Sony has rejected a wave of reports suggesting that PlayStation disc manufacturing is about to be cut by 90 percent after comments from a Sony DADC executive were allegedly misinterpreted. According to Game, which went directly to Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation (DADC) for clarity, production is actually expected to drop 10 percent in 2028, not 10 percent. “To clarify and avoid any misleading information: in that statement Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline of 10 percent, not a 10 percent decline,” a Sony DADC spokesperson told Game, referring to comments made by DADC chief Dietmar Tanzer to an Austrian broadcaster in July. The spokesperson did not say what will happen beyond 2028 and directed further questions about the new orders to PlayStation’s own PR team, which did not respond to Game’s queries. The confusion stems from PlayStation’s announcement in July that it will stop producing physical discs for new games from January 2028 onwards, although already released titles and games still scheduled for disc release before that date are not affected, and reorders will continue afterward. Unlike Microsoft, which certifies third-party “Authorized Replicators” to print Xbox discs under its publisher agreements, Sony keeps disc manufacturing in-house, running it through DADC rather than opening the process to outside plants. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad posited that cutting discs kills the resale market and drags spending directly to the PlayStation Store, where Sony’s margins are considerably better than at retail. Shawn Layden, former president of SIE Worldwide Studios, told Game that a disc-less future for PlayStation is “depressing, but fixable,” though he said he has “no insight into the details” of any potential licensing deal. He compared the situation to other physical media formats that survived predictions of their demise. “No one ever saw the return of the cassette tape. And vinyl didn’t come back as much. The flame went out, the fire went out, but the ember was always there, and it just came back. Just like the book business. We thought we’d all be on Kindles right now.” For Layden, collecting is essential to turning someone into a gamer. “Did you get all the diamonds in Crash Bandicoot? Did you get all the stars in Mario? And we like to collect our games. And we have a shelf of games. And we put all our boxes in there. And if you’re super hardcore, when you buy a game, you buy two copies, right? One stays in the shrink wrap and you play with the other. “You know, we bought the steelbook and the Final Fantasy three-disc set and the figure and, you know, you can’t download anything from that. What about that?” He argued that decisions like this are treated as pure financial calculations when they shouldn’t be. “Someone also has to have a ledger that says, ‘Okay, what’s the brand impact of that move?'” he said. “If we do that, the dollars and cents work. I understand. That’s just math. But what is the impact of the brand? Are people going to say, ‘Nice move, guys?’ Or are they going to say, ‘We hate you guys.’ Stop doing that.’ And sometimes they say, ‘We hate it.'” He added: “I see a lot of companies making decisions that, objectively speaking, I don’t know what the end result was for you, Mr. Company, but your brand value just dropped 30 percent. So I hope it was worth it.” On the broader move away from physical ownership, Layden was blunt. “What does ownership mean now? It’s a genuine question. Well, actually, it’s not even a question anymore. It’s like you’re changing the model from ownership to accessibility. “You’ve never been able to sell your iTunes library. And you can’t sell your PlayStation download library. So if you can’t resell it, do you really own it?” Boutique publisher iam8bit, known for its collector’s editions, told Game that it would “love to find a way to continue making physical PlayStation games.” One possible route floated in the article is Conectiv Supply Chain Solutions, a Memphis-based record maker formed in 2025 that recently acquired SDS, the home entertainment distributor for Universal and Warner Bros., although Game reported that it had not heard back from the company or its CEO at the time of publication. Earlier this week, messages like “NO DISC DO NOT BUY” and “WE WANT DESTINY 3” were spammed during State of Play, from start to finish, in the YouTube live chat. Appearing on Twitch, that stream was endlessly spammed with Destiny emotes and similar calls for physical support of the game. This outrage is a collision between two separate public relations disasters for Sony. The first is related to Sony’s announcement that physical support for games will no longer be supported starting in 2028, meaning that only digital codes will be available for games on its platform starting in January of that year. The second controversy arises from the end of major support for Destiny 2 and significant staff cuts at Bungie.
