Just earlier this week, Sony announced it will completely stop producing physical game discs for PlayStation starting in January 2028, officially moving toward a fully digital distribution era—and the news immediately sparked strong backlash and controversy among gamers. However, according to Austrian media reports, this decision was likely planned several years in advance, with production factories having already completed their transition preparations. What’s more, investors appear to have a completely different reaction to this decision compared to gamers.
After the announcement, Sony also tried to divert attention with a joke post promoting Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, but players clearly weren’t buying it and continued to demand the company make a statement. They even started petitions on various platforms, hoping Sony would change its mind. However, it seems this possibility is quite slim.
30 days 🕷️👀
— Sony (@Sony) July 1, 2026
According to Austrian media ORF Salzburg, Sony’s production facility in Thalgau, located in the state of Salzburg, Austria, had actually learned about the upcoming cessation of PlayStation disc production quite some time ago and had already begun making comprehensive preparations for this several years ago. The report states that the facility can produce 600,000 discs per year for Sony, which accounts for 50% of their total production capacity. However, after this new policy officially takes effect in 2028, discs will only make up approximately 10% of the facility’s total production output.
Currently, the Talgao factory has approximately 300 employees, and they all learned of this news last Wednesday. According to Sony DADC CEO Dietmar Tanzer, this change will not result in layoffs at the factory. However, given that disc production capacity is set to plummet by 90%, the outside world remains skeptical, as it would likely be difficult to maintain the existing workforce given such a massive business reduction.
More notably, the report further confirms that these changes were actually gradually planned years ago, with approximately 30 million euros invested in the塔尔高 factory to introduce brand new optical microlens manufacturing technology, while also beginning to redistribute the work scope of production line employees and planning to provide large-scale retraining programs.
Even if this is just one of many factories under Sony, it still seems to demonstrate the company’s resolve on this change—meaning they’re almost certainly not going to hit the brakes due to backlash from players or retailers. And considering Microsoft’s Xbox consoles might also follow suit with this decision in the next-generation “Project Helix,” it suggests that gaming consoles are about to fully embrace the digital era starting from the next generation.
On the other hand, although this decision has sparked intense backlash and protests among gamers and retail channels, as of now, investors in the gaming market seem to have given a very positive response.
According to Investing, Sony’s stock price rose approximately 3.2% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after the news was officially announced, reaching 3,354 yen. Despite the relatively weak performance of the broader market recently, Sony’s stock continued to climb against the trend, suggesting that investors are generally optimistic about the company’s future digital strategy.
In official statements, Sony has repeatedly emphasized that PlayStation’s full digitalization is a “natural progression” following market trends, and highlighted that the proportion of players purchasing digital games has already far surpassed physical copies in recent years. Moreover, the sales success of the disc-less digital PS5 console has also likely been one of the significant factors contributing to this decision.
After this news went public, many players immediately thought of the recently announced Grand Theft Auto VI. Before pre-orders opened, Rockstar Games officially confirmed that the “physical version” of the game for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S would not include a game disc, and would only provide a download code card.
At the time, many players speculated this was to cut costs while also avoiding leaks or premature releases of the game. However, according to recent reports, before Sony announced its full digitalization-related decisions, they had likely held multiple negotiations with Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive, so that this major title players had waited over a decade for could also be planned in advance.
Given that Sony already offered a digital-only version when launching the PS5 in 2020, and the enhanced PS5 Pro was released exclusively as a disc-less model with an optional external disc drive, this change may have been a long time coming. According to Ampere Analysis analyst Piers Harding-Rolls, this latest decision seems to confirm that the next-generation PS6 will also not include a disc drive.
Additionally, Harding-Rolls noted that ceasing physical game production could not only help Sony reduce hardware costs, but also bring significant benefits to third-party game publishers. Previously, when launching new titles, publishers had to bear costs for disc production, packaging, logistics, and platform licensing, before ultimately shipping products to retail channels for sale. As a result, they often had to shoulder substantial inventory and sales risks. If they fully transitioned to digital distribution, they could alleviate this cost pressure while improving game sales profitability.
Source: KOCPC Chinese