PlayStation Issues Official Statement On PS6 Digital Ownership

Published Oct 11, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT Known as 'Cyberpunk 2077's' biggest fan, Angharad is a Welsh games writer who thrives in anything related to digital storytelling. If a video game explores the intricacies and horrors of womanhood, she is there. Thanks to previous work at GAMINGbible, GameByte, The Loadout, Game Luster, Angharad has built a strong understanding of both the digital world and what fans want from it and is eager to share her thoughts and expertise with readers. As the PlayStation 5 heads towards its sixth anniversary, it has been a controversial few months for Sony. Not only has its PlayStation Plus service been hit with regular price increases, but the PlayStation hardware itself is set to welcome major changes over the next year. Earlier this year, Sony announced that it would be focusing more on exclusive titles. During the PlayStation 5's lifespan, it is safe to say that exclusives have been few and far between, and in standard fashion, the titles would only remain exclusive for a limited time, before heading to PC. However, Sony has now vowed to make PlayStation exclusives, well, actually exclusive by longer releasing PC ports of its first-party titles later down the line. Whether this is good news or not depends on the individual player, but there was one other announcement that left PlayStation fans reeling after Sony revealed that it would no longer be releasing physical discs, instead only supporting digital downloads for its games, leaving PlayStation 5 consoles with a disc tray pretty defunct. From January 2028 onwards, Sony will end physical game disc production for newly released games. Whilst there is no denying that physical copies of all media have become rarer over the past few decades, there is still a large group of people who are physical collectors and so, this news comes as a big shock, with many choosing to boycott PlayStation unless Sony reverses its decision, instead flocking to Xbox or PC. Following the announcement, Sony remained silent during the ever-growing backlash, even going as far as to take a social media break before returning a while later and resuming business as usual. However, it was not long before Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the issue during the company's Q1 2026 earnings call. Put simply, it seems as though, despite the controversy, Sony will be sticking to its guns. "We're going to cautiously move this forward," said Tao. "There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that digitalization of content overall has been progressing ... not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content... We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion." Regarding the backlash, and many users' decision to not purchase the PlayStation 6 unless physical copies are returned, Tao said, "People have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forward those views to us. Games are loved by many people ... and they're connected to people’s fond memories in many cases, and so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that, and in the future digital ecosystem, 'How do we engage the gamers?' is something that we would like to continue to explore." With the "no disc, no buy" campaign still going on as fans loudly express their anger at the decision, it seems as though Sony will still be forging ahead with its decision to no longer support physical game disc production. How this will affect sales of the next PlayStation console, however, remains to be seen. PlayStation Founded October 3, 1994 Owner Sony Interactive Entertainment Known For Uncharted, God of War, Horizon, The Last of Us,