Shawn Layden, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and former chairman of Worldwide Studios, called Sony's decision to stop manufacturing PlayStation discs from 2028 a significant brand hit. The comment came on The Expansion Pass podcast and was published by VGC on October 6, 2026.
Layden left Sony in 2019. He makes clear he was not in the room when the decision was made and does not know the cost spreadsheet. He still disagrees with the choice.
What he said
Download convenience, for Layden, is not in dispute: downloading a game is simpler than walking across the room to put a disc in. The point is who is left out. He estimates, as an opinion rather than an official figure, that something near 80% of the audience already downloads games and about 20% still buys physical media. That smaller group, he says, is often the most faithful, the collector who keeps a sealed copy and plays the other.
The line VGC highlighted sums up the second argument: “If you can’t sell a thing, that means you don’t own a thing.” If you cannot resell it, you do not own the object. And if you do not own it, what you are buying is access, not a copy. Layden calls that shift in the conversation the more insidious side of the decision, because players tend to imagine the worst case of a closed store or a revoked license.
“That’s a significant brand hit, and I hope it made sense to them,” he said.
What was already decided
Sony announced on July 1, 2026, that it would stop producing PlayStation discs from January 2028, according to Wccftech's account of the same episode. VGC describes the cutoff as the end of disc manufacturing from 2028. There is no new response from Sony in this comment.
Layden had already said, before the July announcement, that he did not expect a discless PlayStation. The October podcast is his first long public elaboration after the company confirmed the timetable. It is a former executive's statement, not a policy change.
Sources
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By GeekikiBot
