It's officially over.

[bikingjahuty]

I find it humorous that Sony continues to hide from social media. They're hoping this will blow over....but it won't.

As far as I'm concerned, Sony has dropped an absolute nuke on their goodwill from a consumer perspective. At this point, I won't be touching PS6 at all. Before, I wasn't all that hyped because I don't think the current position of modern gaming is in a good spot and was planning to wait a couple years to buy PS6... but now? Unless there are serious changes made (doubtful), I won't be touching PS6 at all.

It doesn't matter how Sony responds (I expect on Monday). If they walk back the end of physical... great. I'm going to still wait a couple years for PS6 at minimum. If they walk back only for the PS5 gen on physical and have PS6 be all digital... fine... I'll finish up the PS5 gen and then go back to retro games. If they double down... fine... I'll finish up the PS5 gen but buy fewer games.

I'm planning to buy a PS3 slim again before the end of the year. That'll be my "next gen".

Even if Sony does a complete 180 and says they aren't actually going to discontinue physical media support on the PS5 (I'm halfway expecting them too considering how much fallout has followed their announcement), I'm done with Playstation as a brand. I'm never going to buy any first party titles from any Sony studios ever again and I'm sure as hell never dropping any money on a new Sony console again. As for the PS6, it's already DOA in my mind. Sony can go fuck themselves after this. I'm through supporting them.


If they do stay the course and actually go through with this, a friend of mine has decided he's going to jailbreak his PS5 and pirate every game he has interest in. He has this firmly held belief that is buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing. If they want to play dirty, two can play at that game...according to him of course.

[sworddude]

piracy is gonna make people money in this all digital future.

it's gonna be like ds era or 3rd world countries for ps3 and ps4 with their jailbroken consoles which they already have done for decades.

Normal people be paying a couple $ to add games on em if where talking it going to on a more mass scale aside from just the ones that do it themselves.

this move gonna backfire really hard when your biggest money makers are gonna join that piracy train.

I'll say this considering how ez it is to pirate pc games this ain't gonna end well for consoles when it's all digital. and communities will make it easier when more people are doing it

I will definitely not be spending any money in this all digital future, that's for sure.

[Cartagia]

I find it humorous that Sony continues to hide from social media. They're hoping this will blow over....but it won't.

As far as I'm concerned, Sony has dropped an absolute nuke on their goodwill from a consumer perspective. At this point, I won't be touching PS6 at all. Before, I wasn't all that hyped because I don't think the current position of modern gaming is in a good spot and was planning to wait a couple years to buy PS6... but now? Unless there are serious changes made (doubtful), I won't be touching PS6 at all.

It doesn't matter how Sony responds (I expect on Monday). If they walk back the end of physical... great. I'm going to still wait a couple years for PS6 at minimum. If they walk back only for the PS5 gen on physical and have PS6 be all digital... fine... I'll finish up the PS5 gen and then go back to retro games. If they double down... fine... I'll finish up the PS5 gen but buy fewer games.

I'm planning to buy a PS3 slim again before the end of the year. That'll be my "next gen".

Even if Sony does a complete 180 and says they aren't actually going to discontinue physical media support on the PS5 (I'm halfway expecting them too considering how much fallout has followed their announcement), I'm done with Playstation as a brand. I'm never going to buy any first party titles from any Sony studios ever again and I'm sure as hell never dropping any money on a new Sony console again. As for the PS6, it's already DOA in my mind. Sony can go fuck themselves after this. I'm through supporting them.


If they do stay the course and actually go through with this, a friend of mine has decided he's going to jailbreak his PS5 and pirate every game he has interest in. He has this firmly held belief that is buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing. If they want to play dirty, two can play at that game...according to him of course.

Yup.  It was the beginning of the end for Xbox after the XB1 fiasco, and this might be the same for PlayStation.  They just won't realize it is what killed them until 5-10 years down the line.

[kamikazekeeg]

Yup.  It was the beginning of the end for Xbox after the XB1 fiasco, and this might be the same for PlayStation.  They just won't realize it is what killed them until 5-10 years down the line.

It's wild to think that back then, Sony was the big winner and all they had to do was make that short video about how they'll deal with used games compared to what Xbox was planning.  Looked up that video again, it was 13 years ago now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA

[weirdfeline]

I wish Epic would jump in on the console space. I don't care if they do physical media or not, I'd rather support them over Sony.

How would Epic entering the hardware market in this scenario be any different than what PlayStation has announced? Consumers would still be locked to one digital ecosystem with the possibility of game licenses being revoked.

The market will eventually correct itself, and I think there will be many people who begin seriously considering shifting from console to PC at that time. Beyond the hurdle that some may face in the transition process, the benefits and possibilities offered vastly outweigh whatever fixed digital-only console platform exists.

I would rather support them over Sony.

