This morning Sony decided to keep up with the Joneses over at Xbox and announce a double whammy of bad news—the PS3 and Vita PSN stores are shutting down for real this time and there will be no more physical games produced for PlayStation consoles starting in January 2028. Here's Sid Shuman on the PlayStation Blog:

After nearly two decades of supporting the PS3 console generation, we wanted to let you know we will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita...

...As a result, we will need to close PlayStation Store on these devices in the timeframes as follows:

  • Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting August 2026.
  • Additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries – PlayStation Store on PS3 will close starting late 2026.
  • In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.

We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming. PS3 and PS Vita represent an important era in our PlayStation history, so this was not an easy decision for us to make.

And a separate post about physical games:

As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028.  Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.  

This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.

Like a friend said to me, awfully big balls over there at Sony to announce no more physical games alongside the announcement of digital storefront closures.

This is a major blow to folks like myself, still buying and playing new physical games. The collector in me is gutted by the reality that my shelves will be potentially lined with PlayStation 6 boxes that are empty shells—if there are even PS6 boxes to buy. Besides my selfish preferences, this is detrimental to boutique publishers, mom & pop shops, preservation, access, and consumer costs.

Stephen Totilo at Game File seems to have been the only outlet briefed of the news before announcement. He had a free article go live upon announcement.

Sony has been reporting to investors in recent years that PlayStation games have been increasingly purchased as downloads, not as discs. The most recent figuresshow nearly four in five purchases of full games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 were purchased digitally in the past year.

It's hard to ignore an eighty percent figure like that. The writing has been on the wall, right? The fate of disc-based games has had The Cloud™ looming over it since the PS4 and Xbox One generation. Although, at the time, you wouldn't think that PlayStation would be the first to announce its final days.

As the current generation began, signs increased with the likes of digital-only versions of the PS5 and the Xbox Series S. Let's not forget Xbox's rumored "adorably all digital" Series X redesign back in 2023. Nowadays, we have disc-drive add-ons for the PS5 and Grand Theft Auto VI being digital only.

The end of physical games has come much sooner than I anticipated. I figured the PS6 would be a final generation, while companies figure out messaging for breaking backward compatibility. It's worse than I feared though. Back to Totilo, emphasis added:

New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won’t be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced.

The move applies to all PlayStation games released from that point on, including those made by Sony and those released by third parties.

This is a killing blow to any boutique publisher that prints a disc. The likes of Limited Run Games, Lost in Cult, iam8bit, and many more now have a clock for striking deals and making physical PlayStation games.1 I suspect Xbox isn't far behind and Nintendo will remain the last player in the space for now. Physical indie games will vanish. Mom and pop game shops, which I am quite fortunate to live near quite a few, now have a cut off for new games and future console generations. These new games will never enter the used market impact the retro scene in a major way.

You might think, "Well, this is what happened to movies, television, music, and books years ago. Games are just behind the times." The key difference is physical media for all of those is still produced, manufactured, and sold by many different companies while also being accessible on a wide variety of devices. Companies can license new physical copies of films, often alongside restorations or simple re-prints. It seems like every musician releases their albums on not just vinyl records, but cassette tapes and CD too as collector's editions. The film and music exist in physical space grooves and pips on an object you can hold and appreciate and use with no need for internet or services or subscriptions. For instance a new favorite film of mine, The Dirties, is not available anywhere on streaming. The original print was some 100~ physical copies. Last year, Umbrella was able to produce a Blu-Ray run. It has since sold out, but there's a copy sitting in my cabinet and I can watch it whenever, despite it being unavailable for so long.

If the PlayStation 6 does not have any means to read a mythical PS6 disc, that market can never come to fruition, no matter how far down the line. There can never be a Criterion Collection equivalent business for masterpieces that are yet to come.

Last year, I praised Nintendo's approach to game codes in a box with the Game-Key Card.

