Commissioner says EU can’t stop Sony killing disc games
“Companies are free to offer games and services in the manner that they see fit”
A European Union commissioner has said that Sony and other game companies can’t be stopped from axing physical game discs and offering their games only as digital downloads.
Michael McGrath, the EU commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law, and Consumer Protection, was asked about Sony‘s plans to stop offering physical game discs from January 2018.
Speaking to reporters in Strasbourg’s European Parliament, McGrath said that game companies were free to offer games in whatever form they chose, as long as they were compliant with the law.
“It does come down to commercial and contractual freedoms, and companies are free to offer games and services in the manner that they see fit, provided that consumer rights are fully protected in line with national and EU law,” he said.
“At this time, we did have to consider a European citizens initiative on this question of whether games should continue to be available after a new edition of the game has been brought forward.”
Last month, the European Commission decided not to propose laws requiring video games to be playable after they’re closed by their developers, in response to the Stop Killing Games movement.
Sony ‘unlikely to U-turn’ on killing discs
Sony announced earlier this month that it will stop producing physical discs for all PlayStation 5 games starting in January 2028, Only games released in 2027 or earlier will be able to reprint physical discs.
The news was met with an outpouring of criticism from fans of physical media. A petition urging Sony to reconsider the policy has so far received more than 285,000 signatures.
However, according to market analyst Dr. Serkan Toto, Sony is unlikely to change its mind about killing discs, even if users cancel PlayStation Plus subscriptions in protest.
“I sympathize with physical media fans, but Sony will not reverse this decision,” Toto told IGN. “They of course knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass.
“Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users,” he continued. “Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let’s say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just 1% of that business gone — of course not enough to Sony to start rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.”
