Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Follow me on social media:
Instagram: instagram.com/dreamcastguy
Patreon: patreon.com/DreamcastGuy
Twitch: twitch.tv/thedreamcastguy
Sony PlayStation FY2026 Q1 Financial Results!
• PS5 units sold - 1.6M
• Lifetime PS5 units - 95.3M
• Full game software units - 66.1M
• First party software units - 6M
• Digital Download Ratio - 82%
• Monthly Active Users - 125M Sony CFO Lin Tao confirms PlayStation will offer code in a box retail packages in North America in replace of discs going forward!
"In North America, this has already happened, without discs in the package there is a code included, that is how they sell in North America." PlayStation going digital in 2028 is more of a stopgap than a strategy, I reckon. "We don't feel that the disc is the factor to differentiate from the PC...
Our strength is the curated content. That's one of our strengths. The game environment being stable. That's another strength. And compared to high-end gaming PCs, our products are more affordable.
This is short-term margin harvesting during a rough period. It’s PlayStation buying time. The bet is that today’s cost squeeze is a phase and not a permanent state. Hopefully, the component crisis eases once the AI-datacentre gold rush stops devouring the world’s memory and storage supply, hardware gets cheaper to make again, and the macro picture (interest rates, cost-of-living pressure on discretionary spend) softens.
Going disc-less keeps revenue-per-player growing through that, propping up the numbers while the underlying economics are ugly, so that when conditions do normalise, PlayStation comes out the other side with margins intact and the business still showing growth. It’s a bridge across the bad years. The risk, of course, is that the bridge doesn’t reach anywhere better.
And another important bridge will also get burned in the process. Budget-conscious and younger players enter the console ecosystem through cheap pre-owned discs, then get locked in by buying digital DLC, subscribing to PS Plus, and building a friend list they won’t walk away from. Sony CFO Lin Tao says player backlash over PlayStation ending physical disc production in 2028 has had no impact on their business so far!
"At this point in time we are not seeing any impact on our business, as of now.
But going forward, about the contents sales, a large part is already digitized. And therefore as a result the discontinuation of discs, we don't see that there will be any negative impact on our business.
However, as I already said, the users, the players have attachments and we have to think about how to respond to those feedbacks."
Says they already discussed the plans with retailers before hand and this will be their solution. Capcom report 93.3% of their game sales are digital.
- PC digital units make up 60.4% of sales
- Console digital units make up 32.9% of sales
- Physical units make up 6.7% of sales
- Note: Capcom also counts Switch 2 game key cards as digital sales. It’s been almost a month since Sony announced the end of PlayStation discs for new games starting in 2028, and a loud contingent of angry fans has continued to criticize the company for going all-digital. Asked about the ongoing backlash during its latest earnings call, Sony said it understands why people have strong feelings about physical games, but it’s still going to move forward with getting rid of them.
“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor,” Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao said through an interpreter during a Q&A on July 31. “It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing.”
She continued:
And so when we think about the future—and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this—and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us. Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. And so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore. Sony responds to the backlash over ending PlayStation discs.
"We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we're going to cautiously move this forward..."
Follow me on social media:
Instagram: instagram.com/dreamcastguy
Patreon: patreon.com/DreamcastGuy
Twitch: twitch.tv/thedreamcastguy
Sony PlayStation FY2026 Q1 Financial Results!
• PS5 units sold - 1.6M
• Lifetime PS5 units - 95.3M
• Full game software units - 66.1M
• First party software units - 6M
• Digital Download Ratio - 82%
• Monthly Active Users - 125M Sony CFO Lin Tao confirms PlayStation will offer code in a box retail packages in North America in replace of discs going forward!
"In North America, this has already happened, without discs in the package there is a code included, that is how they sell in North America." PlayStation going digital in 2028 is more of a stopgap than a strategy, I reckon. "We don't feel that the disc is the factor to differentiate from the PC...
Our strength is the curated content. That's one of our strengths. The game environment being stable. That's another strength. And compared to high-end gaming PCs, our products are more affordable.
This is short-term margin harvesting during a rough period. It’s PlayStation buying time. The bet is that today’s cost squeeze is a phase and not a permanent state. Hopefully, the component crisis eases once the AI-datacentre gold rush stops devouring the world’s memory and storage supply, hardware gets cheaper to make again, and the macro picture (interest rates, cost-of-living pressure on discretionary spend) softens.
Going disc-less keeps revenue-per-player growing through that, propping up the numbers while the underlying economics are ugly, so that when conditions do normalise, PlayStation comes out the other side with margins intact and the business still showing growth. It’s a bridge across the bad years. The risk, of course, is that the bridge doesn’t reach anywhere better.
And another important bridge will also get burned in the process. Budget-conscious and younger players enter the console ecosystem through cheap pre-owned discs, then get locked in by buying digital DLC, subscribing to PS Plus, and building a friend list they won’t walk away from. Sony CFO Lin Tao says player backlash over PlayStation ending physical disc production in 2028 has had no impact on their business so far!
"At this point in time we are not seeing any impact on our business, as of now.
But going forward, about the contents sales, a large part is already digitized. And therefore as a result the discontinuation of discs, we don't see that there will be any negative impact on our business.
However, as I already said, the users, the players have attachments and we have to think about how to respond to those feedbacks."
Says they already discussed the plans with retailers before hand and this will be their solution. Capcom report 93.3% of their game sales are digital.
- PC digital units make up 60.4% of sales
- Console digital units make up 32.9% of sales
- Physical units make up 6.7% of sales
- Note: Capcom also counts Switch 2 game key cards as digital sales. It’s been almost a month since Sony announced the end of PlayStation discs for new games starting in 2028, and a loud contingent of angry fans has continued to criticize the company for going all-digital. Asked about the ongoing backlash during its latest earnings call, Sony said it understands why people have strong feelings about physical games, but it’s still going to move forward with getting rid of them.
“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor,” Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao said through an interpreter during a Q&A on July 31. “It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing.”
She continued:
And so when we think about the future—and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this—and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us. Games are loved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. And so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore. Sony responds to the backlash over ending PlayStation discs.
"We put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we're going to cautiously move this forward..."
