The Impending Death of Physical Games

Playstation announced that it will no longer produce physical games as of January 2028. The backlash from consumers was swift and severe, but Playstation is holding their ground on the decision. As disappointing and rage inducing as this is, it isn’t surprising. The push to digital only gaming started a long time ago, with all major players participating in it eventually.

Sometimes it's easy to forget when we, the gamers, were first pushed away from game discs. Gamers who were console-only were unaffected by this initial movement because it was specifically happening on PCs. Around 2008, Apple started a new trend - releasing macbooks without disc drives (BGR, 2026). After all, who needs disc drives, so delicate yet bulky, when you can just upload something from a flashdrive, or stream something online? 

It didn’t take long for Apple’s trend to become everyone else’s as well. I haven’t had a built-in disc drive in my PC since around 2013. And since digital gaming on PC had already been building since Steam’s launch in 2003, there wasn’t much motivation from the gaming industry to fight for disc drives. 

Credited as an “early innovator” of digital game distribution, Stardock, a software development company, launched Stardock Central in 2001, a content delivery and management system that allowed them to distribute their own games digitally (Wikipedia). The gaming platform Battle.net was already out (released in 1997), but it would not matter to the playability of the games until 2000, when Diablo II released, and with it, cloud saving (Wikipedia). In 2013, the platform added the capability to purchase games from it, but it was still releasing physical editions of games. However, when Destiny 2 came out in 2017, the “physical” copy was just the case with a digital download key.

We saw many launches of digital game distribution in the early 2000’s. Direct2Drive launched in 2004, Gametap in 2005, Origin (originally EA Downloader) in 2005, GamersGate in 2006, Games for Windows in 2007, and GOG and Impulse in 2008. Steam had its launch in 2003, started distributing third party games in 2005, and by 2013, it was the largest PC game distribution platform (Wikipedia). 

By the time disc drives were being phased out, digital gaming on PC was already gaining momentum, and now in 2026, it feels so far away. 

In the midst of all of the PC digital game distributors coming out, some of the major console players were getting involved too. Xbox opened its online game store in 2005 and Playstation opened theirs in 2006. Nintendo was a bit late to the party, not opening the Nintendo eshop until 2011. But this was just a dipping of the toes - consoles were still focused on physical games. People were still going out to Gamestops and Best Buys and other physical stores to get their games. Consoles still had disc drives (or key card readers). But there was a shift happening for them too, just slower than it had for PCs. 

In 2019, Xbox released the Xbox One S All Digital Edition - its first attempt at selling its console without a disc drive (Wikipedia). It only lasted until July 2020 - but that’s mainly due to the fact that Xbox would be releasing its next iteration of consoles in November 2020, including the all digital Xbox Series S (Wikipedia). Playstation also launched its line of PS5s in November 2020, including their digital only version. Although Nintendo has not released a digital only Switch, it has begun moving in that direction with its production of game key cards in late 2025, removing the actual game data from the key card, requiring a digital download AND the key card to work.

On July 1st, Playstation made its announcement about the discontinuation of Playstation game discs. As of 2028, they plan to take their games digital. Players have canceled PS Plus subscriptions in droves. Players have sworn that the PS5 will be their final Playstation console purchase. Despite this being a highly unpopular move, and the pushback it has received, there hasn’t been any update from Playstation on delaying or cancelling its move to all digital. The clock is now ticking down for Playstation console games. And I have to wonder, what are the execs over at Xbox and Nintendo thinking? Are they looking at this move, seeing the backlash and thinking, “Eh, we’ll hold off awhile longer”, or are they feeling emboldened by Playstation’s lack of back pedaling? When do the other major console parties decide that they don’t want to deal with the extra costs and logistics of producing physical games? And even moreso, when do they decide that they, like Playstation, want to limit player options for game purchases, squeeze the second-hand market dry, and take the next step towards subscription-only gaming? 

Used games are an important part of video game preservation. Retro reselling and collection is a big part of the gaming scene, with many stores and individuals participating in this market, continuing the exchange of cartridges and discs. Some people dedicate their lives to securing as many old games as possible. Some are dedicated to the restoration of games and systems that have lost functionality over time. Some simply buy because they want to experience the games for themselves. Whatever the reason, the second-hand market brings gamers of all kinds together, supplying new experiences, fulfilling nostalgia, and preserving pieces of history. There are museums all over the world for paintings, sculptures, pottery, drawings, jewelry, etc. - why should gaming be any different?

The second-hand gaming market exists because of physical products. It exists because you can trade and sell what you own. We do not truly own our digital games - we only own the license, the thing that is essentially giving us “permission” to play the games. We cannot trade and sell what we do not own. I cannot walk into a store, pull up my Steam library, and trade my copy of Cyberpunk 2077 for a copy of Baldurs Gate 3. I can, however, grab a collection of NES games and trade them for some SNES games. 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Pass

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Game_Card

3. https://www.techradar.com/opinion/laptop-manufacturers-killed-the-internal-disk-drive-and-it-was-a-big-mistake

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_disc_drive

5. https://www.bgr.com/2114677/why-no-one-needs-discs-drives-anymore/

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_distribution_of_video_games

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle.net

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Games_Store

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Store

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_eShop

12. https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/