An analyst has weighed in on Sony’s decision to stop selling games on physical discs from 2028, and they’ve come to a well-founded conclusion that is bound to upset millions of global fans.
The news that physical discs are becoming a thing of the past has caused outrage online. Plenty of people have cancelled their PlayStation Plus subscriptions in protest, and hundreds of thousands have even signed a “Don’t Kill The Disc‘ online petition.
According to the analyst, however, the likelihood is that this movement is a wasted effort.
Sony Is Waiting ‘For This Storm To Pass’
Speaking with IGN, Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese games industry consultancy Kantan Games, shared his thoughts on the ongoing backlash, arguing that Sony is extremely unlikely to reverse its stance on physical media.
While Toto says he sympathises with fans who prefer physical games, he believes “Sony will not reverse this decision,” regardless of online protests or PlayStation Plus cancellations. Although he isn’t involved in Sony’s decision-making, he argues the company’s financial incentives make a U-turn highly improbable.
Sony currently has more than 120 million active PlayStation users, with around 50 million PlayStation Plus subscribers. Even if 500,000 players cancelled their subscriptions in protest—a significant figure by any measure—that would still represent just 1% of Sony’s active player base.
According to Toto, that level of backlash simply wouldn’t outweigh the financial benefits of pushing players towards digital purchases, which remain far more profitable than physical sales.
In a report published in 2020, Toto broke down the economics behind physical and digital game sales. While the exact figures fluctuate and aren’t publicly disclosed by Sony, he estimated the company keeps around 65% of the revenue from first-party physical game sales after retailer cuts of roughly 30%. Digital purchases, by comparison, allow Sony to retain virtually all of the revenue.
The same trend extends to third-party releases. Sony is estimated to take around a 30% cut from digital sales, roughly double the fees associated with physical copies.
Taken together, Toto believes the financial upside of steering players towards the PlayStation Store far outweighs the losses Sony could face from subscription cancellations, even if those cancellations were to reach several hundred thousand or even approach a million users.
It’s a damning revelation, and one we might not want to hear, but sadly, it’s the truth of the matter.
What is your take on the matter? Are you still going to try and protest the change? Share your thoughts in the official Insider Gaming Discord Server.
For more Insider Gaming content, read about Marvel Rivals’ Season 9 Roadmap, and be sure to sign up for our free Weekly Newsletter.
Charlie is one of Insider Gaming's Guides Writers who's been in the gaming industry for a little over a year. Unfortunately for him, he enjoys every video game genre out…
More from Charlie Champion
Exactly they aren’t walking it back. These morons refuse to see common sense even worse they enabled this the PS Plus price increases, PS5 Pro increase, PS5 Pro no disc drive, game price increases, and now GTA 6 paywalling and digital only. They deserve this. They won’t even boycott they are still playing PS5, buying PS5 games and DLC, and will support Sony shows, music, and movies like The Boys and Spider-Man. Over 100 million PS5’s sold, over 39 million GTA 6 preorders, what is that to over 150k signatures on a petition with most of them not even boycotting? People like MBG he better not buy PS6 or Wolverine or any PS content that includes third party but they’re too busy hating on Nintendo. You want physical buy Orbitals on Switch 2.