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Sony’s stock has climbed in the wake of its announcement that it would be ending production of physical PlayStation discs in 2028. Since sharing this news with its user base, PlayStation has been under fire from fans across the internet who have made it known that they still prefer to purchase their games physically rather than digitally. And while this backlash made it seem feasible that Sony would consider reversing course on this decision, shareholders seem to feel the opposite.
Prior to Sony sharing this news about the future of PlayStation, the company’s stock price was sitting at a little below $20. Since then, its value has climbed by nearly a dollar, now sitting at $20.64 at the time of this writing. While this might not seem like much movement, the fact that Sony’s stock price is going up whatsoever shows that shareholders clearly don’t think the abandonment of physical games is something that’s going to hurt the company. If they felt otherwise, then we surely would have seen a dip of some sort.
Because stockholders seem to be expressing confidence in PlayStation’s vision of the future, it makes it quite unlikely that Sony will look to reverse course. In the past, PlayStation has made announcements that it later changed its mind on, perhaps most notably when it revealed in 2021 that it would soon shut down the PS Store on PS3 and PS Vita. While outrage prompted PlayStation to undo this move, it seems much less likely that we’ll see a similar action from the company when it comes to physical games.
PlayStation Fans Won’t Let This News Die
Even though shareholders are clearly confident in Sony’s plans, hardcore PlayStation fans seem as though they aren’t going to let this matter die out any time soon. Despite having digital game sales on the PS Store outpace physical game sales, many of the most committed and dedicated users in the PlayStation ecosystem still prefer to buy their games on disc. Because of this, Sony is risking damaging its relationship with its most staunch supporters at a time when PS5 sales are beginning to crater.
This is a particularly nebulous place for Sony to be in as it looks to transition to the PlayStation 6. With the PS6 likely coming in at a price of $1,000 at a minimum, Sony is going to need to galvanize its most die-hard PlayStation users more than ever to adopt its next console at release. If these users ultimately decide to end their support for PlayStation with the PS5, as some online have already been suggesting, this move to get rid of physical games is one that Sony could be feeling reverberations from for years to come.
PlayStation Killing Discs and Axing Some Digital Purchases Only Narrows the Medium’s Future
