At Least One PlayStation Game Is Trying To Avoid The Physical Disc Controversy

We’re a little over two weeks removed from Sony’s announcement that PlayStation discs will no longer be manufactured after 2028, and physical media fans are still taking any opportunity to yell at the company that they can, whether it be on social media, the official PlayStation Blog, or its YouTube channel. It’s gotten so bad that studios can’t so much as promote their games on a PlayStation platform without catching strays. But now, it looks like at least some of Sony’s might finally be making a move to try and quiet the noise: it’s turning off comments on some YouTube videos.

Instant Sports 2, a party game that is now available on PlayStation 5, might not look like anything out of the ordinary, but its trailer is the first of a line of YouTube videos PlayStation has released today that appears to be preemptively shutting down the comments section before folks can get in to air their physical disc-related grievances. As of this writing, PlayStation has put up several different trailers today, and each of them, whether it a big update to Fortnite or a smaller game like retro sports parody Pro Jank Footy, is being flooded with pro-disc comments. But now it seems like someone at Sony’s YouTube channel is just nipping it in the bud for one game, at least.

In the time since publish, another video for Infinity Nikki‘s next update has gone live and the comments are back on. So it might have been a preemptive attempt to avoid any Instant Sports 2-specific heat. What was the deciding factor here? Could the developers have made that request? Who wants that kind of smoke when you’re just trying to release your game?