Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says Sony scrapping discs won’t disturb the industry too much
Guillemot said PC going all-digital “helped to grow the market”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says he doesn’t think Sony’s decision to stop releasing games on discs will have a major impact on the games industry.
During an earnings call following the release of its first quarter 2026-27 sales, Guillemot was asked at the end of a Q&A session whether he believed a disc-free future on PlayStation was going to be more positive or negative for the industry.
Guillemot replied that there were pros and cons associated with Sony‘s decision, but that he didn’t think it would be massively disruptive.
“What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market,” Guillemot replied. “There’s also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines, and being able to be only digital will help to have a more accessible machine, I would think.
“As you said, there are pluses and minuses, but I think it will not disturb the industry too much.”
It has now been three and a half weeks since Sony announced that physical disc games will be discontinued for PlayStation consoles from January 2028, and the decision continues to receive backlash across a range of channels.
New videos posted on the official PlayStation YouTube channel (including trailers for indie games that weren’t getting physical releases anyway) continue to have their comments sections flooded with complaints or jokes about not having discs, and most are still getting more dislikes than likes regardless of the content.
A petition on Change.org to get Sony to reverse its decision currently has around 340,000 signatures, but it appears unlikely that it will have any impact, as the company’s largest production site in Austria is already preparing to move away from manufacturing discs.
Sony has has invested around €30 million in new equipment designed for making optical microlenses at the site instead, and has already started training its staff to work on it.
