Sony is not backing down from its decision to end the use of discs in video games in January 2028; however, production at its last disc manufacturing facility is reportedly set to decline by 10% in 2028, not 90% as previously reported. A Sony DADC spokesperson said that the statement by Dietmar, the head of the division, referred to a 10% decline in total product volume and did not mean that production would be reduced to 10% of its current level. The statement came after reports that the Thalgau facility was being restructured.
Sony DADC did not respond to The Verge’s questions about whether the facility’s 300 employees were being retrained to produce microlenses instead of discs or about the restructuring process, and it provided no additional details to Brian Crecente. The issue had come to light in a report published by ORF Austria in July. Even if the company stops producing new games on disc after January 2028, it will allow publishers to place reorders for existing PlayStation disc games.
The report also stated that major publishers were absent from Microsoft’s disc-to-digital initiative. In Sony’s latest legal defense, it questioned whether “reasonable consumers” could believe they owned the game they purchased and how multiple copies of the same game could exist if ownership were involved.
Why it matters
The information about a 10% decline rather than a 90% decline shows that the transformation in Thalgau should not be interpreted as production being almost entirely eliminated. This distinction is important for publishers, retailers, and players tracking how and to what extent the supply of physical games will contract; the continued ability to reorder existing games also indicates that the transition will not take place across all products simultaneously. By contrast, it has not been disclosed whether the 300 employees at the facility will be redirected to new production areas or what the scope of the restructuring will be. The development also lays bare the tension between the growing prevalence of digital distribution and the idea of owning a game; the absence of major publishers from Microsoft’s disc-to-digital initiative shows that this debate has not yet evolved into a common industry approach.
Background
Sony is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 6 news reports mentioning the name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated September 10, 2026.