PlayStation confirms new games will be digital-only from 2028
Key Points
- Physical disc production ends for all new PlayStation games from January 2028.
- New releases will be available digitally only, via the PlayStation Store and at retailers.
- Existing discs, and any disc games shipping before January 2028, keep their physical versions.
PlayStation will stop producing physical discs for all new games from January 2028, moving new releases to digital-only at retailers and on the PlayStation Store.
Sony Interactive Entertainment confirmed the change in a post on the PlayStation Blog, where Sid Shuman, Senior Director of content communications at the company, said the decision reflects a consumer shift away from physical media.
New games released from January 2028 will be sold in digital format only, whether bought online or in-store. Games already released, or releasing in disc format before that date, are unaffected.
Per the announcement:
- Physical disc production ends for all new PlayStation games from January 2028.
- New releases will be available digitally only, via the PlayStation Store and at retailers.
- Existing discs, and any disc games shipping before January 2028, keep their physical versions.
Shuman framed the move as an alignment with how most players already buy games. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today,” he said.
He added that Sony would continue to offer buyers a choice of where to purchase new games, at retailers or through the PlayStation Store.
The shift follows a steep, sustained collapse in physical sales. Digital downloads accounted for 85% of full-game sales on PS5 and PS4 in the quarter to March 2026, according to Sony’s FY2025 Q4 results published on 8 May 2026, with physical copies making up just 15%.
It is the highest digital ratio Sony has recorded. A decade earlier, digital represented 19% of PlayStation software sales.
The full-year picture is similar, with digital averaging 78% across FY2025, up two percentage points year on year, against a PS5 install base of 93.7 million units and 125 million monthly active users.
The decline extends well beyond PlayStation. Spending on new physical games in the US fell 11% in 2025 to $1.5 billion, the lowest figure since records began in 1995, according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, marking a seventeenth straight year of decline from a 2008 peak of $11.6 billion.
