As of 6 July the count sat at 110,486 and was still climbing, up from the roughly 44,000 it had reached two days earlier. Its authors clearly believe a response from Sony is only a matter of time.

A Backlash Turning Into a Campaign

Sony’s move to stop producing discs for new PlayStation games from January 2028 has already triggered boycotts and social media campaigns, and the petition is the most organised expression of that yet. It was started on Change.org by Canadian retailer PNP Games, whose CEO Jade Pearce laid out the ownership argument in plain terms: “A disc is a real game you own. You can lend it, trade it, resell it, gift it, collect it, or pass it down to your kids. A box with only a download code is not the same thing. It is a digital license in plastic packaging. You do not own it. You are renting access that can be revoked.”

The petition stresses this is not only about game preservation but about jobs, arguing physical media supports many roles across a massive industry. Its authors are careful to note that signers are not necessarily against digital as a choice, but against having that choice made for them. “We are not against digital,” the petition reads. “We are against digital being the only option.” A recent update also revives Sony’s 2013 stance at E3, when the company championed players’ ability to share and keep physical PS4 games, a pledge the campaign says is now quietly diminishing.

What Sony Confirmed

Sony’s announcement, posted on 1 July, is blunt: from January 2028 it will stop producing physical discs for its consoles, meaning essentially all new PS5 games released after that point will be digital-only, and the eventual PlayStation 6 will be an all-digital machine. That original post has now been viewed more than 100 million times and carries a community note pointing out that digital purchases do not actually confer ownership. Fans have flooded the company’s accounts, including those for unrelated movie and streaming news, while Sony has stayed quiet across every channel since the reveal.

We previously covered the early days of this backlash, when the petition surged past 44,000 signatures and drew in politicians, rival companies, retailers and late-night comedians within days. Comedian Trevor Noah argued physical discs are how many players can afford games secondhand or share them with younger siblings, while smaller studios including Aeternum Game Studios and Tesura Games pledged to keep physical editions of their own titles alive. Brands outside gaming turned it into a meme, with Domino’s UK joking about “digital pizzas only” and Microsoft-owned GitHub offering public repos on CD-ROM. France’s left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon even called for a legislative review, writing that “video games are not mere merchandise; they are cultural assets.”

Will Sony Budge?

Whether any of it moves the needle is another question. The realistic read is that the petition may ultimately go nowhere, given that a change of this scale was almost certainly planned over months, with Sony Interactive Entertainment weighing the market and trends and bracing for exactly this kind of backlash before committing. History gives fans a sliver of hope, since Sony reversed course before by delaying its planned shutdown of the PS3 PlayStation Store after an earlier uproar. Even so, the odds look long: the PS6 is thought to be well into development with no physical media planned, and Grand Theft Auto 6 will already ship as a code in a box with no disc version despite disc production continuing for another two years. For now, the company is offering no public response at all.

The post Don’t Kill the Disc Petition Passes 110,000 Signatures Against Sony’s 2028 Disc Cut appeared first on Shane the Gamer.