PlayStation Finally Responds To All-Digital Backlash

Published Jul 31, 2026, 10:28 AM EDT Lee D’Amato is a writer born, raised, and based in Queens, New York. With collective thousands of hours in games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Elden Ring, and The Legend of Zelda, he's now writes game features, guides, and reviews for Screen Rant, but has covered a wide range of topics, including ancient history, affordable travel, and overall health. Representatives for Sony have finally responded publicly to the growing backlash surrounding PlayStation's digital-only future. Earlier this month, PlayStation announced that it was putting an end to disc production in 2028, citing growing digitalization and player preference for digital games. Unsurprisingly, this caused widespread backlash, with physical game collectors expressing concerns over ownership. Sony has largely remained silent on the controversy since, taking a brief social media hiatus and then resuming promotional posts as usual. Now, though, Sony CFO Lin Tao has addressed the company's discless future during its Q1 2026 earnings call, affirming that, controversy aside, Sony is still forging ahead. "We're going to cautiously move this forward," said Tao through an interpreter. "There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that digitalization of content overall has been progressing ... not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content." "We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion," Tao continued. So there you have it: explicit confirmation that PlayStation is putting an end to disc production. Tao didn't go into specifics about what Sony considered in coming to this decision, but she's likely referring to the same trends in digitalization and digital game purchases the company cited in its initial announcement. Some fans have still rejected this argument, though. With the PS3 and Vita stores now in the early phases of sunsetting, fans have expressed concerns that, once Sony stops supporting the PS5 or even 6 marketplaces, their digital-only games for those consoles could disappear for good. As for the backlash, Tao said, "People have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forward those views to us. Games are loved by many people ... and they're connected to people’s fond memories in many cases, and so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that, and in the future digital ecosystem, 'How do we engage the gamers?' is something that we would like to continue to explore." In other words, Sony has heard the controversy and decided to move forward with its plans anyway. In an X (formerly Twitter) thread discussing the announcement, many remained strong, claiming that they would boycott future digital-only games and Sony consoles. "No disc, no buy" has become a common refrain. It's unclear just how big a proportion of PlayStation's player base is on the boycott bandwagon, or how many of them will stay on it once new games and hardware start coming out. Sony likely accounted for some measure of this; if the trend towards digitalization is really as strong as they say, then a few physical media holdouts shouldn't make too much of a difference in their bottom line. We'll have to wait and see how it all plays out for PlayStation. Brand Sony Original Release Date November 19, 2020 Original MSRP (USD) $399.99 (Digital Only), $499.99 (Disc Drive) Weight Digital Edition now weighs 3.4 kg & base version weighs 3.9 kg