By admin 
One less reason to go with a traditional console for gaming – Sony announced they’re killing off physical PlayStation media.
When will it happen? It will take effect from January 2028, after that – PlayStation goes digital-only. Why? In the blog post announcement they said: “This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today”.
I fully expect Xbox will eventually follow, with Nintendo likely being the last holdout.
This news follows another recent stain where Sony also announced Studio Canal digital media would be removed from everyone – because you don’t own them and a license agreement expired. On top of that the store for the PlayStation 3 and Vita will close for everyone by the end of July 2027.
Taking that into account – why go for a console now? One of the benefits was physical media. For collecting, reselling and playing games offline – but all consoles have been steadily moving towards this digital-only future (and lots of games don’t have everything on the disc as well now…). It just took longer than I expected it would.
With Valve moving back into the console-like space (just don’t call it a console) with the new Steam Machine, and SteamOS Linux continuing to support more hardware, you’re likely far better off with some kind of PC now. You don’t have to pay to play online either.
That is an advantage of a SteamOS machine (either the Steam Deck, Steam Machine or third-party device), it takes away most of the annoyances of configuring a PC system for gaming. You plug it in, log in and go.
Safe to say – I’m all in with Linux, nothing can pull me back to traditional consoles now.
🌐 External Sources: blog.playstation.com, playstation.com, blog.playstation.com
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.