Sony's no-disc decision has another huge victim – 4K Blu-rays will suffer
There's no way this ends up being good
I'll be interested to see if the news that Sony won't make disc-based physical releases for its consoles starting in January 2026 makes a proper ripple in the home cinema world, but it really should. The more I've thought about this announcement from PlayStation, the more despair I feel, and I don't think it'll just be games that are affected in the long run.
I've written a lot in the past year about how much I've enjoyed getting into physical media, starting up a modest but decent collection of movies both in standard Blu-ray and 4K formats. While I now use the brilliant Panasonic DP-UB820 and love it, for a long while I relied entirely on my PlayStation 5 to play 4K discs.
To be more precise, I used my PS5 before I upgraded to the PS5 Pro, at which point I had to fork out more money for the optional extra disc drive, since the PS5 Pro is digital-only. That already made it clear that using a disc on a PlayStation wouldn't be accessible forever, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.
The key point I'm trying to make here is that we know the market for 4K Blu-ray players is really small – it's been that way for years, and the number of brands making players has shrunk over time.
Now, given that we can be extremely confident the PlayStation 6 won't have a disc drive (because why on earth would it?), it's highly likely that the one remaining mainstream way of being able to play 4K discs (the console under your TV) will also disappear.
Someone who didn't necessarily have a big collection of discs, but had some old favourites and could be tempted by a big new release on 4K, will soon quite probably have no hardware to actually watch a disc – unless they keep hold of their PS5 or Xbox Series X.
Given that the PS6 is likely to cost a genuine bomb, though, this might mean missing out on a decent trade-in fee for the older console, a luxury that only some will be able to afford.
It all means that an already niche market for physical cinema and TV releases might well shrink even further, and that's a terrible thing in my eyes. I've had some of the best home viewing experiences of my life in recent months thanks to proper physical releases from outlets like The Criterion Collection, replete with extras and featurettes to enrich a viewing.
In a world with fewer actual disc players, the idea that we'll still see the same number of disc releases feels pretty optimistic to me, and while we've seen revivals for formats like vinyl and cassettes in the music world, there aren't the same green shoots yet in movies.
Only this week, PlayStation users found a huge list of movies being deleted from their libraries after supposedly having been purchased, so it's not like the digital question is only for gamers. So, while it might seem unfair to say that PlayStation isn't just killing physical games with this decision, but also killing physical movies, there's certainly an argument to be made there.
Put it this way – I'd buy a Panasonic player sooner rather than later. They might get discontinued at some point, and then you'll be up the creek with just a PS6 and no disc drive to help.
