PlayStation's Co-Creator Says Get Over PS5 Discs Already

Ken Kutaragi spent his career building machines people put discs into, and now he's telling the people still doing that to get a grip. Speaking to VGC at the Game Republic New Horizons event in Middlesbrough, the man credited as the "Father of PlayStation" said he understands why Sony killing off PS5 discs in 2028 has people angry. He just doesn't think they're right to be.

"I understand that physical discs have become a metaphor for 'owning' games. I really understand that mentality," Kutaragi said, before landing the actual point: "Nobody thinks [physical media] is necessary for a networked device like a smartphone, because people feel that they will keep their content. So it's a mentality." Translation: you don't own it, you just haven't noticed yet, and that's apparently your problem to get over.

He's not pretending the math is complicated either. "I don't think it's economically reasonable [to continue to support discs]," he said, even while admitting Sony still moves millions of physical copies a year and that discs make up more than half of new PS5 sales in some regions. That's a strange thing to call unreasonable, but here we are.

Kutaragi also pointed at Sony's streaming hires from the Gaikai buyout as part of the shift, people who see PlayStation as a "content terminal" rather than a game console, which is exactly the kind of phrase that should worry anyone who likes owning a shelf of games. As reported in a reaction video from Tyrone Magnus, that same line is already getting chewed over by the audience it was aimed at.

Nintendo isn't following yet. Xbox hasn't said either way, though most expect it will, something this site has covered as Microsoft weighs discs for its next console too. Sony's just the first to say the quiet part out loud: the shelf is going away, and the guy who built the thing you used to put a disc in thinks you'll get used to it.