I'm sorry, but Game-Key Cards are genius, both pro-consumer and pro-business as we inch toward an all-digital future. A major trend over the last generation was physical boxes in stores, but with a piece of paper and a code inside to download the game. Once the code is used, the game is tied to the redeemer's account. No way to sell or share—one and done. The Game-Key card is a solution to this problem. Pop the cartridge in your console and you will be able to download the game. Then you just have to insert the card whenever you want to play. Done with the game and want to sell it? Go for it. Want a friend to borrow the game? Hand it over! This gives value back to the consumer who purchases a "physical" version of a digital game.

I saw people immediately assume this was all Switch games. Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition is going to be all on the cartridge. If CD Projekt is putting that monster of a game all on the cart, I think we will be fine. As someone with a massive physical collection, am I thrilled at the idea of fewer games really and truly being physical? No. But I am thrilled to see a physical, reusable solution to the code on a piece of paper that publishers have been using since the PS3 and 360. This is a compromise I am more than willing to accept.

I stand by that. In the face of an all-digital future, at least the Game-Key card gives a semblance of ownership back to the consumer. Digital games offer no way to lend or resell a title. It's an all or nothing approach. And when the manufacturer controls the storefront, the prices may not drop as the market has come to expect. Dustin Furman points this out by sharing images of prices of physical Sony games compared to their digital counterparts. You don't even need to guess which copy Sony wants you to buy. For those adverse to Twitter and for posterity, here's a table of the examples shown.

GamePhysicalDigital
Astro Bot$39.00$59.99
God of War Ragnarök$32.75$69.99
Gran Turismo 7$38.99$69.99
The Last of Us Part I$34.38$69.99

This isn't to say that digital games never go on sale (they definitely do), but Sony dictates the amount and when. It's a very Nintendo approach and I understand the financial appeal. Don't get me wrong, these games are worth full price. I bought them all at launch—and three of them at a higher priced edition. But I also understand the value of waiting for a deal or just being fiscally responsible and buying less, like I wrote about my collecting habit earlier this year. Waiting for deals or borrowing a game is an important part of the consumer experience that will be dying.

The video game community and experience is losing the ability to lend a game when you are done, the chance to borrow that game from a pal down the street, or finding a gem at the local shop for a great price (or an expensive one). In the world of where the hobby is more expensive than ever, consumers will lose any leverage they had in selling their games for new ones. We are borrowing licenses that can be taken away or deleted at a legal moments notice.

With the PS3 and Vita stores finally being inaccessible by next summer, you have to ask yourself about investing your digital library in the future of PlayStation. In 2033, will the PS4 store and library be inaccessible? Will the PS5 store go offline in 2040? Perhaps Ubisoft will remake Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag again and you won't even be able to buy the original or the current remake. Perhaps Sony will just increase prices of old versions to make you buy the new ones like they did with Horizon Zero Dawn.

As I have sat here this morning (in mourning), I think the biggest impact will be one Sony may not realize for years to come. They are priming themselves to lose a generation. Without the likes of physical games, you lose the excitement of a midnight launch save once a generation when the hardware itself hits the scene. And then, folks will be walking out with a console and the promise of hundreds of gigabytes to download at home. A community will have to be formed around watching streamers to convince you to buy a game instead of just lending your friend a copy. I can't help but pair this idea with the years long development cycles these games have now and how iconic franchises are losing younger gamers to them. How can you draw in newer, younger fans when your prices won't change and there's no affordable way into the market? When the classics talked about amongst tier lists and forums and old heads like me are digital dust behind shuttered stores?

Perhaps I am just scared and concerned for myself? Perhaps my way of gaming is ancient. The kids already watch streamers to decide what to download. In a sea of free-to-play and Fortnite and Roblox, all of which have no form of permanence, perhaps the world of single-player experiences is fading.

Except that isn't true at all, right? Single player exclusives drive console sales. I can't help but associate those games physicality with their single player nature. Yet, the biggest game of the generation is single player and digital-only. Perhaps the only thing that is true is that I am apart of the first and last generation to play games on discs.

Footnotes

  1. And you all know how I feel about Limited Run Games. ↩