Sony plans to stop releasing physical games by January 2028, but one player has responded by buying a PS5 disc drive and restarting his physical game collection in 2026. For him, the impending demise of physical media has prompted a fresh look at the value of discs, cartridges, and used games.
Some players launched a week-long boycott to voice their dissatisfaction with the plan. However, an analyst noted that PSN player numbers didn't change significantly during the boycott, and Sony's stock price generally trended upward during that period.
As a child, he often went to GameStop with his brother to buy used games, and most of the titles at home were kept as discs or cartridges. Later, he gradually shifted to digital versions; most of his current library is on Steam, and he hadn't bought any physical games this generation until recently.
When he bought the PS5 Pro, he didn't realize the console didn't include a disc drive. A few months later, he purchased a PS5 disc drive to play his existing physical movies; getting back into physical media also sparked the idea of buying physical games again.
He then headed to a local used game store, where he picked up Ghost of Tsushima for $35 and temporarily chose two other titles. The three games cost him a total of $79, just $3 more than the price he would have paid to pre-order Marvel's Wolverine.
Although modern physical games rarely come with manuals, the process of picking out a game, opening the package, and inspecting the disc still brings back the familiar feeling of buying physical copies from the past. He says he will continue to collect and play disc-based games while physical media is still available.