Disgruntled gamers used PlayStation‘s Phantom Blade Zero showcase yesterday (August 18) as an opportunity to criticise the brand’s unpopular plan to cease producing physical discs.
As @thegamersjoint documented on X, the showcase’s live chat was inundated with messages saying “discs forever”, “we want our discs” and, most frequently of all, “no disc no buy”.
Another irate gamer wrote pointedly: “Bring back the discs you basterds (sic).”
playstation have the chat enabled for the phantom blade zero live showcase and oh my fucking god bro, they actually don’t care pic.twitter.com/NeISEoLHZE
— Cynical (@thegamersjoint) August 18, 2026
In July of this year, PlayStation announced that it will stop producing physical games from January 2028. “This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.
“This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today,” they explained in a short blog post. One report has claimed that just seven PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US this year.
However, the announcement has received a wide-spread backlash ever since. Hideo Kojima called it a “scary” and “frightening” decision, especially after Sony deleted hundreds of movies from PlayStation 5 libraries over an expired rights license. One petition asking Sony not to “kill the disc” has more than 368,00 signatures and other fans are organising a week-long economic boycott of Playstation to protest the decision.
Gamers try out ‘Astro Bot’ at the Sony PlayStation 5 exhibition in 2024. CREDIT: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
The boycott’s organisers state: “We are calling on PlayStation players to participate in an economic blackout from August 23 at 7pm local time, through to August 30. Players can participate by turning off their consoles or logging out for seven days. We feel this period gives publishers and developers minimal impact while giving players a voice.”
Despite the widespread and ongoing backlash to its phasing out of physical games, PlayStation has doubled down on the controversial decision.
Sony’s chief financial officer Lin Tao said at the end of July: “There are various reasons we made this decision. The biggest being that the digitalisation of content overall has been progressing. We put in a lot of thought. We cautiously considered [scrapping physical discs] and we have received various opinions [about it]. People have strong views. Games are loved by many people and so we understand those emotions,[but] we’re going to cautiously move forward.”
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