Sony says older PS5 and PS4 games can still be printed on disc after 2028

Sony has told its publishing partners that they can continue to order disc copies of any PS5 or PS4 game released before January 2028, even after the company’s planned switch to all-digital releases for new titles that month. The clarification, delivered via Sony’s private developer portal and reported by Game File, adds an important asterisk to this week’s announcement that PlayStation disc production will cease at the start of 2028.

New games that arrive after the cutoff, however, won’t get a disc at all. Sony says it will instead “provide publishers with the opportunity to release new games at retail using digital codes”: essentially download vouchers in boxes, similar to the physical edition of GTA 6. That means physical game boxes won’t disappear entirely, but the discs inside them will, for anything that isn’t a pre-2028 title.

For collectors and preservationists, the news that existing PS5 and PS4 libraries can still receive fresh disc prints is a genuine relief. It means the physical ecosystem won’t die overnight; popular back-catalogue games could see new print runs for years after the PS6 arrives, assuming demand holds. At the same time, the messaging makes Sony’s next-generation hardware direction plain: a PS6 without a bundled disc drive now looks almost certain. The discs that remain are a lifeline for the games already out there, not a vote of confidence in physical media’s future.