Sony's decision to kill physical PS5 game discs is already reshaping lives inside its own factories. Workers at the company's disc production plant in Thalgau, Austria, will be retrained to manufacture optical microlenses, the factory's CEO confirmed, as the disc business that once accounted for half the plant's output collapses toward zero. The Thalgau facility currently stamps 600,000 discs every day.
PlayStation games represent roughly 50 percent of that volume. By 2028, that figure drops to about 10 percent.
Dietmar Tanzer, CEO of Sony DADC told Salzburg ORF that the plant's 300 employees won't lose their jobs. They will shift to making "micro optics," including lenses that can project a car turn signal onto the road.
Sony announced July 1 that starting January 2028, all new PlayStation games will release in digital formats only. Existing games and titles releasing before that cutoff will still get physical copies. The shift, the company wrote, reflects how most players already buy games today.
Sony's fiscal 2025 data backs that up: digital downloads accounted for 85 percent of full-game software sales on PS4 and PS5. The announcement landed alongside a separate blog post confirming the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita will shutter globally in 2027. Select markets lose access later this year.
PS6 will almost certainly be all-digital. Analysts see the disc production shutdown as the clearest signal yet that Sony's next console won't include a disc drive. Piers Harding-Rolls noted this week that removing the drive is "an easy win" for keeping component costs down on the PS6.
He suggested an add-on disc drive could be made available for playing older PS4 and PS5 discs, but acknowledged that would frustrate gamers who don't want to pay extra. A leaked Foxconn production timeline points to a fall 2027 release for the PS6, with manufacturing scheduled to start in May 2027, according to industry insider Millie A. Sony hasn't confirmed any dates.
Microsoft is reportedly following the same path. Its next-gen Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, is said to be launching without a disc drive, alongside a disc-to-digital feature that would let users convert physical games to digital licenses. The retail market has already been shrinking.
GameStop closed more than 1,300 stores over the past two fiscal years as physical game sales declined. The GTA 6 "physical" edition, which ships with only a download code inside the box, underscored just how thin the line has become.
Nintendo is now the only major console maker still committed to physical game discs.
