course, knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass.”
“Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users. Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let’s say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just 1% of that business gone — of course not enough to Sony to start rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.”
Niko Partners director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad also believes that a full reversal of Sony’s current course is unlikely. However, he does expect the company to address the backlash in some form.
“For what it’s worth, I do think Sony will respond in some capacity given the backlash (and, to be honest, they shouldn’t have announced this until they were ready to disclose how discs would work on PS6), but I’d be surprised if they do a full reversal at this point,” wrote Ahmad in a social media post.
These statements come thanks to the fact that physical game discs tend to have extra costs attached to them that Sony has to pay out. Since it won’t have to pay retailers 30 percent of a game’s price tag for a physical release, the company has been encouraged by modern consumer habits to rely more on digital-only releases in the future. Dr. Toto has noted that Sony has been suffering from slim profit margins on its PlayStation products, which might be alleviated by going fully digital.
“Their current profit margin has been too weak for years now, so they feel like they must act,” Dr. Toto continued. “From an economic perspective, digital sales just make too much sense, especially for platform holders.”
Sony announced that it was going to end the production of PlayStation discs earlier this month. The company said that it was “a natural direction” for PlayStation thanks to consumer trends indicating a preference for digital media over physical discs. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.”
Interestingly, the decision also gives us hints about Sony’s next-gen console, which might end up skipping a disc drive entirely in order to save costs. However, the company is also likely to offer an add-on disc drive for players who want to access their older games.
