More than three weeks after the announcement, Sony's decision to stop producing new PlayStation discs from January 2028 still reverberates throughout the industry as various developers and publishers react to it. Yesterday, it was Ubisoft's turn. During the French publisher's Q1 2026 earnings call, investors asked if Ubisoft execs were concerned it could create a "demand headwind" as people could not rely on the used market anymore. However, Frédérick Duguet, Chief Financial Officer at Ubisoft, claimed that there won't be much of a difference, at least from their point of view: What we saw on the PC is that it […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-playstation-disc-shutdown-ubisoft-cheaper-digital-consoles/

One of the biggest news stories of the year is easily the announcement by Sony that they will no longer be printing any physical PlayStation discs after 2028. While this was met with immediate backlash from fans and general consumers, some game publishers are painting a rather different picture – with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot claiming that “we think it will not disturb the industry too much.”

During the company’s most recent quarterly investor call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was asked for his take on Sony’s recent announcement that they will be getting rid of physical disc printing come 2028. Offering a somewhat unpopular position on the matter, Guillemot claimed (as transcribed by PCGamer):

“What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market […] There's also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines, and being able to be only digital will help to have more accessible machines, I would say. There are pluses and minuses, but we think it will not disturb the industry too much.”

Ubisoft’s relationship with digital media is an interesting one. Unlike many publishers, Ubisoft is more than willing to offer deep discounts on many of its games on a regular basis, making one aspect of digital-only releases perhaps a bit less concerning.

At the same time, the discounting of these physical games at retailers also likely contributes to their decision to offer similar sales on its digital titles – and so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

Either way, no matter what Ubisoft thinks, moving away entirely from physical discs will likely have far more reaching consequences than most expect.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Guillemot’s comment? Is it tone deaf? Will consumers benefit at all from this massive impending industry shift? Let us know down below.

Despite all of the many different controversies seen throughout the video games industry in 2026, one of the most notable is Sony’s announcement that they will no longer be printing PlayStation discs come 2028 – pretty much marking the end of physical media in gaming. One company which should be concerned is US retail giant GameStop. According to the CEO however, this latest move is “totally, totally irrelevant.”

Taking part in an interview with Bloomberg Tech, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen was asked about PlayStation’s recent announcement regarding their discontinuing of disc printing: “If the hardware makers are reportedly moving to discless on the console side, future game launches are digital only, where does that fit in for the business plan

According to the CEO, “it doesn’t matter at all” explaining “Software, it mattered in the past. Software today makes up less than 12% of the business, and collectables makes up over half the business. So, it's totally, totally irrelevant.”

For the uninitiated, GameStop has for many years now been trying to move away from the pure selling of video games including, as mentioned by Cohen, by leaning more into merchandise and other ancillary accessories.

That said, GameStop’s endgame still seems to be the desire to acquire e-commerce giant eBay – a plan which they first announced back in May.

Regardless of GameStop’s own plans, it is safe to say that the decision by Sony to get rid of physical media will have a reverberating impact across the games industry and beyond.

KitGuru says: What do you think of GameStop in 2026? Is the retailer ‘irrelevant’? Let us know down below.

The games industry is still reeling from Sony's switch to a digital-only PlayStation future starting in January 2028, but after fierce backlash from fans and developers, Sony may now face opposition from politicians, too. In Mexico, two Movimiento Ciudadano legislators stated that the Japanese corporation may be crossing into monopoly territory with its planned move, following a broader wave of criticism around Sony's abandonment of physical media and its growing control over PlayStation's storefront economy. According to Mexican website Ovaciones, Movimiento Ciudadano senator Luis Donaldo Colosio and federal deputy Iraís Reyes plan to file a complaint with Mexico's antitrust authority […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-all-digital-playstation-plan-hits-political-resistance-in-mexico/

Last week, Sony dropped an explosive news on PlayStation gamers: no more PlayStation discs will be produced from January 2028, thus essentially confining even the retail market to a digital-only future (physical copies will include a download code, just like GTA VI). This inevitably triggered a massive backlash on the Internet, with fans whipping up petitions to get Sony to change their mind and legendary game designer Hideo Kojima sharing his sadness at the news. But that's not the only kind of reaction Sony needs to deal with. The Japanese corporation is already defending itself in courts of law around […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sonys-disc-free-2028-plan-hands-it-total-price-control-dutch-group-warns/

Visionary game designer Hideo Kojima, largely known to the mainstream as the creator of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding, recently chimed in on Sony's unpopular decision to stop making PlayStation discs starting in January 2028. Kojima, a huge movie buff, was a guest of the Italian film festival Il Cinema in Piazza (which takes place annually in Rome) and answered this question with his usual thoughtfulness and keen insight. He is understandably sad, but also pointed out that this is just "step one" of the digital transition and that he finds cloud gaming even more frightening because then the data […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/kojima-playstation-discs-2028-cloud-gaming-nightmare/

Sony's industry-changing decision to stop producing PlayStation discs from January 2028 has gamers still reeling from the consequences. The future of console gaming looks inevitably digital-only, both for the PlayStation 6 and, if rumors are to be believed, for the next Xbox console, too. Even if digital sales now account for over 80% of the total, there's still a fairly sizable user base that purchases retail, and they obviously aren't happy with this choice. Kotaku pointed out that fans have been voicing their opinions loudly across the Internet, as shown by the thousands of angry replies to a seemingly unrelated […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-fans-rally-30000-signatures-save-playstation-discs/

Yesterday's big news put Sony in the spotlight, as the Japanese corporation announced its intention to stop making PlayStation discs starting in January 2028. Later in the day, a rumor from Windows Central suggested Microsoft is gearing up to follow suit with its next-generation Project Helix Xbox, though it remains unconfirmed for the time being. As for Sony, though, it had to deal with significant online backlash, especially once players understood that this meant the PlayStation 6 would inevitably be disc-less-only. However, that's far from the only thing analysts took away from the announcement. For instance, Piers Harding-Rolls, games industry […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/playstation-6-discless-launch-end-of-2028/

Sony has just announced in a brief post on the PlayStation Blog that it won't produce any more discs for PlayStation consoles from January 2028 onward. The post claims this follows consumer trends, with demand for digital media greatly outpacing that of physical discs. As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028.  Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-playstation-discs-2028-digital-demand-gta-vi/