The news of Sony PlayStation's farewell to physical disks for all new games starting January 2028 confirms, with extreme certainty, that PlayStation 6 will not have an optical drive. The same could happen for the upcoming XBOX, known as Project Helix. The announcement from the Japanese company has simultaneously reignited the debate over the ownership of digital content and the strategies of the entire sector. Here are the latest developments:

Implications for PlayStation 6

According to analyst Piers Harding-Rolls from Ampere, the decision to set January 2028 as the deadline for disc production effectively confirms indirectly that PS6 will not arrive before that year. Initial estimates placed the debut of the new console towards the end of 2027, but the rising costs of RAM and SSD memory, linked to the increasing demand from data centers for artificial intelligence, would have forced Sony to revise its internal plans. Launching PS6 during the usual November window in 2027, just months after eliminating disks for the entire platform, would indeed make little industrial sense: the most credible hypothesis remains the second half of 2028, in line with Ampere's projections.

The announcement also suggests that the future console will not come with an integrated disc drive. Including an optical drive, which is likely to become quickly unnecessary for PlayStation titles, would come with an additional cost that is hard to justify, especially considering the marginal use of the disc as a simple Blu-ray player for movies. The economic factor appears central: some estimates indicate a cost of only the hardware components of PS6 close to $960, a figure that has risen significantly compared to evaluations just three months earlier. In a context where Sony would aim to avoid selling hardware at a loss, removing the optical drive would represent one of the most immediate saving measures.

And what about Microsoft?

Microsoft is also considering abandoning the production of physical disks for XBOX games, but with a different approach than Sony. Sources close to the company report that an internal testing phase is underway for a feature called "Disc2Digital," whose references appeared in the code of the XBOX app for PC as early as May (we wrote about it here). This feature, compatible only with XBOX One and XBOX Series X discs (thus excluding XBOX 360 and the original XBOX), would allow users to convert physical disc games they own into digital titles simply by inserting the disc and completing the installation with an associated Microsoft account.

The digital right so obtained would be equivalent to a direct purchase from the Microsoft store, with the possibility of accessing streaming via XBOX Cloud Gaming for Game Pass subscribers, or using the title on multiple devices if it falls under the Play Anywhere program. The physical disc would continue to function normally even after conversion, unless the right is lost in case of loan or resale of the medium. It is not yet definitively clear if the upcoming XBOX console, internally known as Project Helix, will feature an integrated optical drive: if it does not, the disc-to-digital conversion feature would represent a key tool for allowing users to preserve access to their physical collections.

Public and Industry Reactions to Sony's Decision

The decision has generated a wave of critical comments on social media. Several users have expressed concerns regarding prices: the absence of a physical used market, according to some observations circulated on Reddit, could favor a steady increase in digital game costs, even suggesting the adoption of a dynamic pricing system, already experimented with by Sony on the PlayStation Store and subject to doubts regarding its regulatory compliance. A market devoid of physical alternatives, according to this reading, would provide the platform with greater bargaining power over consumers.

Other comments highlighted the more general issue of digital content ownership, recalling the precedent of Grand Theft Auto 6, which will debut without a physical edition, and the recent case of the removal of hundreds of films purchased by user accounts following the renewal of a licensing agreement with Studio Canal. Episodes that, according to some users, undermine trust in digital purchases, even when formally "owned." The compatibility issue also remains unresolved: it is unclear whether the physical PS5 copies already in users' possession can be used on PS6, unless optional external disc units are provided, similar to what already happens with PS5.