PlayStation Discs Die, Digital Monopoly Begins

Sony has already decided you don't get to keep what you buy.

By January 2028, PlayStation will stop manufacturing physical discs for new games—the moment a company openly chose to eliminate the consumer's exit route, the ability to sell a used copy, lend it to a friend, or play it on a machine of your own years later when the corporation's servers shut down.

Cody Spencer runs Pink Gorilla Games, a small retail chain. When asked what this means, he didn't hedge: "It's sad to see.

But the real story isn't what happens to retailers. It's what happened to the music industry twenty years ago. In the early 2000s, the record labels faced a choice identical to Sony's—physical CDs were under attack from file-sharing.

Gaming is following the same arc. Digital games cost $70 each—the same price as a physical disc that could be resold, traded, or lent, when a used copy might cost $40.