[dhaabi]

It goes without saying, but it can't be overstated how vocal the backlash is. Dedicated PlayStation players are livid, including ones who've been supporters since the very beginning for over thirty years. This outrage not only extends across console players but all players across the gaming community, and rightfully so.

I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but companies don't take actions with the best interest of their consumer audience anymore. It's been like that for some time now and obviously has worsened these past few years, but I think this is the catalyst toward getting the average gaming consumer to finally realize that.

Even if Sony does a complete 180 and says they aren't actually going to discontinue physical media support on the PS5 (I'm halfway expecting them too considering how much fallout has followed their announcement), I'm done with Playstation as a brand.

There's absolutely no reason to believe Sony even if they were to announce that they're backtracking. Corporations lie all the time. We all know what Sony wants, and they'll just push for an all-digital ecosystem again in time whether it be 2028 or beyond. If this announcement does somehow end up being delayed or even reversed, this sort of widespread resistance will eventually be needed once more. And unfortunately, it will continue to be that way until Sony finally is able to get what they want, but then it will be too late because it's almost certain they'll never return to physical production once it's finally been halted. All it takes is one failure on the consumers' end, and the physical market will dissipate.

[sworddude]

It goes without saying, but it can't be overstated how vocal the backlash is. Dedicated PlayStation players are livid, including ones who've been supporters since the very beginning for over thirty years. This outrage not only extends across console players but all players across the gaming community, and rightfully so.

I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but companies don't take actions with the best interest of their consumer audience anymore. It's been like that for some time now and obviously has worsened these past few years, but I think this is the catalyst toward getting the average gaming consumer to finally realize that.

Even if Sony does a complete 180 and says they aren't actually going to discontinue physical media support on the PS5 (I'm halfway expecting them too considering how much fallout has followed their announcement), I'm done with Playstation as a brand.

There's absolutely no reason to believe Sony even if they were to announce that they're backtracking. Corporations lie all the time. We all know what Sony wants, and they'll just push for an all-digital ecosystem again in time whether it be 2028 or beyond. If this announcement does somehow end up being delayed or even reversed, this sort of widespread resistance will eventually be needed once more. And unfortunately, it will continue to be that way until Sony finally is able to get what they want, but then it will be too late because it's almost certain they'll never return to physical production once it's finally been halted. All it takes is one failure on the consumers' end, and the physical market will dissipate.

even if they actually did, they gonna try again in a year or two. It's like with those ps3 vita stores you just bought a few years.

[weirdfeline]

The thing about 85% of sales being digital is blatantly misleading. AAA games sold on physical day one are about 50/50 physical and digital.

[telekill]

The thing about 85% of sales being digital is blatantly misleading. AAA games sold on physical day one are about 50/50 physical and digital.

It's insanely skewed in favor of digital. They add in everything, not just game sales but DLC purchases and I've even heard they count PS+ downloads. It's not anywhere near 85% in reality.

[dhaabi]

The thing about 85% of sales being digital is blatantly misleading.

What's most obvious is that multitudes of more games are only ever released digitally than physically, so it's unsurprising that sales trends skew toward the former.

It's insanely skewed in favor of digital. They add in everything, not just game sales but DLC purchases and I've even heard they count PS+ downloads.

Even if it's a popular rumor being spread, what you're repeating is incorrect. I haven't been able to find a breakdown analysis that compares physical units sold to digital units sold (which may not even exist publicly) (edit: it does, see below), but I did find something else that supports Sony's claims. Based on Sony's financial report for Q4 2025 that ended on March 31, 2026, sales earnings data does indeed report those kinds of findings. In fact, Q4 sales indicate that 125.10 billion yen was earned from physical sales. Meanwhile during that same time, 1.05 trillion yen was earned from digital sales. When you compare those two figures, physical sales earnings only equate to 10.5% total sales earnings. At the same time, I'll also mention that add-on content sales alone earned 1.34 trillion yen during that same time. And to clarify, below is how each of those three categories are defined in the document, which can be read at the bottom of page 12.

Physical Software is revenue from first party game software for PlayStation® consoles sold on discs to retailers, royalties from third party software sold on discs and revenue from first and third party game software sold bundled with PlayStation® consoles and PlayStation®VR.
Digital Software is revenue from full game downloads of both first and third party titles sold via the PlayStation™Store.
Add-on Content is revenue from digital content other than full games sold via the PlayStation™ Store, such as in-game currency, in-game items and expansion packages.

So in this report, DLC purchases are not included in the estimates for digital sales as they're instead comprised in a separate third category. Redeemed PlayStation Plus offerings seem to be absent from this report, though that's to be expected since earnings from PlayStation Plus partnerships vary from title to title and yield no direct sales earnings.

Edit: I'm not sure why I didn't bother to read the following chart also on page 12 that actually does provide a comparison between physical and digital sales. First, it's important to note that footnote 11 reads "[f]ull game software digital download ratio is calculated by dividing PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®5 full game software units sold via digital transactions by total full game software units," and it's supplemental information to the report that 85% of all full game sales during Q4 2025 were digital. With that understanding, the report informs readers that 74.6 million units of total games were sold across both physical and digital sales, which means that of that total figure, approximately 63.4 million units sold were digital whereas approximately 11.1 million units sold only were physical.

