Sony is ending production of disks for new PlayStation games in 2028. That move has already drawn “extensive backlash from players online,” and now it is spilling into consumer rights campaigns that are bigger than gaming forums. In Mexico and the Netherlands, lawmakers and nonprofit groups are pushing back on a core claim: removing physical discs removes the last competitive option for buying games at a fair price.

Dutch consumer rights organization Stichting Massaschade & Consument, which is part of its multi-year Fair PlayStation campaign, is blunt about what disappears with discs. As the group put it in a statement provided to Wccftech: “The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price.” The logic is straightforward. If games are no longer on discs, there is no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store. From 2028, the group argues, Sony “alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it.”

Those arguments are not just about pricing psychology. They center on power and leverage inside a closed ecosystem. Digital storefronts typically bundle discovery, purchasing, licensing terms, updates, and access rights in one place. Stichting Massaschade & Consument’s Fair PlayStation claim has long argued that Sony’s digital marketplace can charge artificially high prices because buyers have nowhere else to get their digital games. The group is extending that same theory to physical distribution by saying the disc shutdown eliminates the only remaining competitive channel.

The pushback also runs into legal complexity that matters for anyone who sits in a boardroom thinking about platform strategy. The source notes that, “for all intents and purposes, it’s perfectly legal” for Sony to make the disc change. That is why consumer groups are not only complaining, but also trying to change how the law treats digital purchases and ownership. They are effectively saying: if digital sales function more like licensing than traditional buying, then consumer protections need to evolve with the business model.

In Mexico, the pressure is taking a regulatory form. Federal representative Iraís Reyes and senator Luis Donaldo Colosio are “set to file a complaint about Sony's move with Mexico’s National Antitrust Commission,” according to a statement provided to LevelUp. The source is careful to distinguish what they are doing from outright legislative action. This is described as a “purely civilian process” and not, for now, a step toward a law that directly stops the end of PlayStation discs. Instead, Reyes and Colosio are “raising their concerns before the country’s regulators.”

Colosio’s concerns connect directly to the ownership argument and to practical access constraints that can turn policy fights into consumer harms. He says, “Consumers would stop truly owning their video games.” He also frames digital distribution as fundamentally different from buying a game: “With digital distribution, you’re no longer buying a game in the traditional sense - you’re purchasing a license, which means access to the content depends entirely on the conditions established by the company.” And he adds an infrastructure angle that is particularly relevant in a large, uneven market: reliable, high-speed internet is a requirement for using a digital game, and “isn't consistent across Mexico.”

Reyes’ framing goes to competition and conflicts of interest. He argues that Sony would become “both the referee and the player within its own ecosystem,” and warns that “we know what can happen when a single company controls every part of the market.” Antitrust complaints often hinge on that control point, even when the company’s stated intent is simply to move to a different delivery method. Here, the complaint also reflects several additional concerns beyond pricing: licensing-like access, the lack of true ownership, and the dependence on connectivity.

For executives, the strategic takeaway is that an all-digital future might be a tech product decision, but it is also a governance and compliance problem. The source notes that these campaigns are “local to their respective regions,” and it also suggests that if laws around digital ownership change, “most of the problems around the big pivot” could be solved. In other words: Sony might not need to backpedal on discs to face meaningful constraints. If digital licenses become regulated differently, the storefront dynamics, pricing power, and access terms could be forced into a new shape.

And the ripple effect is not staying confined to game players or even consumer law groups. The source points out that backlash is expanding “beyond the gaming community.” After Sony announces its sunsetting PlayStation discs, Hideo Kojima is cited with a warning about physical media, saying: “What is happening to video games in 2028 might also happen to movies.” Whether or not you operate in games, that is the threat executives should recognize: platform transitions away from physical media can become the template for other industries, turning “convenience” into a legal and reputational showdown about ownership and dependency.