It’s Okay to Love Marvel’s Wolverine and Still Be Mad at PlayStation

Obviously, I’m not here to suggest that we can’t be mad at PlayStation because, of course, we’re allowed to be. The brand’s decision to pursue an all-digital future and eventually end physical game disc production is exceedingly difficult to stomach, and I’m not going to pretend like it’s something that should be taken lightly. This is effectively one of the earliest signs of gaming as we’ve known it coming to an end, so that the digital age we’ve already accepted can encompass all things in full. That is a painful reality to embrace, no matter how much we’ve both willingly and ignorantly embraced it up to this point. However, regardless of how upset we are at PlayStation for being one of the first in the gaming industry to officially move into this future, it’s okay to still love and look forward to games like Marvel’s Wolverine, even if they have Sony’s name attached to them.

I’m saying this because there seems to be this idea out there that you’re not allowed to like anything made by PlayStation now, and that includes highly anticipated games like Marvel’s Wolverine. Out of principle, you’re expected to follow the herd and boycott PlayStation in all forms, even if it means outright refusing to buy the games you were genuinely interested in playing before all of this mess happened. But the truth is that you and I can be excited about what Insomniac Games is doing with the iconic clawed mutant and support the developers who spent years making the game, all the while believing that Sony is taking away an important form of ownership and consumer choice. Both of these philosophies can co-exist, and if we really want to see PlayStation at least come to some sort of compromise, they desperately need to co-exist.

PlayStation’s Decision Wasn’t Random, But Calculated

Right now, there seem to be three crowds: the “no disc, no buy” crowd, the “I’m boycotting PlayStation” crowd, and the crowd who aren’t speaking up because, to put it bluntly, they don’t care—they just want to play video games. Two of these crowds are fine. “No disc, no buy” makes sense, but within the context of personal preference, as refusing to buy a game if it doesn’t have a physical disc won’t actually stop PlayStation from pursuing its all-digital future. The crowd who doesn’t really care what PlayStation chooses to do with its games because they’ll buy and play them anyway is justified in its stance too, and the reasoning goes without explaining.

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However, those who are currently boycotting PlayStation because they think it will convince the brand to change its mind are, quite honestly, out of their own. PlayStation’s decision wasn’t rash, and it more than likely knew that announcing it would stir up immense controversy. There wasn’t a meeting where some random board member had this crazy idea to kill physical media and everyone agreed. This decision was undoubtedly reached after PlayStation began evaluating consumer patterns (as any successful business does), and what they saw was that physical games’ revenue had been trending downward, and they could therefore be made irrelevant to increase overall revenue by eliminating the cost of physical disc and packaging production, as well as distribution.

At the end of the day, it’s simple math. Is it fun math that results in an easy-to-stomach answer? No. But it’s math that every business has to do in order to profit and keep their staff employed. What I’m trying to say is that we all had a hand in PlayStation’s move toward ending physical game production, whether we think we did or not. Maybe you have never bought a digital game before, so, sure, you’re excused of that blame. But each of us as individuals aren’t the only people in the world who matter, and, understandably, businesses have a tendency to cater to the majority, not the individual.

So, the reality, tough as it may be to accept, is that we will have to accept it at some point, and many of those who are currently saying they will never accept it eventually will, and they will play Marvel’s Wolverine because they want to play Marvel’s Wolverine. Then there’s the fact that people just tend to say things on the internet that they don’t even mean, simply because they think it makes them sound cool and relevant, all the while picking up their DualSense controller every night and playing their favorite PS5 game. It’s hypocrisy at its finest for the sake of a fleeting moment of relevancy, and what’s worse is that many of these voices aren’t considering the fact that a full, successful boycott of PlayStation (which is extremely unlikely) would have the opposite effect they think it would.

A Successful Boycott Would Have the Opposite Effect

If the goal is to prove that physical games still matter, refusing to buy one of PlayStation’s final major physical releases could actually help prove the opposite. Sony isn’t going to look at lower sales for Marvel’s Wolverine and automatically conclude that people are protesting the end of physical media. It could just as easily see weak physical sales as further evidence that discs are no longer worth producing, while the people who worked on the game are left dealing with the consequences of a protest aimed at executives far above them.

A successful boycott wouldn’t magically make physical production profitable again. It would more likely lead to reduced investment, canceled projects, layoffs, or an even faster retreat toward the parts of the business Sony believes will make it the most money. And then those same people would yell at PlayStation as though it was the brand’s fault that Marvel’s Wolverine didn’t succeed or people were laid off, keeping themselves entrenched in the ignorant thought that they had nothing to do with it.

The only possible outcome apart from this new digital era becoming a fully-fledged reality is that PlayStation would eventually reach a partial compromise—but not a full-on surrender. Sony could theoretically license physical production to specialist companies, allow limited collector’s editions, extend the deadline for certain markets, or preserve discs for major releases while moving smaller games entirely online. Those options would let Sony acknowledge demand without abandoning its broader digital strategy, but that would still only be an additional stepping stone laid toward the inevitable future some of us still think is avoidable.

The campaign to boycott PlayStation’s strongest possible effect may therefore be making the physical audience look commercially valuable enough that Sony preserves some form of physical option. For that to happen, though, the movement would need more than viral comments on a Marvel’s Wolverine trailer. It would need sustained subscription losses, major retailers and publishers applying pressure, competitors exploiting Sony’s decision, or credible evidence that digital-only hardware will cost PlayStation future customers. But that is an exceedingly tall task that, I’m sorry, most people would probably be willing to side-step in exchange for the convenience of the “add to cart” and “download” buttons.

If You Really Want to Fight PlayStation, Buy Marvel’s Wolverine on Disc

If we truly want to see physical games media preserved for as long as it possibly can be, then the best option we have right now is not to boycott PlayStation entirely but to buy as many of their games on disc as we can. Buying Marvel’s Wolverine physically sends a much clearer message than flooding its trailer with angry comments or refusing to support it without explaining why. It gives PlayStation actual sales data showing that people are still willing to spend money on physical releases, which is the kind of evidence a corporation is far more likely to listen to than another online campaign that disappears once everyone finds something new to be upset about. It may not convince Sony to abandon its digital plans entirely, but it could help make physical production worth preserving in some capacity, and that’s a far more realistic goal than expecting the company to reverse years of consumer trends because a hashtag gained traction.

None of this means we have to smile and pretend PlayStation’s decision is fine. We can criticize Sony, cancel subscriptions, buy from its competitors, and keep reminding the company that physical ownership still matters, all while recognizing that Marvel’s Wolverine was made by developers who had nothing to do with this decision. Loving the game doesn’t make anyone a hypocrite, just as being angry at PlayStation doesn’t mean we have to deprive ourselves of something we’ve been looking forward to for years. Both feelings are valid, and perhaps the most productive response is to let Sony know exactly where we stand while buying Marvel’s Wolverine in the format we’re asking it to preserve.

Systems

Released

September 15, 2026

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases

Publisher(s)

Sony Interactive Entertainment