Sony attempts to spin PlayStation disc reduction while physical media sales boom

'Physical media matters.' This is the rallying cry of a growing number of consumers tired of the subscription-dominant culture where you rent or license everything and own nothing. This crowd, which skews younger than you'd think, are pushing back against companies and services that are trying to take all control and ownership out of the hands of the consumer. The backlash is why, for example, CD album sales shot up 58.6% in the first half of this year over 2025, and it's why a whole lot of PlayStation owners are furious that Sony is trying to discontinue the production of physical discs. Hit by strong pushback after its announcement, Sony is now spinning hard to downplay the future reduction in physical game disc production. A company representative clarified an earlier quote of 90% disc reduction, saying, 'In that [former] statement, Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline by 10 percent, not a decline down to 10 percent.' However, the company would not comment on what's happening to disc production beyond 2028. So if you're looking to collect older games instead of purchasing digital licenses in the future, you might want to check out the efforts of a team that's created a PlayStation 3 emulator on the PC. This emulator allows any PC with a disc drive to play PS3 games without relying on a PlayStation server.