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Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says Sony's decision to scrap physical discs is "fairly dramatic"

Layden recalls a time when digital sales "were zero percent" because Sony didn't have a market

He believes the move will also mean the PS6 won't have a disc drive

Former PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden has shared his opinion on Sony's decision to stop producing physical discs and its plan to move all-digital, calling it "a fairly dramatic decision."

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer following the bombshell news, the PlayStation veteran of 32 years confirmed that he had "no idea it was going to happen and "don't necessarily agree with it."

As for why he thinks Sony has made the decision, he suggested, "Maybe it's just too prohibitively expensive to stamp out discs," but believes that any big move to discontinue a product, feature, or model is "largely" a "straight spreadsheet [decision]."

"What are disc sales compared to digital sales? And I'm old enough to remember when digital sales were like 10 percent - I'm old enough to remember when digital sales were zero percent because we didn't have a digital market! And that number just grew over time," Layden said.

The ex-PlayStation leader suggested the COVID pandemic played a role in accelerating the purchase and consumption of digital games over physical, and believes that Sony's decision could mean the PS6 won't have a disc drive.

Analysts have also determined that the next-gen PS6 console will launch in late 2028 and won't have a disc drive , or at the very least, one will be sold separately "to play older PS4 and PS5 games on disc."

In fact, Layden revealed that ditching the PlayStation's disc drive was something the company considered for a year while he worked there.

"I've been asked this question every year for the last 20 years. 'When are you guys going to just give up on the disc drive?' My feeling with that was always: well, when I get to a place where I'm comfortable enough to believe that worldwide, broadband throughput is good enough to support that download experience, good enough to reach the majority of customers," Layden said.

He clarified, "Majority does not mean entirety, so there is a point, a tipping point, where if I have 80 percent of the opportunity, which represents 95 percent of the revenue source, what's my incentive to keep the lights on for the other 20 percent if it's effectively only 5 percent of the business? See what I'm saying? At some point, it just becomes obvious that we can't keep this whole thing running just for this very small slice of opportunity."

While Layden admits that Sony had always been "pretty good" at determining the risk of overestimating regional internet infrastructure, "because unlike Xbox, PlayStation had a wider global fanbase, and not just in the numbers, but in the reach, because Sony Corp had reach all over the world," there are also players who do not have access to the internet, such as people in military bases.

"The idea that they could still buy a PlayStation 4 game, throw it in a machine, and play was important. You don't want to leave those people behind," Layden said.

"I don't know what went on in those conversations, but it's a fairly dramatic decision."

As Sony plans to scrap physical discs, there are also concerns about the inability to resell games or buy them second-hand in the future, which Layden said "used to be a huge factor" in the business, but the rise of digital games "kind of quashed that used-game business, and made it hard for folks who were making a nickel in the secondary market by selling them."

However, he doesn't necessarily believe this drove Sony's decision because it's been happening over time, but thinks "we've reached some kind of homeostasis where it's in a weird sort of balance."

"Second-hand gaming still occurs, obviously, but it's not material anymore to the business to worry about, I think," Layden added.

Following Sony's announcement, new reports claimed that the company is testing a disc-to-digital feature for existing consoles and could also release a next-gen Project Helix console without a disc drive .

While there's no telling whether Microsoft plans to follow Sony's all-digital business practice later on, Layden believes the huge decision could influence other companies, including Microsoft and Nintendo, to follow suit.

"Certainly, this is an industry where if one company, particularly the leader of the industry, makes a decision of this magnitude, that's going to heavily influence what the other ones do," he said.

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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expects Ukraine to take the next step in repairing relations between the two countries after weeks of escalating tensions over wartime history. Rebuilding trust “requires goodwill from Kyiv,” he warned Friday.

“It won’t be the case anymore that only Warsaw proposes a good stance,” said Tusk in a video shared on X , adding that Ukrainian politicians now understood that “good relations between us are in everyone’s interest.”

The clash had erupted after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle — Poland’s highest state honor. The decision followed Kyiv naming a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), whose fighters massacred tens of thousands of Poles during World War II. The diplomatic fallout quickly escalated, with Ukrainian officials returning their Polish honors and Zelenskyy sending his medal back to Warsaw.

Zelenskyy then skipped the Ukraine Recovery Conference in late June, sending Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko to lead the country’s delegation instead.

Tusk’s comments mark a sharper tone from the prime minister, who has repeatedly urged both sides not to let historical disputes undermine cooperation against Russia.

Earlier on Friday, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski met his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha in Warsaw to ease tensions. Sikorski had previously called Nawrocki’s decision to strip Zelenskyy of the medal an “inappropriate” response, as it “humiliated the president of Ukraine personally.”

Tusk said he had received signals that Kyiv now understood “it is worth looking for ways to have an honest conversation also about the past.” Reconciliation will likely be “a long process,” he added, “but good Ukrainian-Polish relations are in mutual interest.”