Sony's Own PlayStation Survey Turns Into a Protest Against Killing Physical Discs in 2028

By CriticalPixel · 2026-09-27

Sony picked a rough week to ask PlayStation owners how they feel about the brand, because the honest answer from a lot of players involves discs. A new customer satisfaction survey went out on September 25 covering everything from DualSense feel to exclusive games and the PS5 library, and players immediately hijacked it to vent about Sony's plan to stop making physical game discs starting January 2028. The survey never mentions discs directly, but every open text box has turned into a place to type some version of keep the discs, and PlayStation is getting an earful it clearly did not plan for.

Official PlayStation 5 console hardware promotional image from PlayStation's website

What the Survey Actually Asks

The survey itself reads as mundane on paper. It asks adults in the general public to rate satisfaction with the PS5 console, the user interface, online play, the DualSense controller, and the overall game library, and it asks which other platforms people own, including Nintendo Switch, PC, and VR headsets. Several questions leave room for open ended answers, and that is the gap players are pouring their frustration through. Stonejaw Games posted that every text box in the survey just says keep the discs, and streamer Brandon Green summed up the mood by saying Sony is probably not ready for the responses it is about to get, though the survey itself proves Sony knows its public image has taken a beating lately.

This Fight Goes Back to July

None of this is coming out of nowhere. Sony first announced the move away from physical media on July 1, when Sid Shuman, senior director of content communications at Sony Interactive Entertainment, wrote on the PlayStation Blog that new games launching on PlayStation consoles would move to digital only formats starting in January 2028. Shuman framed it as a natural direction driven by shifting consumer preference, and noted the change does not touch anything already released or launching before that cutoff. Industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls called it a defining moment for the industry at the time, pointing out that console gaming was the last real stronghold for physical media even as digital sales climbed from roughly 13 percent of PlayStation software at the PS4 launch to nearly 80 percent by 2025. Sony has held the line since, with chief financial officer Lin Tao telling investors in July the company would cautiously move this forward despite being well aware of the strong feelings from fans.

Official PlayStation 5 console selection image from PlayStation's console picker quiz

The player facing survey follows an even bigger one that reportedly went out to game developers just days earlier, according to a report on the Broken Silicon Podcast. The host described it as one of the largest surveys PlayStation has ever sent to its development partners, and speculated that its scope alone hints at some internal second guessing about the all digital timeline. Sony has not confirmed the contents of that developer survey, but the timing next to the public facing one has fueled more speculation that the company is quietly gauging whether it can soften the January 2028 cutoff before it actually arrives.

Fans Are Not Holding Back

The community reaction splits between resignation and outright anger, and there is very little enthusiasm in either camp. One player told IGN they filled out the survey just to respectfully tell Sony they have been the worst all year, and another turned an open text field into a joke, writing that Sony should insert the my opinion disc into the disc drive and download the rest from the internet. Elsewhere on X, Justin Dillingham called the whole fight a weird hill to die on while admitting he still wants ticket stubs back even though that ship sailed long ago, and other users argued that going discless without a real ownership alternative, like a transferable license tied to a thumb drive, just tells players they are renting their library instead of owning it. Reaction skews heavily negative, and none of the dozens of replies scanned across these threads showed any real enthusiasm for the change.

The CriticalPixel Take

Sony can call this a natural direction all it wants, but sending out a brand satisfaction survey two months after killing discs and then acting surprised when it becomes a complaint box is not a natural direction, it is a self inflicted wound. If Sony actually wanted an honest read on physical media sentiment, it would have asked about physical media directly instead of hoping people stay quiet in the DualSense and interface sections. The smarter move, and one PlayStation has had more than two years to figure out since the January 2028 deadline was set, is a real ownership solution for the disc free era, something closer to a transferable license than a promise that a download stays available forever. Until Sony offers that, every survey it sends out between now and 2028 is going to turn into the same referendum on discs, whether the questions ask for it or not.

For now, nothing has changed. Games releasing before January 2028 still ship on disc, and Sony has not walked back the policy despite two rounds of surveys in less than a month. Whether that quiet research push turns into an actual reversal, or just a longer runway for the backlash to build, is the thing worth watching as the PS5 heads into its final disc era.