Sony's decision to kill PlayStation's discs is already seeing significant backlash.
A petition from fans is now growing in popularity as they protest against the company's decision, which stops physical game production in less than two years.
PlayStation Disc Petition Is Now Growing
Within 24 hours, a formal petition appeared on Change.org calling on Sony to reverse the decision, and the signature count has been climbing steadily since it went live.
The petition, titled "Don't Kill the Disc: Tell Sony to Keep Physical PlayStation Games," was organized by Jade Pearce and had amassed over 12,000 verified signatures within the first day of going live. The count continued to increase with nearly every page refresh after GameRant first reported on it.
A second petition addressing the same issue separately has also surfaced, gathering close to 3,000 signatures of its own. Both are circulating across gaming forums and social media as players voice their frustration with Sony's decision to go fully digital for all new releases.
PlayStation Kills the Disc by 2028
Sony confirmed in its recent blog post that physical disc production for all new PlayStation games will cease starting January 2028. That includes titles from both PlayStation Studios and third-party publishers, meaning no new game releasing on PlayStation after that date will come in a disc format.
On the same day, Sony also announced that the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita would begin shutting down in stages, starting in August 2026 in select Latin American markets and fully closing by July 2027 across all remaining regions.
The double announcement landed with significant impact, touching both the present generation and the legacy of older hardware in a single news cycle.
Sony's shift to digital-only echoes a moment many fans bring up regularly. At E3 2013, PlayStation made headlines by championing the PS4's ability to let players share physical games with friends, drawing a pointed contrast with Xbox's then-controversial digital policies.
Players signing the current petition have drawn the same comparison, citing that moment as evidence that Sony once recognized the value of physical media.
Fans Want to Keep the PlayStation Discs
Sony has walked back controversial platform decisions before. When the company previously announced plans to close the PlayStation Store on PS3, the backlash was significant enough to delay those original plans.
The PS3 storefront closure eventually returned as part of this latest announcement, suggesting the delay only pushed the timeline rather than canceling it outright.
Game preservation is a central concern in the petition, as physical games do not expire when servers go offline or when licenses are discontinued, giving collectors and long-term players a permanent way to access their libraries.
The transition to digital-only also raises questions about what happens to existing disc-based libraries once the next PlayStation hardware generation arrives without a disc drive, an outcome analysts and industry observers now widely expect.
Sony has not responded to either petition or the growing online debate since its announcements. Whether the signature counts will carry enough weight to prompt a public statement, let alone a policy reversal, remains to be seen.
