Since Sony announced that it was planning to stop producing physical PlayStation discs in 2028, many people have been justifiably worried about how they will maintain ownership and long-term game access in a disc-free world. But halting production of PlayStation discs also means eliminating the market for cheap used PlayStation discs, which are often available for well below the price of a digital download.

How much is this disc-based discount worth? To find out, Ars analyzed how the prices of 19 current top-selling PlayStation games varied between digital downloads and physical discs (both new and used). We found that, while used discs are the cheapest option for most games for most of the year, the frequent and periodic deep discounts offered on the PlayStation Store often undercut the cheapest game disc options. That state of affairs will likely persist even in a future without PlayStation discs.

Our prices are so low, you'll think we've suffered brain damage

For our analysis, we started with Sony's list of the bestsellers on the PlayStation Store. We eliminated any games that weren't available on a physical disc, then used the database over at PlatPrices.com to determine both the "Standard" price and the lowest "Discount" price offered for those games on the PlayStation Store in the last year (as well as the total number of days the discount price was offered).

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Some gamers are concerned about the future of game ownership after Sony's announcement today that it won’t produce physical discs for PlayStation games as of January 2028. On that date, “new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sony said in a blog post.

Ditching discs is “a natural direction” for Sony “to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs," the post said.

During Sony’s fiscal year ending on March 31, 2026, digital downloads accounted for 78 percent of full-game unit purchases, up from 76 percent in fiscal 2024.

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Sony recently informed its PlayStation customers in the United Kingdom that they will no longer be able to watch previously purchased movies and shows from production and distribution company StudioCanal. As of September 1, affected customers will no longer be able to stream 551 titles from the PlayStation Store.

In a legal notice first spotted by gaming news outlet PlayStation LifeStyle, Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles including Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “due to our content licensing agreements.” As of September, Sony will remove any affected titles that UK users bought from their PlayStation library, per the notice.

It’s possible that Sony may still make a deal with StudioCanal by September 1, or even after, that would allow users to keep watching the content they bought. This happened in 2023, when Sony said it would have to pull 1,318 seasons of Discovery shows from customers’ libraries. A few weeks after its announcement, Sony said that it would not pull the content because it had updated its licensing arrangements with Discovery.

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