PlayStation Fans Rally Behind 'Don't Kill The Disc' Petition With 170K Signatures

Sony's decision to abandon physical media for its PlayStation consoles starting in 2028 is being met with intense backlash from fans and retailers alike. Beyond the memes and inflammatory posts on social media, a games retailer in Canada started a petition on Change.org pleading with Sony to reverse course, and so far it has amassed over 171,000 verified signatures.

Jade Pearce, chief executive officer of PNP Games, started the petition less than a week ago. It garnered over 40,000 signatures in under 48 hours, and broke the 100,000 barrier in a matter of days. Now six days since it began, the petition appears on track to breach 200,000 signatures in short order.

"The irony is hard to miss. At E3 2013, Sony won over a generation of players by promising that when you buy a PlayStation game, you can trade it in, sell it, lend it to a friend, or 'keep it forever', and famously mocked the competition for trying to restrict exactly that. Thirteen years later, Sony is the one taking it away," the petition states.

Pearce goes on to lament that a download code is very different from a physical disc, in that a disc is something you can lend, trade, resell, give away as a gift, collect, or pass down to your kids. Digital codes, on the other hand, essentially represent a rental model "that can be revoked," as is about to happen when, on September 1, Sony removes 551 purchased movies and TV shows from PlayStation users that were distributed by Studio Canal.

"This is also about jobs. Physical games support an entire industry that an all-digital future quietly erases: retailers, distributors, manufacturers, warehousing and logistics, the pre-owned and trade-in market, and the collector and preservation community. That is thousands of jobs and countless small businesses," Pearce states in the petition.

He goes on to argue that abandoning physical media removes consumer choice, weakens local economies, and gives a few platform holders total control over how and whether users can access the games they bought.

"We are not against digital. We are against digital being the only option. A large and passionate community still wants a real, physical game they own outright, and Sony is about to take that choice away," Pearce says.

While most likely futile—Sony is already converting a disc factory in Austria into primarily a micro optics plant—anyone interested in supporting the movement can sign the petition.