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Disgaea creator Sohei Niikawa doesn’t believe Sony has “considered what physical editions mean to the people who value them”.
The Japanese giant has announced plans to cease manufacturing physical discs in January 2028 – a decision which has attracted widespread criticism, despite evidence showing dwindling sales of boxed games.
While Niikawa acknowledged the sound business logic behind the move, he acknowledged that physical releases often carry sentimental meaning for fans.
Speaking with Noisy Pixel at the Anime Expo, he said:
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“For fans, being able to keep a game they love as an object can have a great deal of value. It becomes a memory or a keepsake connected to something that matters to them. They can also bring that physical game to an event like this and ask someone to sign it. Afterward, they can take it home, display it, and decorate their room with it. Physical games are important because they can carry that kind of meaning.”
Niikawa implied that he feels Sony’s decision is cold: it’s purely about numbers on a spreadsheet, with no consideration for the culture of gaming, and the relationships fans have with their physical collections.
He continued:
“If they’re going to go as far as eliminating physical packages, they may as well eliminate the hardware too. A television would be enough. Why would you need the console? If you’re going to get rid of physical games, you may as well go all the way.”
The ex-Nippon Ichi man is of course referring to cloud streaming, suggesting there’s no need for any physical aspect if games no longer come in boxes.
I don’t fully agree with his comment here because, while Sony’s streaming solutions have come on leaps and bounds, there’s still an inherent value to running software locally – both in terms of image quality and response time.
But I do generally agree with his broader point overall: while I personally don’t own many physical games anymore, the ones I have held on to carry serious sentimental value to me.
My original Dreamcast copies of Shenmue and Shenmue 2 are titles I’ll never part with, for example.
Is this enough to convince Sony to continue supporting a business clearly in decline? I’m not sure, but I do think there’s something sad about stripping away the culture of the industry – even if the numbers don’t really make sense anymore.
I know PlayStation exists primarily to make a profit – but surely there’s more to this sector than simply numbers on a graph?