Boycott Pressure Mounts Against Sony's Decision to Ditch Physical Discs

A few weeks ago, Sony announced their decision to stop printing physical media for their PlayStation games as of 2028. The backlash has continued to stream in, with the company seemingly quiet online bar major announcements, such as today's announcement of God of War Laufey's release date.

Eurogamer is today reporting industry contacts as saying that Sony was well aware of the outrage the decision would amount to online, and that their social media strategy had been updated internally and was being strictly enforced.

However, today, a community organisation known as "DoesItPlay?" is calling for a "PlayStation Blackout". In a widely-shared post on X, the body asks for players to "participate in an economic and gameplay blackout" for a week from Sunday, August 23 at 7pm local time. The organisation says that Sony is "mismanag[ing] the strong position it inherited from the PS4 era", a reference to the market share Sony had won back -- and to date maintained -- from Xbox since the start of the last generation.

DoesItPlay? is not just focusing on the physical media fiasco. The organisation is also blaming Sony for closing fan-favourite studios, not supporting its PlayStation VR2 peripheral, and "being out of touch with the franchises players want to see return."

The post, which has since garnered almost 5,000 Reposts and 14,000 Likes, says that the blackout will deal minimum disruption to the publishers and developers that rely on their PlayStation player counts, but still "give players a voice."

Separately, a change.org petition has also been started, asking Sony to backtrack on its policy and continue to produce physical media, which at the time of reporting has been signed over 346,000 times.

Will you be joining the boycott? Shout out in the comments, and look out for our coverage of the news over on the Level Up Times Show's next episode, out Wednesday!