PlayStation veteran warns disc-free consoles cut ownership
Shawn Layden says Sony's move away from physical discs shifts the conversation from owning a game to merely renting access to it.
Shawn Layden, who spent decades at Sony and retired as chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios in 2019, has weighed in on the company's move away from physical discs. Speaking on The Expansion Pass podcast, he said he understands the convenience of digital purchases, but argued against abandoning the minority who still buy boxes. If roughly eighty per cent of players download their games and twenty per cent buy them on disc, he said, that twenty per cent matters enormously.
Those players, he explained, are the most devoted customers, the sort who buy several copies of a title to keep sealed. Layden said he does not agree with the decision, while admitting he has no window into the financial reasoning behind it. His deeper worry is what the shift does to ownership itself. If a game cannot be resold, he reasoned, a buyer no longer truly owns it, and the conversation quietly shifts toward merely renting access. He called that the more troubling dimension and warned it carries a real reputational cost.
Tags
- playstation
- business
Sources
Where this story ran: one outlet on 5 October 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.