Sony's digital-only future will hit 62% of the world the hardest, and nobody is talking about it

Published Sep 5, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Gaming has been Samarveer’s greatest passion, and the Literature graduate in him takes immense joy in dissecting games for their themes, messages, and impact. Samarveer holds a deep appreciation of gaming, and considers the platform to be the most immersive and impactful across all media. He can be found engaging with gaming communities online, always ready to debate the finer points of ray tracing or itching to write an 8-page collegiate thesis on any game that impacts him emotionally. Sony very recently (and controversially) announced that physical disc production will end in 2028, with future consoles from the company moving toward a digital-only model. As absurd as this decision is, it's made worse by the fact that there are currently 121 countries where PlayStation Network accounts aren't officially available, representing roughly 62% of the world. This is by no means some tiny footnote that Sony can afford to overlook, especially if the PS6 really does arrive without a disc drive. It may sound like an industry shift, but the underlying problem is incredibly... personal. And yet, the conversation around PlayStation's future rarely seems to ask what happens to the people living on the other side of that hole. That's what concerns me most, because I know exactly what it feels like to want a PlayStation game without having the same access everyone else takes for granted. PlayStation's digital future already has a massive flaw PSN has a hole that digital-only can't ignore Sony's biggest problem with going digital-only is not the technology. In a world where millions of PlayStation owners live in places where creating a legitimate PSN account isn't even an option, the possibility of a digital-only future is impossible not to dread. The Helldivers 2 mess in 2024 made this problem impossible to ignore, since Sony required a PSN account to buy the game on PC. As such, what should otherwise have been a straightforward game purchase became a geographical problem, since you can't just create a PSN account for a country that Sony doesn't support. The usual workaround involves using a valid country email address and a payment method, often through PayPal registered elsewhere. Sadly, that isn't a solution. It's a workaround, and workarounds have an unfortunate habit of disappearing when the company behind them decides they shouldn't exist. Sony's latest PlayStation Terms of Service state that users must provide accurate data, and failure to do so may result in account suspension. Sure, Sony could theoretically expand PSN support before an all-digital PS6 arrives. But if 121 countries haven't received official support after years of the PlayStation Network's existence, expecting all of them to suddenly appear on Sony's supported list by 2028 is, at best, wildly optimistic. There have been rumors that Sony is delaying its disc-less plans by a couple of years, but that won't make the fundamental problem disappear. Digital-only hardware makes PSN availability a prerequisite rather than a convenience. If Sony doesn't close that 121-country gap first, it will decide who can officially buy its games at all. The disc market is more important than Sony realizes What was nostalgia for us could become impossible for them For many of us, hunting down cheap games on disc is now nostalgic. We used to check local shops, ask friends, browse whatever second-hand pile existed nearby, and somehow scrape together enough money to take a game home. However, not everyone grew up this way, especially those with easy access to PSN, but for millions of players, physical games provided an escape hatch when digital access simply wasn't an option. In countries with no PSN support, that escape hatch matters more than ever. Kids, teenagers, and adults have still found ways to get PlayStations and games, even when Sony's official infrastructure didn't quite reach them. A used disc doesn't care what country your PSN account is registered to — if you can find the console and get your hands on the game's disc, you can play it. An all-digital PlayStation 6 changes that equation completely. Even players in supported countries lose something when a used copy costs substantially less than Sony's digital price. But for someone in an unsupported country, the consequences are far worse: they just may not be a physical game left to hunt down. A kid who once needed only enough money to find somebody's old copy would instead need a supported PSN account, a payment method that works, and whatever price Sony charges. What was once a scrappy second-hand market would become a locked digital storefront. And for children who relied on that market, access itself would become a privilege locked behind a geographical lottery wall. I know what these kids are about to lose I spent three years making discs work for me After I got my PS4, I spent the next three years hunting Facebook Marketplace and eBay for the best deals on used discs. I couldn't afford to casually buy every game I wanted, so I learned to wait — I had to. It took roughly three to four months of saving up my allowance to buy a new game, so I couldn't always risk buying and experimenting with any new game I came across. Some of the games I hunted down for weeks before I got the right deal in my budget were A Way Out and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It felt special to play those games and then sell them again for roughly what I paid. I took that money and turned it into games like Until Dawn or inFAMOUS Second Son. One game became another, and another. I wasn't spending money so much as recycling what little money I had as a high school senior. This entire system worked without PSN. I needed a console, patience to find someone selling a game, and then three months' allowance. Looking back, it feels almost absurdly simple. But the kid standing where I stood in 2030 could do everything I did and still hit a wall I never faced. Sony isn't being forced to build that wall, either. It can keep expanding PSN or keep discs alive. Making them disappear isn't inevitable — it's a business-driven choice, and choices can change. What happens when the console finally arrives? Imagine being that kid in 2030. You finally have the PlayStation you've spent months saving for, after it finally arrived in your country, and as it sits underneath the TV, you're staring at a machine capable of playing thousands of games you just can't buy. With no second-hand copies to hunt for, no friends selling theirs, and no cheap disc sitting in a shop waiting to be discovered, an empty game library and an inaccessible storefront are all you'd have to stare at. I can't pretend Sony owes me the childhood I had. But it should owe the next generation the opportunity to have one of their own. If a child can somehow save enough money to get the hardware, find a television to plug it into, and spend months dreaming about the games they'll play, what exactly is Sony supposed to tell them when they finally get there?