Analyst Says PlayStation Won’t Roll Back Its 2028 Move Away From Discs

PlayStation’s decision to move away from physical game releases starting in 2028 is now eight days old, and the backlash still hasn’t gone away. Even with the loud pushback from players who prefer discs, the company hasn’t directly addressed the biggest concerns yet—and it looks increasingly unlikely Sony will reverse course, no matter how strong the online reaction gets.

Key takeaways

• PlayStation says it plans to stop physical releases beginning in 2028.
• Analyst Dr. Serkan Toto argues Sony is not expected to undo the decision.
• He suggests the company is effectively waiting for the controversy to cool off.
• Dr. Toto estimates Sony has more than 120 million active PlayStation users, with about 50 million PS Plus subscribers.
• He frames PS Plus cancellations as unlikely to force a rethink because the scale of churn would probably be too small.

What’s driving PlayStation leadership right now

Dr. Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games, outlined what he believes is happening internally. He said he understands why fans of physical media are upset, but believes Sony will not reverse the move. In his view, PlayStation leadership anticipated the reaction and is now waiting for the “storm” to pass.

The timing of Sony’s other retail decisions is part of what makes the situation feel even more tangled. PlayStation announced plans to shut down its PS3 and PS Vita store operations around the same time as the physical departure news, which raised the question of whether the company was trying to reduce attention on what many fans called the “physical death knell.” That strategy appears to have failed, though there’s a silver lining for Sony: many players seem to have largely forgotten the store closure portion of the broader announcement.

That store shutdown idea wasn’t entirely new, either. PlayStation attempted a similar move previously, but after it met with heavy backlash, it backed down quickly—yet the newer combined announcement clearly didn’t calm the conversation.

Would canceling PS Plus actually hurt Sony?

Much of the current hope from dissatisfied players is aimed at the PS Plus layer of Sony’s business. In comment sections across PlayStation updates, some users are reportedly canceling their subscriptions as a form of protest, attempting to apply pressure where it matters most: revenue.

Dr. Toto’s argument focuses on scale. He points to Sony’s large user base—over 120 million active PlayStation users—and estimates that roughly 50 million subscribe to PlayStation Plus. He then runs a hypothetical scenario: even if 500,000 people canceled in protest, that would represent about one percent of the PS Plus customer base, which he says would be far too small to cause Sony to rethink its strategy.

He also places PS Plus in context compared with Xbox’s subscription service. PlayStation Plus has around 20 million more subscribers than Xbox Game Pass. And while there are exceptions—he cites Blue Prince and Big Walk as examples—his broader point is that PS Plus doesn’t generally include games immediately at launch the way many players associate with Game Pass.

From a business perspective, the incentive for Sony to push toward an all-digital future is central. While the company may not enjoy seeing subscription cancellations, Dr. Toto’s view is that the extra money Sony stands to gain from nudging consumers toward digital purchases will likely outweigh any short-term financial hit from protests.

He further claims that PlayStation earns roughly double the revenue from each digital game sale compared with physical. He notes it isn’t as simple as a single fixed ratio—sales and other variables can change the picture, and first-party titles avoid paying another developer’s cut—but his overall conclusion remains that digital sales tend to bring in about twice what physical does.

Finally, there’s an operational angle to the story. One of the disc manufacturing facilities involved in producing PlayStation game discs is already in the process of being repurposed. With that in motion, the article’s takeaway is blunt: even continued noise, petitions, and public pressure may come too late, suggesting the situation may have already passed the point where reversal is realistic.