PlayStation is posting again. Six days after Sony announced the end of disc production for new PlayStation games, the official PlayStation account returned to X yesterday with a promo video for a wireless arcade fight stick. No statement, no acknowledgment of the backlash, no mention of discs at all. And fans noticed!
As Kotaku reports, the fight stick post racked up more than 12,000 replies and close to 4,000 quote posts within its first hour, and the outlet couldn't find a single comment defending the company.
The reply Kotaku ran in its own headline sums up the mood: "Physical forever you cowards." Another user shot back, "Wireless fightstick? More like spineless corpo." IGN's write-up put it plainly: the post is going about as well as you'd expect.
The account had been silent since July 1st, the day Sony confirmed that disc production for new PlayStation games ends in January 2028. Games will still ship in boxes after that, but those boxes will hold download codes instead of discs.
The week since has been brutal for Sony: Hideo Kojima went public with his disappointment, Halo, of all franchises, announced a PS5 release on a real disc, and Rockstar found itself fielding disc questions ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI's digital-only launch.
The fan campaign to reverse the decision has a name, too. "Don't Kill the Disc," a Change.org petition launched the day of the announcement by Jade Pearce, who runs PNP Games, an independent Canadian retailer with three locations, pulled in roughly 40,000 signatures in its first 48 hours. IGN counted it past 115,000 on Monday, and Eurogamer reported it north of 170,000 on Tuesday. A three-store shop out of Canada is leading the charge, and Sony hasn't responded to any of it.
Retailers are getting louder while Sony stays silent. GAME, the UK chain, declared that "our silence is over. Video game lovers, it is time to defend what matters to us," warning that Sony's decision affects "everyone who understands video games as something more than a downloadable file. We are not going to sit idly by."
GameStop piled on, GameFly reaffirmed its commitment to physical media, and Domino's UK racked up 3.4 million views and nearly 200,000 likes with a parody statement announcing the end of physical pizzas in favor of download codes you can enjoy "using the power of the imagination." TechRadar has the full retail roundup.
In case you missed it the first time around: Sony used to be on the other side of this joke. Back in 2013, when the Xbox One launched with restrictive DRM and used-game limits, Sony mocked Microsoft with an official video showing how to share a PS4 game. One executive simply hands a disc to another. Thirteen years later, the disc itself is on the chopping block.
There's a reason fans think this fight is winnable. Back in 2021, Sony announced it was shutting down the PS3 and Vita digital storefronts, the backlash got loud fast, and then-PlayStation boss Jim Ryan reversed course within weeks, admitting the company "made the wrong decision." That precedent is fueling the petition.
The difference in 2026 is Sony's posture. Five years ago the company engaged, apologized, and fixed it. This week it waited six days and posted a fight stick ad.
The petition turns two weeks old on July 15th, and it shows no sign of slowing down. What's your over/under on this decision surviving the summer? Let us know in the comments below!
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