Petition for Sony to Maintain Physical PlayStation Games Reaches Over 100,000 Signatures

It's only been four days since Sony made the bombshell announcement that they plan to no longer produce physical discs for their PlayStation consoles starting in January 2028, but the world is still reeling from the shocking development.

Millions of gamers, not just PlayStation fans, have decried this announcement, seeing it as a major step towards the downfall of the gaming industry and media preservation overall as Sony dives headfirst into becoming a digital-only gaming outlet in an attempt to "adapt to consumer trends".

While buying games digitally has become increasingly popular over the years, especially after several game discs were produced acting as mere digital download keys, several gamers have taken it upon themselves to try and convince Sony to reverse their decision with one change.org petition already reaching over 100,000 signatures since Sony's announcement.

Don't Kill the Disc's Growing Support

On July 1st, shortly after Sony released the PlayStation.blog press release "Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles", Jade Pearce, CEO of the Canadian game store, PNP Games Inc. created the change.org petition "Don't Kill the Disc: Tell Sony to Keep Physical PlayStation Games".

The petition argues that the loss of PlayStation physical media would not only strip players' ownership of games but result in the loss of thousands of jobs and the closure of hundreds of businesses, as physical game production supports retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and warehouses on top of the pre-owned and trade-in market.

While it's not explicitly stated in Sony's press release, it's suggested that the decision to stop producing discs is at least in part a cost-saving choice, as Sony would no longer have to pay retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and warehouses a percentage of game sales for digital games.

The petition aims to have physical games remain an option for gamers and businesses who still want to own, collect, gift, or resell physical games and not be restricted to simply purchasing a license for a digital game that can be revoked or deleted at anytime in the future, with Pearce writing, "If we don't speak up now, the disc disappears, and the choice goes with it."

Within 48 hours of the petition's creation, it had already received over 40,000 signatures from across the globe, and now, four days later, the petition has gained over 100,000 signatures with more signatures being added every minute.

Universally, Sony's decision to cease physical disc production for games has been met with outrage and comical critique from gamers, developers, publishers, and businesses alike, with seemingly the only party in support of this decision being Sony's investors, as their stock increased by 3.2% on the Tokyo Exchange and 2.9% in US shares the day of the announcement.

Even industry giants like Hideo Kojima are opposing Sony's decision, stating at the Il Cinema in Piazza film festival, "The fact that the initial data is not in my possession but is somewhere held by a private company means that I will always have that risk for any reason, whether commercial or political, the company could prevent access to that data, and therefore I will no longer be able to see that film, I will no longer be able to play that game."

However, despite this outcry, Sony has already begun moving forward in ceasing disc production, with a Thagau, Austria-based Sony disc plant being repurposed to create optical microlenses instead.

Many PlayStation 5 discs produced today don't even have entire games on them if they carry game data at all, with many games' discs such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League having no data on the disc, having no offline play function, and requiring the internet to begin a download of the game once the disc is inserted.

This is largely due to how large modern games are, but other leaders in the game industry, such as Nintendo, are still producing physical game media with entire games available on cartridges such as the entirety of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle being available on their Nintendo Switch 2 physical game cards.

Sony could potentially innovate with physical game media as it did with the discs of the PlayStation 1, and make new, upgraded forms of physical games, but with rumors of both the PlayStation 6 and Xbox's Project Helix consoles being largely digital-oriented, it's likely that Sony will continue its direction of digitally streaming games even if people continue to protest.