Sony has just announced on their PlayStation blog that they will stop the production of game discs starting January 2028. This effectively means a shift away from physical media to one that fully relies on downloading content from the PlayStation online store.
Although not technically confirmed, this announcement would strongly indicate that the PlayStation 6 will do away with its optical drive altogether as previously speculated. Of course, physical media has long since been on the ropes, particularly when it comes to gaming. Valve’s recently released Steam Machine doesn’t feature an optical drive, and for that matter, neither does the average gaming PC these days. But it’s still disappointing to see in many ways.
Although digital downloads have their advantages, a major problem here is that due to Digital Rights Management (DRM) you only ever get a license to lease a game. This means losing the ability to lend or borrow a game, and will likely mark the end of second hand sales. With narrow exceptions such as Good Old Games (GoG) and its DRM-free installers that you can e.g. burn onto a CD or copy to a USB drive as a static instance of the software, this shift by Sony effectively ends game ownership for PlayStation owners.
don’t worry, boomers! soon enough there will be a HaD article about someone putting games on vinyl
It’s a good opportunity to boycott the PS6 and Sony products in general.
They’ve been long enough in business, anyway.
That just after closing PS3 and PSVita online services (so you cannot download purchased digital games for those anymore) and removing hundreds of movies from the store (so you cannot watch any of those anymore even if you purchased them).
Like they say, “if buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing”.