37M Discs Sold in 2026 and Sony Still Wants Them Dead

Thirty-seven million. That's how many physical game copies were sold in the United States alone by June 2026, according to figures cited by The Gamer. Not globally. Not across a full calendar year. Just one country, six months. And Sony's response to that number is to announce it will stop making game discs entirely from January 2028.

Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and the writer behind Grand Theft Auto III through V, both Red Dead Redemptions, Bully, and Max Payne 3, was asked about the physical media debate by IGN at San Diego Comic-Con this week. His answer was measured but pointed.

"I don't know that I care, but if people want that, I think companies should provide it. But I don't know that I personally care. And I also think that the ability to update games, as critical as people are of digital releases, the ability to update and fix problems in games has been really useful for the quality of games."

Houser left Rockstar in early 2020 and now runs Absurd Ventures, a media company working on comics and two open-world video games. He has no direct stake in how Sony or his former employer handles disc production. But the framing of his comment is hard to miss: if demand exists, supply should follow. Simple market logic that Sony appears to be ignoring.

The Demand Nobody's Imagining

Sony announced roughly three and a half weeks ago that PlayStation disc games would be discontinued from January 2028. The backlash has been constant, flooding Sony's social media channels with pro-disc comments. And it arrived on top of Rockstar's own confirmation that GTA 6, launching November 19, 2026, won't include a disc at all, shipping instead with a redeemable code in the box.

The industry line has been that physical is dying a natural death, that PC already went digital years ago. There's a kernel of truth there. The 37 million figure is a steep drop from the 292 million units sold in the same 12-month window in 2009. But comparing console disc sales to PC's transition ignores a critical difference: PC is an open ecosystem with competing storefronts. Steam, GOG, Epic, Humble, itch.io. PlayStation is a closed ecosystem with exactly one digital storefront, controlled entirely by Sony. Killing the disc doesn't free the market. It locks it down.

I've written about this several times over the past week, covering everything from Sega's physical media promise to Disgaea creator Takehito Harada telling Sony that killing discs could kill the console. The pattern is the same each time: people inside and outside the industry keep pointing out that demand is real, and Sony keeps acting as though it isn't. The second-hand games market alone is valued at $7.2 billion when you include consoles, accessories, and peripherals. That entire economy evaporates the moment discs do.

Lazlow Jones, the former GTA radio station writer who left Rockstar in 2020 to join Houser at Absurd Ventures, offered a more sentimental take during the same conversation. "We all have that sort of feeling when you get that copy and you put the disc in the console," he said, before acknowledging the convenience of downloading games to a Steam Deck before a long flight. Both things can be true. Nobody is arguing that digital shouldn't exist. The argument is that physical shouldn't be executed.

Houser himself circled back to physical media in a broader sense, holding up the latest issue of his American Caper comic series. "I love physical media," he said. "I think everyone does." Absurd Ventures is publishing the series through Dark Horse Comics, with a double-sized season finale issue arriving November 11, 2026.

Two Open-World Games, Zero Disc Commitments

Houser also confirmed that Absurd Ventures is developing two video games, both open-world. One is a comedy action adventure; the other is "definitely less of a comedy." He didn't mention platforms, release windows, or whether either game would ship on disc. Given the current trajectory of the industry, I wouldn't bet on it.

And that's where Houser's comment lands with the most weight. He's saying companies should provide discs if people want them, while building games in an industry that is actively dismantling the infrastructure to do so. Thirty-seven million sales in half a year says the demand is there. Whether anyone with the power to meet it actually will is a different matter, and Sony has already given its answer.