It’s been three weeks since Sony announced the controversial news that it’s sunsetting PlayStation discs in 2028 and we haven’t heard any major publisher weigh in on the subject. Until now. Ubisoft’s leadership was asked about the situation on the Assassin’s Creed maker’s latest earnings call, and suggested that while there were pluses and minuses to abandoning physical, it would probably not “disturb” the industry too much.
“What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market,” CEO Yves Guillemot told one analyst who asked about the market impacts of going discless. “There’s also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines, and being able to be only digital will help to have a more accessible machine, I would say. As you said, there are pluses and minuses. But we think it will not disturb, too much, the industry.”
The CEO’s argument is that all-digital storefronts like Steam have led PC gaming to be more prominent in recent years, not less. Of course, Ubisoft also runs its own launcher called Ubisoft Connect. It does that to avoid paying platform fees to companies like Valve and Sony. This is also the logic motivating Sony to end discs.
Instead of having to share a cut of earnings with stores that sell physical copies of games, it can collect a larger share of the revenue on its own PlayStation Store. And for the games it makes, like Marvel’s Wolverine, it captures 100 percent of the revenue from digital copies vs. the portion it receives with discs sold at retail. Some analysts have speculated that skyrocketing component costs making the PlayStation 6 more expensive to produce has put pressure on Sony to find savings elsewhere.
But the “minuses” for consumers are clear: no ownership, worse game preservation, and the end of a used game market that helps keep prices down. The thousands of PlayStation fans flooding its social and video channels every day with angry comments might also beg to differ on the whole “it will not disturb” the industry bit.
Just how big a role Ubisoft will play in Sony’s all-digital future remains to be seen. The publisher is currently undergoing painful restructuring amid layoffs, budget cuts, and delayed game development timelines. Its quarterly earnings were down nearly 10 percent year-over-year, but Assassin’s Creed Black Flag: Resynced has already beaten its projections for the entire year. The remake has currently sold over 3.5 million copies.