Hideo Kojima has spoken about Sony’s cessation of physical video game disc production, with the director behind Death Stranding expressing that the news made him feel “really sad”.
Speaking at Italy’s Il Cinema in Piazza festival, the renowned video game maker spoke about last week’s dramatic news, explaining norms around cloud streaming and the potential problems it enables due to the consumer’s lack of access and ownership.
“[Games] are downloaded to the hard drive, that means the game data remains on your own hardware,” Kojima said (translated by Genki on X). “However, if things shift to streaming in the future, that won’t be the case anymore.”
Kojima goes on to reference subscription services like Netflix and Amazon, saying users can “turn [on] the tap” to access whatever films or movies they want at the cost of possessing the data for said media. He then moves on to the potential risks of this business model which could prohibit a user’s access to media in the future.
“However, with nations, politics and various ways of thinking, one naturally has to consider the possibility that if there is a change, the data inside will stop being distributed,” Kojima says. “And if that happens you won’t be able to watch or play the movies and games you like. That is what is frightening.
“So, what is happening to video games in 2028, might also happen to movies. I’d like everyone to keep that in mind.”
Since Sony revealed it will end the production of physical game discs starting January 2028, the company has assured developers that discs for can still be ordered as long as they are released prior to that cut-off date. It has limited purchases of external disc drives to one-per-order as demand surges, and the lone factory that produced PlayStation discs has already started its transition to a microfilm production line.
