Sony's announcement that it will wind down physical PS5 game production by January 2028 was framed as an inevitability — the console world simply catching up to where PC gaming has been for years. The backlash suggests plenty of people disagree, and at least one group is taking it to court. The Dutch consumer organization Stichting Massaschade & Consument (SM&C) has filed a €400 million ($457 million) lawsuit against Sony, arguing the move to all-digital strengthens its existing case over the 30% cut Sony takes on every PlayStation Store sale — a "Sony tax" that physical retail games were never subject to. SM&C chair Lucia Melcherts put it bluntly: "The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price. No discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it." A UK retail group has piled on too, calling the decision a "triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice," even as plenty of players still buy physical. Not everyone thinks the fight will change anything. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad compared the move to Apple ditching CD drives from laptops in 2008: plenty of complaints at the time, and virtually none now. "If not PS6, then PS7," he argued on X, calling the shift to digital an inevitable outcome of an industry where the overwhelming majority of sales already happen online. But Ahmad also flagged the part that makes this different from Apple's case: Sony makes more money on a digital sale through its own storefront than on a retail sale, meaning the move is as much a platform-led revenue play as a market-driven one. With console prices already climbing amid the ongoing memory chip shortage, he suggested Sony is deliberately leaning into higher-spending "hardcore" customers, even at the cost of alienating everyone else. The knock-on effects are already visible. Koei Tecmo has pulled two RPGs, Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star and Ciel nosurge, from the PlayStation Store entirely — a small but pointed reminder of what "no discs, no alternative marketplace" can mean for game preservation once a publisher decides a title isn't worth keeping listed. French outlet Gamekult noted the broader irony: Europe has little practical recourse to stop Sony's decision even as anger mounts across the continent. Ahmad's closer take may be the most useful framing here: the real conversation shouldn't just be "physical versus digital," but what a digital license should actually guarantee buyers — refunds, family sharing, the ability to gift a game, and some assurance you won't simply lose access to what you paid for. Whether SM&C's lawsuit moves that needle, or simply becomes the latest expensive footnote in Sony's long march to an all-digital PlayStation Store, is still an open question.
