UK Retail Bashes PlayStation for Killing Discs: “Triumph of Corporate Convenience Over Consumer Choice”
Recently, PlayStation made the announcement that they were no longer going to produce physical discs for games released in 2028. And obviously, that received a lot of hate from consumers. Even retailers are getting behind customers, with a UK retailer bashing PlayStation for killing off discs, saying it’s taking away consumer choice.
It’s not just a lot of online hate and pushback; a petition has even been made to ask Sony to reconsider their decision, and at the time of writing, it’s reached 303,034 signatures.
And now, it’s been reported that the UK’s Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) has called Sony’s decision a “triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice.”
ERA posted a statement online on July 2, saying that “PlayStation’s announcement that major games will no longer be available on disc is a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice.”
“Every year, millions of gamers still choose to buy physical copies because they value true ownership. A disc can be shared with family, traded in, collected, preserved, and, crucially, still played years from now. A download licence often offers none of those freedoms.”
“ERA consumer data shows that 25% of under 25’s use discs for gaming and the total disc-based games market was valued at over £300 million ($401) in 2025, demonstrating that there remains a substantial and committed audience for boxed games.”
The group represents all the major game retailers in the UK, which include Amazon, GAME, and others, according to IGN, and apparently, 45% of all physical games sold in the UK last year were for PS4 and PS5. This means a large loss of profit for PlayStation, even though its reasoning behind discontinuing physical media in 2028 is to save costs.
Not only is this a real loss for PlayStation, but this will also hurt other retailers, as the post continues: “Retailers see this demand every day. Physical games continue to bring people into shops and give consumers real value through gifting, collecting, and resale.”
“The industry should be embracing every legitimate way consumers want to buy games, not narrowing their choices. Digital distribution has transformed gaming and is hugely popular, but it should complement physical formats, not replace them.”
This isn’t the first retailer to have spoken up about the transition to digital media. When Rockstar announced that Grand Theft Auto 6’s physical pre-order would not include a disc, but instead just a code, retailers, including VGP and Loot Box Gaming, slammed the decision to not include physical media.
Digital media is definitely convenient, but completely transitioning towards it would be a mistake. Hopefully, with this much pushback, Sony can change their decision.
