When Sony dropped the announcement that it was going to be ending physical disc production for PlayStation 5 in early 2028, I saw many posts on social media lamenting how this decision would have an outsized impact on certain groups and institutions. People without reliable internet, lending libraries, gaming tournament organizers, gamers in developing countries–how would the decision to move to download-only games affect these people?
I reached out to several folks, some of whom I knew while others I’d yet to meet, to ask them all the same question: How do you expect physical discs going away will affect gaming in your particular region or walk of life?
While I’d expected to hear many lamentations and concerns, the actual responses were surprising. If anything, the reactions seemed very mixed. Some had already anticipated the digital-only shift, some were, expectedly, annoyed, and others brought up factors and considerations that I wasn’t even aware of.
One of the most obvious areas of concern is access to games for people who live in rural areas with spotty local internet access. With game sizes ballooning, how are they supposed to download games reliably?
Slow internet, but fast to adapt?
I asked gamer Shana Gardner, who is located in a rural area of Wisconsin, for her input. She said she had already switched to digital-only purchases upon getting a PlayStation 5.
“I don’t have much storage space for physical media and don’t trade in games, so it made sense for me to switch to downloads,” she said.
However, the choice came with some downsides.
“I have bought games that take multiple days to download over [a] DSL [internet connection], or preordered games with an early-download perk just so I could still possibly play on day one. I have spent evenings kicking everything else off the internet so I could download the bulk of a game overnight to minimize impact on my other online activities the next day.”
What does she feel about the plight of other gamers in rural areas with physical discs?
“I don’t think that discontinuing physical media will necessarily disproportionately affect rural gamers; with the advent of services like Starlink, many of them have options for speeds greater than the 15Kbps I’ve lived with for way too long,” Gardner said. “Patches already provide their own challenges with downloading, as do games that don’t have physical media releases (though the latter are thankfully not prone to being enormous). We’ve already struggled with laggy online multiplayer games for years. Removing physical media entirely raises more concerns for me with the lack of ownership than it does internet speeds.”
“Honestly, though, with enormous patches and DLC being increasingly common, even buying physical media isn’t much of an advantage as far as accessibility goes.”
The hidden burden of library game collections
Another big concern for some is how the lack of physical discs would affect public libraries. Much like other media such as movies and music, certain library systems also loan video games to patrons. Whether a library offers games varies widely depending on the city or county where it’s located: My county’s library system, the Multnomah County Library, doesn’t offer video games for loan at all, while the nearby City of West Linn does.
I was surprised to learn that, alongside many libraries simply not handling games at all, many have already been scaling back their game offerings. Games are expensive compared to books and movies, and compared to other media, they’re more commonly “lost” by borrowers, leading libraries to cut down on their purchases. Some libraries have observed dwindling popularity of game checkouts when compared to kids simply using the library’s PCs and tablets to play games like Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox.
One person I asked about the situation was Colleen Kemps, who worked and volunteered at the libraries in Meridian, Idaho. She said that games were often theft targets, and also mentioned that most games were checked out by parents rather than the kids themselves.
