Sony did not end new PlayStation disc presses in a vacuum. Circana's U.S. retail tracking, cited publicly by industry advisor Mat Piscatella, shows how thin physical volume already is. Outrage is loud. Unit sales are not.
The numbers that matter
Piscatella, drawing on Circana Retail Tracking Service for the United States, posted that:
Only seven PlayStation games had sold more than 100,000 physical units year-to-date in 2026.
Only two PlayStation games sold more than 10,000 physical units in the U.S. during the week ending July 11, 2026.
That is not "physical is dead worldwide." It is U.S. physical software tracking. It is still a brutal snapshot of how rarely a PS disc clears even a modest unit bar in the largest game market.
Sony's July 1, 2026 policy matches that reality in corporate prose:
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.
Preference vs principle
Fans argue ownership, preservation, and used-game markets. Sony argues preference and scale. Both can be true at once. A format can be culturally important and economically niche. When only a handful of titles clear 100,000 U.S. physical units across months, pressing every new SKU looks like subsidizing a minority path.
Xbox's Phil Spencer described the same demand split without dating a cutoff:
And right now, a majority of our customers are buying games digitally.
And on drive economics:
Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive.
Fewer drive manufacturers, higher console COGS, thinner disc volumes. The spreadsheet and the rage comments are not the same dataset.
Confirmed vs overclaimed
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| Sony ends new PS disc production Jan 2028 | Confirmed (PlayStation Blog) |
| U.S. physical PS volume is extremely concentrated / thin in 2026 Circana snapshots | Confirmed via Circana figures shared by Piscatella |
| Zero people want discs | False. Loud minority can still be real buyers |
| Circana U.S. stats prove global physical is identical | Overclaim. Other regions differ |
| Xbox has the same dated cutoff | Not announced. See [Spencer FAQ](/posts/xbox-physical-media-phil-spencer) |
Hard takeaway
If you want Sony to reverse January 2028, commenting is cheap and buying discs is the signal the company says it follows. The Circana snapshots explain why the company feels safe ending new presses. They do not erase the ownership costs covered in Do you own digital PlayStation games after 2028?.
Policy source: PlayStation Blog. Cluster: 2028 cutoff explainer, discs still work, Xbox stance. Gaming feed.