While fan protests have caused Sony to reverse course on many unpopular decisions over the years, PlayStation’s upcoming switch to all-digital games as of 2028 is not going to be undone, Sony has now made clear. In its latest earnings call , Sony addressed the backlash from fans head-on for the first time, and it isn’t budging. Past that, it is making it clear to investors this is not actually impacting its business.

Sony CFO Lin Tao took on the disc issue in a Q&A (transcribed via Kotaku ), saying:

“And so when we think about the future–and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this–and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us. Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s 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”

And on whether this has actually affected PlayStation’s bottom line:

“At this point in time, we are not seeing any impact on our business. But going forward, about the content sales, a large part is already digitized. And therefore, as a result of the discontinuation of discs, we don't see that there will be any negative impact on our business. However, as I already said, the users, the players have attachments, and we have to think about how to respond to that feedback.”

One offered “solution” being worked on with retailers is the idea that physical game boxes will still be offered at retail stores, but will simply come with digital codes inside. That’s already happening with some third-party games, namely how the upcoming giant GTA 6 will be distributed by Take-Two: no physical discs.

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There is no reason to think this will placate upset fans, as it solves the issue for people who only care about having a literal game box to put on a shelf, but not much past that. The entire idea here is that it removes consumer choice and any sense of true ownership of games if they are moved entirely online. Game preservation also becomes far harder as well. This is simply not a move that benefits consumers at all, only Sony, which will be able to save on production and distribution costs except for uh, physical game boxes, it seems, passing none of that on to players as gaming grows more and more expensive.

It has been clear for a while now that this was too major a change to be reversed, despite the fact that it may be the most unpopular decision PlayStation has made in its history. As PlayStation notes, 82% of its games are now sold digitally, and it is reasonable to assume a large percentage of the remaining 18% are not going to abandon the platform entirely or refuse to buy any games going forward, despite what some may be saying online. Not that it won’t happen with some, but it does track that the anger over this will probably not impact Sony’s business significantly, if at all.

And it’s not as if jumping ship from PlayStation solves the issue. As said, more third-party games may start doing this, led by the biggest video game there is, GTA 6 . And even if Microsoft is looking for a way to differentiate its next-gen console from PlayStation to grab more players, it is a reach to guess that it will keep discs for another full generation. That has not been addressed by Microsoft as of yet, however, which is facing a whole host of challenges with greater priority.

PlayStation is not changing its mind here, and this is almost certainly where the entire industry is headed. There is no question that this does not benefit consumers in any way, but they are not in the position to have a choice pretty soon if they want to remain gamers at all.

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