In brief
- Sony says it will stop producing physical discs for new games in 2028, and argues that digital downloads do not equate to ownership.
- Shawn Layden, a former PlayStation executive, says that Sony has taken a “significant brand hit” as a result of this decision.
- He added that the move impacts the “most faithful” gamers and that it was likely driven by spreadsheet projections.
Shawn Layden, a former PlayStation executive, has questioned Sony’s plan to stop producing physical discs for its game consoles as of 2028. The gaming vet called it a “heavily spreadsheeted decision” and said the move has damaged the company’s reputation.
Gamers have slammed Sony’s decision to kill discs since the July announcement, with a physical gaming advocacy group calling for an organized boycott and a “Don’t Kill the Disc” petition gaining over 385,000 signatures. Still, Sony appears unshaken and has given no sign it’ll change course.
“It changes the conversation from: do you own a game to do you have access to a digital asset?” If you can’t sell a thing, that means you don’t own a thing. If you don’t own it, what are you buying? If you’re buying access, that doesn’t sound quite as sexy,” Layden told The Expansion Pass podcast. “And, as people tend to do, they’ll game out the worst-case scenario.”
It comes just months after Sony argued in a California court that no reasonable consumer believes they own the digital games they buy in the PlayStation Store, per court filings Game File reviewed.
The argument is in response to a proposed class action lawsuit, which alleges the store’s purchase buttons imply ownership rather than a revocable license. Sony claims that its PlayStation Terms of Service and the Software Product License Agreement state the user doesn’t own the product, and that the user should understand that as a fact.
Layden, who worked as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America from 2014 to 2018, claims that as a result of this stance, Sony has taken a “significant brand hit.” He also said the decision was likely driven by spreadsheet projections showing Sony could contain costs and maximize profits.
The former PlayStation exec stressed that while potentially only 20% of gamers still purchase physical discs—due to the ease of digital downloads—that portion of the community is often the “most faithful.”
“[They are] the people who buy two copies of every game. One never gets out of the shrink wrap, and you play the other one. It’s just like comic book collectors,” Layden said. “We are an acquisitive collecting sort of people, and we like to show off our stuff. Look at my stuff! So, for those reasons, I don’t agree with that decision.”
The crypto crowd has once again taken this as an opportunity to pitch NFTs as the solution to gamers’ problems. NFTs give holders a verifiable record of ownership, which advocates claim would prevent companies like Sony from revoking access to games.
However, NFTs still rely on public metadata and centrally hosted files, so users still depend on third parties to access what they technically own. To solve this, metadata would need to be encrypted, and content hosted on fully decentralized infrastructure—which isn’t the case for many NFTs.
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