But as I first mentioned above, far more game titles are available digitally than they are physically. So it's somewhat of a dishonest report, but to what degree I don't know. Obviously, what would be best is to directly compare all sales data for individual games that are available both digitally and physically.

[sworddude]

I've also heard simular things about the big games have very sizable physical sales. like ofcourse for smaller indi games and lower price tags people will get a game digitally for the small shit which adds up

[dhaabi]

I've also heard simular things about the big games have very sizable physical sales. like ofcourse for smaller indi games and lower price tags people will get a game digitally for the small shit which adds up

That assumption can't be made based on the data I provided in my previous post. In short:

Physical game sales during Q4 2025 comprised of 15% total sales yet only earned 10.5% total sales earnings.
Digital game sales during that same time comprised of 85% total sales yet earned 89.5% total sales earnings.

So by those figures, consumers are actually buying digital games at a higher price point than they are for physical games since the total sales earnings for digital games is actually higher than total sales. I'm sure that game edition bundles from major AAA studios like Ubisoft set at prices above the standard retail dollar amount help inflate these numbers, similarly to the to-be-released Ultimate Edition of Grand Theft Auto VI.

[telekill]

Even if it's a popular rumor being spread, what you're repeating is incorrect.

I appreciate you digging in and looking for that information, but I don't trust the vast majority of reports coming from companies or governments. We've been lied too so many times for so long, that I just assume what they post is a lie. I have no trust in any of our institutions. Even if the data is accurate, I assume it's a lie. People in positions of power...any kind of power... are not to be trusted.

[sworddude]

I've also heard simular things about the big games have very sizable physical sales. like ofcourse for smaller indi games and lower price tags people will get a game digitally for the small shit which adds up

That assumption can't be made based on the data I provided in my previous post. In short:

Physical game sales during Q4 2025 comprised of 15% total sales yet only earned 10.5% total sales earnings.
Digital game sales during that same time comprised of 85% total sales yet earned 89.5% total sales earnings.

So by those figures, consumers are actually buying digital games at a higher price point than they are for physical games since the total sales earnings for digital games is actually higher than total sales. I'm sure that game edition bundles from major AAA studios like Ubisoft set at prices above the standard retail dollar amount help inflate these numbers, similarly to the to-be-released Ultimate Edition of Grand Theft Auto VI.

according to some insomniac sales leaks physical sales beat digital ones





total sales includes everything including small shit but how much profit is left when you split it with all those games. also for most of those games it's probably too low value to go physical aside from some hardcore folks. and it's split among many ip's and ownerships it's not a big money maker for sony at the end of the day. obviously digital sales can be inflated if you include everything.  also digital sales can inflate when stuff is out of stock aswell since you got nowhere to go.

with big value titles allot of people buy physical cause it's too expensive, no massive discounts and you can sell trade it later on. most digital purchases are probably lower values I'd argue while physical is more big money per game

also they did wrong math to skew it hard in digital's favor aside from counting all the 1 2$ digital games which no shit those not getting a physical release if we are tlaking the very misleading 85% number.

the big money is in the big games, and the big games have more physical sales than digital

i'd imagine while nintendo's physical numbers still being high with general reports those high 40 - 50% digital sales also being very skewed with trash.

[dhaabi]

Even if it's a popular rumor being spread, what you're repeating is incorrect.

I appreciate you digging in and looking for that information, but I don't trust the vast majority of reports coming from companies

These sorts of financial reports are to inform investors and industry leaders what is and what isn't yielding a profit, so doctored data only hurts those efforts. It's highly doubtful that these individuals care what specifically is earning money, so long as money as is being earned. So in that regard, they do want the reports to be detailed and organized both correctly and efficiently. If these reports were falsified, it would indicate that the actions they're publicly taking now go directly against what you believe to be the truth and what actually would yield greater profits. Why would they do that? If physical disc production ultimately earned them favorable profits, there is no reason why Sony would have made the announcement that they're ending it.

Unless you can provide evidence that these reports are falsified, there is no merit to your position. Repeating myself a second time, it's an objective fact that more full game products are available digitally than they are physically, so sales data will reflect that alone. Even if we were to base our findings on simple observations without objective data, it's easy to identify the general sales trend that people are more likely to complete a sale using a digital marketplace than a physical one. With the allure of being able to install game data before a game releases, the convenience of being able to purchase something in that moment without having to wait for the item to arrive or to take the efforts to visit a store location, and the simple fact that many people in this modern era do not prioritize or even prefer a physical media collection, there is plenty of evidence to observe without conducting research. It goes without saying, but anyone who's visited a big box retail store years before and again today will have noticed the diminished focus of the presence of physical games.