Update: 335,000+ Signatures. Let's Talk About What Sony's Numbers Actually Say.

This petition has passed 335,000 signatures. It started three weeks ago on behalf of the entire video game industry and its consumers. We are gravely concerned by Sony’s attempt to compromise physical games, and by extension physical media. Not only for Playstation products but now also for physical anime sales via their soon to be paywalled and restructured Crunchyroll Online Store. They seem content to 'post through it' and ignore the building backlash.

Sony has yet to acknowledge their vocal customer-base on the issue beyond their initial announcement. Three weeks of complete silence while this petition became national and worldwide news.

This storm isn't going to simply blow over. Let's look at the data Sony is actually using to justify killing discs, do the facts back-up what they're reporting?

Sony's "85% digital" figure is misleading by design.  That number blends full-price, disc-eligible games with a large and growing pool of titles that were never printed on disc and never eligible for physical release in the first place. Digital-only titles now vastly outnumber physical releases on the platform. Folding both categories into one ratio and calling it "consumer preference" is a statistical trick, not evidence that people don't want physical games.

Over 70 million physical PlayStation games were sold in Sony's FY2025, according to their own year-end earnings release. That is not an insignificant number by any means.

Look at Sony’s full history of game sales on PS5 that launched with both options, and the story flips. Though new data has noted that seven PS5 titles have only sold more than 100k physical units year-to-date, no info was given for the same consideration of digital sales and other key variables, even when pressed on it. Sony’s narrative is not as stark as they would have you believe. Ghost of Yotei sold over a third of its copies on disc. Resident Evil Requiem sold nearly 28% physical. Spider-Man 2's own leaked internal data showed 54% physical in its first few months. Those aren't fringe numbers. That's a third to over half of buyers actively choosing a format Sony is calling dead. 

And here's the part Sony's numbers don't show you: some of that "low" physical demand is a supply problem, not a preference problem. Resident Evil Requiem sold out at launch and didn't see a restock for a month. We know for a fact our business would have sold two to three times what we did if physical copies had actually been available. This wasn't unique to us, retailers everywhere were short on that title, and we've seen the same undersupply pattern repeat across several other PS5 launches over the past six months. When a game undersells physically because publishers didn't print enough copies, that's not the market telling you physical is dead. That's the market telling you physical demand was underestimated, repeatedly.

Console gaming is already losing ground to PC. It declined last year while PC gaming, led by Steam, grew roughly 13%. That's exactly the wrong moment to alienate the most loyal part of your console audience. Collectors and physical buyers are disproportionately console-first, they're not the demographic gaming on Steam, they're the ones who could still be won back with the right moves. Give them one more reason to feel unwanted, and you're not protecting your platform, you're pushing your most dedicated customers toward the exits.

We're seeing this firsthand. As a specialist retailer and distributor who lives in this market every single day, our physical sales are up compared to last year, and they've grown even more since Sony's announcement. That's not nostalgia. That's people voting with their wallets in real time, in the middle of the exact controversy Sony is hoping will blow over.

And now it's not just Sony. Rumors suggest Xbox is considering the same move for its next console, codenamed Project Helix. If both of the two biggest console makers walk away from physical media in the same generation, we're not talking about one company's decision anymore, we're talking about the format disappearing entirely unless people push back now.

To Asha Sharma and Xbox: Please note that you have an opening most companies never get. Xbox's decline didn't start with a bad console, it started in 2013 with a strategy that told collectors and physical media fans they didn't matter. Sony is handing you the moral and market high ground for free right now. Take it. Ship your new upcoming console with a disc drive. Be the platform that actually listened.

Keep signing. Keep sharing. And if you want to send the loudest possible message, buy the disc. Every purchase is proof the format still has a market, and that's the one argument neither Sony nor Xbox can attempt to spin their way out of (no pun intended)