On July 1, Sony announced that no new PlayStation games will ship on-disc from January 2028 onwards. This move to a digital-only future has sparked widespread backlash and concerns about game preservation and ownership, including in Sony’s homeland of Japan, where developers and fans have also expressed disapproval of the move.
Hideo Kojima, although not addressing the situation directly, topically reposted his previous comments on the pitfalls of a digital-only future. In two tweets dating from August 2021, Kojima said that, “Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative. Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That’s what I’m afraid of. This is not greed.”
Shueisha Games’ Masami Yamamoto, who has been involved in game production for decades within the Sony group, discussed how PlayStation moving to a digital-only future might affect game publishing timelines. “We’ll have about one-and-a-half months more to really polish the master if we don’t have to make a disc version,” Yamamoto said, before explaining that “even nowadays when day one patches are the norm, if there is a disc version you still need to get the game into a finalized state in which there are no serious flaws that would hinder gameplay.” He added that on an ideal schedule, the master should be completed two months prior to the game’s release.
There is a lot of concern that going digital-only will deal a big blow to Japan’s second-hand game stores and market. Voice actor and gamer Masaru Yoshimura was among those who expressed shock at Sony’s announcement, commenting that, “My hobby is browsing PlayStation titles at game stores and I prefer physical game cases so this makes me way too sad.” Others opined that one of the ways that PlayStation currently has an edge over PC is the option to buy your favorite games on disc. “Some people choose to get the PlayStation version instead of the PC version because it’s on disc or it’s a limited edition physical version,” one person said.
Read Full Article At Source
