19 sources

Sony's all-digital PlayStation future sparks ownership fears — Kojima weighs in

Sony's all-digital PlayStation future sparks ownership fears — Kojima weighs in
#playstation
AI summarized Read in LT

Sony confirmed this week that PlayStation will go fully digital by January 2028, ending physical disc sales and dropping support for PS3 and Vita on its digital storefront. The announcement has reignited a long-running debate about game ownership, preservation, and what happens to your library when a platform decides to pull the plug.

Hideo Kojima posted his concerns directly on social media, and his words cut to the heart of the issue: "Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative. Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off." He added that without physical media, "we will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved" — and stressed that this fear "is not greed."

The anxiety isn't abstract. The Stop Killing Games campaign has been pushing for consumer protections at the EU level, but the European Commission recently declined to act, citing existing intellectual property rights and stating it "cannot propose a legal obligation to keep videogames playable after they stop being provided commercially." Meanwhile, real-world examples keep stacking up — Amazon shut down New World despite it still pulling 60,000 concurrent players, and Destiny 2 is effectively in end-of-life mode after Bungie wrapped its decade-long story arc with a final quality-of-life update last month. Servers remain online, but with no future development, the game's matchmaking and cheating problems will only compound over time.

Sony's official blog post on the 2028 transition makes no mention of the PS6, though the move clearly signals the direction Sony intends to take its next hardware generation. With physical media being phased out and no legislative safety net in sight, the Video Game History Foundation has argued that preservation through piracy may be the only realistic path forward — a grim conclusion that reflects just how little ground consumer advocates have gained so far.

Reactions

Sources (19)

AI-assisted summary, reviewed by our editors — how we work.

Get the daily digest

Top gaming news in Lithuanian — every day at 9:00.