Petition against Sony's digital-only PlayStation plans tops 120,000 signatures

A petition opposing Sony’s move toward a digital-only PlayStation future passed 120,000 signatures within days as the company set January 2028 to end physical disc production for new games. The campaign, called “Don’t Kill the Disc,” was started by Jade Pearce, the CEO of PNP Games Inc., and has become a flashpoint for customers who say buying a game should still mean owning something that can be kept, sold or preserved.

Sony said the change will apply only to new PlayStation games released from January 2028 onward, leaving titles already released before that cutoff unaffected. Sid Shuman, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s senior director of content communications, framed the decision as a response to consumer preferences and the broader shift in entertainment toward digital distribution. PlayStation’s own site now says newly released games from that point will be available only in digital format.

The company is also tightening support for legacy storefronts. Sony said the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027 in most countries, with some Latin American and Middle Eastern markets shutting earlier, in late 2026. Those closures add to the concerns of collectors and preservation advocates who argue that digital storefronts can disappear, licenses can change and a purchased game can become inaccessible even after payment has cleared.

That fear has only sharpened as Sony prepares to remove access to more than 500 StudioCanal films from PlayStation video libraries starting Sept. 1, 2026. The decision, which affects content that users already bought, has reinforced the argument that digital libraries depend on a chain of permissions rather than permanent possession. Sony’s own hardware and software mix also shows how far the market has already moved: physical PlayStation software accounted for about 3% of PlayStation’s total sales in 2024, while digital downloads made up roughly 80% of PlayStation software sales.

The rapid spread of the petition underscores the stakes for the physical games market. Within about four days, support had passed 100,000 signatures, and it had gathered more than 16,000 in under 24 hours. Sony’s disc manufacturing capacity is already being repurposed, another sign that the company is building for a digital-first business rather than making a short-term adjustment. For retailers, collectors and preservation groups, the question now is whether the last major holdout for physical media in console gaming is preparing to close the door for good.