Former PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says Sony Dropping Discs Makes Him 'Kind Of Sad, As A Fan'

Sony announced it will stop producing physical disc releases of its games starting in 2028, and the reaction from fans has been loud. Now Shawn Layden — who ran PlayStation for years before departing in 2019 — has weighed in, and his take is more measured than most.

Layden told Kotaku he sees it as a "dramatic" decision, but stops short of criticising Sony outright. He acknowledges the move almost certainly came after serious internal number-crunching. "I think there's probably a whole lot of financial analysis that went behind this decision, which made them do that," he said. "I won't take issue with that, because I'm not a finance guy. But as a fan, just strictly as a fan, it just makes me kind of sad." Layden described his own collection as a mix of physical and digital — he'd buy something like Call of Duty digitally without a second thought, but for a game like God of War he wants the box, the art, and the disc sitting on his shelf.

Layden isn't alone in that feeling. Hideo Kojima has also publicly expressed sadness over Sony's direction. Fan reaction since the announcement has been fierce, with boycott talk spreading quickly — though that resolve already appears to be cracking, with some vocal opponents quietly picking up digital purchases anyway. Sony, for its part, broke a six-day silence after the announcement and has not engaged with the criticism beyond that.

With the disc phase-out still two years away, the debate isn't going anywhere. Layden's broader interview with Kotaku is still to come, so there may be more from the former PlayStation head on where he thinks the platform is headed.