Goodbye to PlayStation Discs

Goodbye to PlayStation Discs?

Sony just announced something that made me stop scrolling for a minute.

Starting January 2028, new PlayStation games will not come on discs anymore. From that date, every new game will only be a download, from the PlayStation Store or as a code you buy at a shop.

I get why. Digital is cheaper and easier for Sony. But I have a PS5 Disc Edition sitting right next to me as I write this, so I'm not going to pretend this doesn't matter to me.

What buying a game used to feel like!

Think back to buying a game as a kid or teenager.

You go to the store. Maybe a mall, maybe a small shop with games behind the glass counter. You pick up the box before you've even decided to buy it. You read the back cover again, even though you've already read it three times online. You've wanted this game for weeks.

The ride home feels long. You're holding the box the whole way, like it might get taken from you.

At home, you rip off the plastic. The case clicks open. You pop the disc in, hear that little whirr, watch the loading screen. Then you're playing.

A download is not the same. You click a button, watch a progress bar, and the game just shows up. It's fast. It works. But nothing happened. There's no unwrapping, no smell of new plastic, no moment where the game becomes yours.

My shelf still has old PS3 cases next to newer PS5 boxes. Some are scratched up, some have soft, worn labels from being played a hundred times. Each one has a small story behind it.

The games stuck right in the middle of this

A couple of games happen to land right on this line.

Marvel's Wolverine is coming out this fall and will still get a disc. It's one of the last big games you'll be able to actually hold before this rule kicks in.

Grand Theft Auto VI, probably the biggest game launch in years, already skipped discs. It's digital only, or a "code in a box" if you want something physical on your shelf. A lot of people think this game is what pushed Sony to finally make this call.

So the last disc era and the first digital-only era are basically happening at the same time.

Discs were never just about playing the game

They also meant:

• Lending games to friends. You'd give your disc to a friend for the weekend. That's how a lot of us found our favorite games.

• A shelf you were proud of. Rows of cases lined up, each one from a different summer or school year.

• Selling or trading games once you were done with them, or picking up something cheap and used.

• Owning something that just works. A disc doesn't care if a server goes down or a store shuts off one day. It just sits there, ready.

• Standing in front of the shelf deciding what to play. Picking one up, putting it back, picking another. Scrolling a digital menu is not the same feeling at all.

Why Sony is doing this

It's not really a mystery. Most people already buy games digitally. Downloads are cheaper to make and ship than discs. Sony is just following where most players already went.

Some discs already barely hold anything anyway, just enough to start a bigger download. So in a way, discs were already fading out before this announcement. This just makes it official.

What stays the same

Anything already released on disc, or coming out before January 2028, is fine. Your old games still work. Your PS5 still plays them. This only affects new games going forward.

A small goodbye

It might sound silly to feel sentimental about a piece of plastic. But that plastic was part of birthdays, midnight launches, trading games at school, fighting with a sibling over whose turn it was to pick the game.

My PS5 will probably be the last console I own that has a disc slot. That's a strange thing to sit with.

We're not really losing the games. We're losing a small routine that made getting a new game feel like an event.

Tonight I might just put in an old disc, just because I still can.