Sony's decision to eliminate physical discs for the PlayStation 6 generation has ignited significant backlash, with criticism now extending to unrelated game promotions on PlayStation's social media channels. The anger stems from the company's planned move away from physical media, a decision announced without clear details on how discs would function on future consoles.
Following days of silence on its social media accounts, the PlayStation X (formerly Twitter) account recently posted about an arcade fight stick. The post was immediately inundated with negative comments and retweets, with many users expressing their displeasure with Sony's abandonment of physical media. The post garnered over 27 million views and more than 65,000 comments, the vast majority of which are critical.
This negative sentiment has since broadened, impacting any content shared by the PlayStation account. This includes trailers and news for third-party games available on Sony's consoles. A preview for The Blood of Dawnwalker, a vampire RPG described as "Witcher-like," received over 2.5 million views and 16,000 negative comments after being reposted from the PlayStation Blog. Similarly, announcements for Souls-like RPG Mortal Shell 2 and an Apex Legends x Cyberpunk event saw thousands of negative comments. Even a post from the official Doom account promoting its new Dark Ages DLC, which PlayStation retweeted, became collateral damage.
Users are vocalizing their frustration, with one response stating, "Retweeting Doom will NOT save you Sony, and we are NOT playing Doom or any other game on PlayStation anymore." Another commenter questioned, "OH? So you can physically retweet but you can’t release physical games?" This sentiment highlights the perceived hypocrisy and disappointment among a segment of the player base.
Experts suggest that Sony may eventually respond to the widespread criticism. Daniel Ahmad, research and insights director at Niko Partners, noted on X that while he expects Sony to acknowledge the backlash, a complete reversal of the disc-less strategy is unlikely at this stage. He suggested that Sony perhaps should have waited to announce its disc plans until it was ready to provide concrete details on how physical media would be supported on the PS6.
Meanwhile, a petition urging Sony to reconsider its decision has surpassed 227,000 signatures, indicating the depth of player opposition to the move toward an all-digital future for PlayStation consoles.