Highlights
- Sony confirmed it will stop producing physical PlayStation game discs after January 2028.
- India's used disc ecosystem, which centers around local retailers, gives players access to games at a fraction of their original price.
- With used discs no longer being available, gamers have to pay full price for digital licenses for their games.
There is a specific kind of transaction that has made console gaming viable for a significant number of Indian players, one that Sony is about to make impossible. You buy a physical copy of a console title at launch or a used copy months after its release. Once you’re done playing, you can sell it online or to a shop in your nearest market. This strategy has allowed gamers to recover most of what they paid and enjoy a game for a fraction of the typical INR 4-5K asking price for PlayStation titles. For a large section of India's console gaming community, it is the only reason console gaming is financially sustainable at all. And Sony has announced it is ending it.
Sony confirmed on July 2, 2026, that it will stop producing physical game discs after January 2028. Games released before that cutoff will still be available physically, and publishers can still place re-orders for existing disc-format titles through an unrevealed process. Sony will also offer publishers the option to release new games at retail using digital codes in a box, a format that preserves shelf presence. However, it removes the one thing that made physical copies worth buying over digital: the ability to resell them.
The PlayStation Sales Data is Missing the Point
Sony's stated reason for the move to stop physical disc production is consumer preference. "This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.”
Let’s take a closer look at the claim that digital media is outpacing physical discs. 85% of all full-game sales on PS5 and PS4 were digital downloads in Q4 of fiscal year 2025, the highest ratio Sony has ever recorded. Across the full fiscal year ending March 2026, the digital average sat at 78%, up two percentage points year over year.
What that data does not capture is the used disc market. And it is in the used disc market where the India-specific argument for physical media is most powerful. It is also important to note that the 85% share of digital also includes digital-only releases, older catalogue titles, DLC, microtransactions, and live service game transactions.
When you look only at first-party PlayStation titles with both physical and digital versions available, the physical share is considerably higher. Game Sales Data (GSD) showed around 60% of Astro Bot sales in Europe in late 2024 were physical copies and many other high-profile titles like Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us pulled similar numbers. Sony's own internal data from earlier in the generation showed that the majority of first-party title sales were physical-dominant.
Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad noted on X that while almost 70M new disc-based PlayStation games were sold in 2025, the decision to stop physical disc production was designed to cut costs for Sony and eliminate resale and used markets. Sony wants to drive all of its revenue through the PlayStation Store.
Eliminating the resale and used market is one of the explicit goals, according to Ahmad. Sony earns nothing from a disc resold between two people. It earns the full price when the same game is downloaded from the PlayStation Store.
How Sony’s Decision Affects India
A new PS5 game in India typically retails for INR 4K to INR 5.5K, depending on the title. In a market where the average household income is a fraction of what it is in the U.S. or the U.K., spending INR 5K on a game that might hold your attention for only 15 hours is a difficult proposition.
The used disc market resolves the pricing problem in India. A copy of God of War Ragnarok that retailed at INR 5K on launch day might be available used for under INR 4K. A player who buys at launch and sells immediately after finishing recovers a significant portion of the cost. The margins get even better for gamers when trading used games. The net cost of playing a new release can drop to a few hundred rupees, and it’s something digital transactions cannot offer.
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Online platforms like Gameloot, Gamenation, and the communities on Indian gaming subreddits have built ecosystems specifically around this model. They work because discs have inherent value that can be transferred. A digital licence has no such value and is permanently tied to the account that purchased it. The retail picture in India confirms what the data cannot fully capture.
We visited Infinity Video Games in Chandni Chowk, Kolkata, which is West Bengal’s biggest electronics market. It is a shop that has been operating since 2011 and trades in both new and used consoles and games. When we told the staff about Sony's announcement, the news landed poorly. The majority of their business, they explained, comes from customers buying and selling second-hand discs. New game sales at full price are a small fraction of what walks through the door.
The story at other nearby retailers was similar. Many of the owners were shocked at Sony’s decision as disc trading sits at the center of their business model. The announcement has generated real concern about what the transition away from physical media means for shops like theirs in markets like India.
We also visited the Sony Center store in Chandni Chowk, and one of the store managers, Prakash Agarwal, said, “We are familiar with the used games market in and around the store. Our customers typically do not purchase games from our store unless there are bundle offers. If physical games are stopped, we might experience more sales, but customers may become more reluctant to buy consoles in the first place.”
The Code-in-a-Box Problem
Sony's decision to release new games at retail using digital codes rather than discs deserves scrutiny because it sounds more accommodating than it is. A digital code in a box does not preserve the used market. A code, once redeemed, is as non-transferable as a direct digital purchase. You cannot sell it to a shop, and you cannot trade it with a friend. You cannot recover any portion of your money when you are done with the game.
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The irony of Sony's decision is that the 85% digital figure it cites to justify the move is most only relevant to markets where top-tier digital infrastructure, broadband penetration, and high consumer purchasing power exist. In India, digital is not cheaper, and the full digital price of a game is a meaningful expenditure for most households.
The transition Sony is making will hit every market. It will hit India and other developing countries harder than most. The used disc infrastructure which includes shops and online reselling platforms, will lose its ability to earn from Sony’s ecosystem. Sony has framed this as a consumer-facing approach. In India, it looks considerably more like leading them somewhere many cannot afford to go.
