Ken Kutaragi, the engineer who spearheaded Sony’s original PlayStation, PS2 and PS3, told VGC at the Game Republic New Horizons conference in Middlesbrough, England, on October 15 that he understands why gamers are upset about Sony ending disc production, but he doubts it makes economic sense to keep them.
Speaking to the outlet, the former chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment and group CEO, who left the company in 2007 and now runs his own ventures, said physical discs have become a symbol of game ownership and that resistance to a disc‑free PlayStation is largely a “mentality issue.” He noted that the PS2 and PS3 offered network features that were not as widely used as today’s online‑centric consoles. Comparing consoles to smartphones, Kutaragi argued that most people now expect to be online and trust that digital content will stay with them.
Sony’s official stance appears to differ. In response to a class‑action lawsuit filed in a California federal court in August, the company argued that consumers only receive a license to play digital downloads, not ownership, and that such licenses can be revoked.
Kutaragi also suggested that current PlayStation leadership views the platform differently from his era, pointing out that Sony Interactive Entertainment has hired many staff from Gaikai and other streaming services. He said they may see PlayStation as “not just a game console, but also a content terminal.”
He recalled predicting the decline of discs back in 2006, telling GameSpot that digital distribution would eventually make them unnecessary. Sony announced in July that it will cease manufacturing disc‑based PlayStation games beginning in January 2028, citing a shift in player preferences. Digital downloads accounted for 82 percent of full‑game sales on PS4 and PS5 in the April‑June quarter, while physical software generated ¥20.5 billion of Sony’s ¥526.6 billion total game‑software revenue, less than four percent.
During Sony’s July 31 earnings call, CFO Lin Tao said the company would proceed cautiously with the plan despite strong player opposition. By that time, an online petition urging Sony to retain physical games had gathered more than 352,000 signatures.
Kutaragi is the third former PlayStation executive to weigh in. Former Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said in August that he plays exclusively digitally and does not see the loss of discs as a major issue. Former Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden told Brian Crecente’s Game newsletter that a disc‑free PlayStation would be “depressing, but solvable” if Sony licensed its disc‑pressing process to third‑party manufacturers, similar to Microsoft’s approach with Xbox.
Kutaragi’s position lands between those two views: he accepts Sony’s economic reasoning while acknowledging that discs have become a metaphor for owning games.
On October 15, Representative Ritchie Torres (D‑NY) raised the ownership question in Congress, unveiling the Power to the Players Act. The proposal would ask the FTC to create rules treating purchased games as owned rather than licensed and would require offline modes for online games before servers are shut down. The bill has not yet been formally introduced.