Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles

GIBURROWS · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:30

Have steam ever taken away access to anything?

MissChief · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:30

LiE said:
Picture this. All PC games can only be bought via Steam. No CD keys, no GOG or Epic store. With no competition and a complete monopoly on PC games sales, do you think Steam needs to put games on sale? New games, £80 please, because you can’t get it elsewhere.

This is where Sony is heading with the removal of physical media. For example, 007 First Light is available at many retailers for £48.99, I paid £45. From Sony store, it’s £59.99.

But digital is supposed to save the consumer money?

jonnylaris · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:30

LiE said:
Picture this. All PC games can only be bought via Steam. No CD keys, no GOG or Epic store. With no competition and a complete monopoly on PC games sales, do you think Steam needs to put games on sale? New games, £80 please, because you can’t get it elsewhere.

This is where Sony is heading with the removal of physical media. For example, 007 First Light is available at many retailers for £48.99, I paid £45. From Sony store, it’s £59.99.

You can buy xbox and ps5 game keys from those websites too..

Alexrose1uk · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:38

The difference is Sony absolutely regulates and controls codes (and pricing) that are distributed to those sites.
Steam by contrast allows developers to generate codes to distribute to elsewhere etc.

It's not the same thing at all.

LiE · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:44

jonnylaris said:
You can buy xbox and ps5 game keys from those websites too..

Can you find me 007 on PS5 code, that isn’t creating a new PSN account in China.

jonnylaris · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:49

LiE said:
Can you find me 007 on PS5 code, that isn’t creating a new PSN account in China.

Well you can't get everything..

LiE said:
Picture this. All PC games can only be bought via Steam. No CD keys, no GOG or Epic store. With no competition and a complete monopoly on PC games sales, do you think Steam needs to put games on sale? New games, £80 please, because you can’t get it elsewhere.

This is where Sony is heading with the removal of physical media. For example, 007 First Light is available at many retailers for £48.99, I paid £45. From Sony store, it’s £59.99.

You mean like it is currently with discs?

xaldub · 7 Jul 2026 at 14:21

GIBURROWS said:
Have steam ever taken away access to anything?

No. They removed some "adult" titles, but consumers can still download those games if they previously purchased them. Same story with delisted titles eg. Forza Horizon 4.

GIBURROWS · 7 Jul 2026 at 15:37

xaldub said:
No. They removed some "adult" titles, but consumers can still download those games if they previously purchased them. Same story with delisted titles eg. Forza Horizon 4.

Steam could win without playing here, shame they buggered up so much with the steam machine.

xaldub · 7 Jul 2026 at 16:48

GIBURROWS said:
Steam could win without playing here, shame they buggered up so much with the steam machine.

Once / if the AI bubble bursts, I could see them having a third crack at producing an affordable Steam Machine. But both Xbox and Playstation could be toiling by then and there may not be a need for Valve to do anything to gain more market share.

LiE · 7 Jul 2026 at 16:51

Sony and Xbox are doing a fine job of self destructing as far as Valve are concerned.

GIBURROWS · 7 Jul 2026 at 16:58

xaldub said:
Once / if the AI bubble bursts, I could see them having a third crack at producing an affordable Steam Machine. But both Xbox and Playstation could be toiling by then and there may not be a need for Valve to do anything to gain more market share.

I can't see the AI bubble bursting because I think it's about military "defence"(which normally means attack) and government data harvesting and profiling.

Eddie99 · 8 Jul 2026 at 00:01

Timber said:
I just think Sony needs to acknowledge the massive mistake its just made and start repairing those relationships with its customers.

It's not going to happen, they invested $34m to repurpose their disc factory, digital is the future and there's no point delaying the inevitable when the reputational damage is already done.

LiE said:
Picture this. All PC games can only be bought via Steam. No CD keys, no GOG or Epic store. With no competition and a complete monopoly on PC games sales, do you think Steam needs to put games on sale? New games, £80 please, because you can’t get it elsewhere.

Sony won't have a monopoly because you can still buy games elsewhere on PC or Xbox.

GIBURROWS · 8 Jul 2026 at 00:06

Piracy is the future, Linux can already be put on the PS5.....

xaldub · 8 Jul 2026 at 00:40

Eddie99 said:
Sony won't have a monopoly because you can still buy games elsewhere on PC or Xbox.

EU and US legislators won't view it that way. PSN is a massive marketplace and with this move Sony will have complete control. Apple and Google have already lost lawsuits over similar scenarios, and in fact Sony are currently in the midst of one, being accused of price fixing.

Timber · 8 Jul 2026 at 00:48

Eddie99 said:
It's not going to happen, they invested $34m to repurpose their disc factory, digital is the future and there's no point delaying the inevitable when the reputational damage is already done.

No, albeit I do think Digital Foundry were on point when they compared this to the 2013 Xbox One reveal. A lot of brand damage has been done.

But it isn't just about the decision Sony made, but the way they went about delivering the message. A three paragraph blog post was not 'it'.

Eddie99 · 8 Jul 2026 at 01:07

xaldub said:
EU and US legislators won't view it that way. PSN is a massive marketplace and with this move Sony will have complete control. Apple and Google have already lost lawsuits over similar scenarios, and in fact Sony are currently in the midst of one, being accused of price fixing.

Retailers will still be able to sell games in a box with a digital code.

GIBURROWS · 8 Jul 2026 at 01:29

Eddie99 said:
Retailers will still be able to sell games in a box with a digital code.

Why would you bother?

Eddie99 · 8 Jul 2026 at 01:35

GIBURROWS said:
Why would you bother?

Retailers can set their own pricing so it may be cheaper than the PlayStation store, or it would be better as a gift with a box and some artwork. Sony won't have a monopoly on pricing so a lawsuit likely won't get very far.

malachi · 8 Jul 2026 at 05:15

GIBURROWS said:
Steam could win without playing here, shame they buggered up so much with the steam machine.

To be honest, Valve, MS or Sony or Nintendo cant avoiding that problem. No big hardware manufacture can right now. Its out of their hands with the AI bubble.

But Sony dropping physical media, they have 100% control over and has zero to do with the AI bubble.

Raymond Lin · 8 Jul 2026 at 09:02

I have a feeling the meeting went like this.

Person A "Our margins are being squeezed from everywhere, profits and down, we need to cut cost somewhere".
Person B "90% of our sales are digital anyway, let's stop making discs and stop paying for distributors and logistics and claim back the margins".
Person A "Great idea!"

I think this is how it basically went, the noise about PR, the noise about losing customers, the noise about game preservation, the noise about controlling game pricing and the noise about the secondary market are off shoots from an instant increase in profit from 1 move.

The suits at the top don't care about user experiences or your games ownership, and Sony has a track record of doing anti consumer practice as the dominant market leader. They had a great PS2 and thought they were the best forever so they thought they could get away with charging £600 for a console for the PS3. It's the same here, they are the market leader again in the console space so they are doing things for more profit. It's the same people doing the same thing.