Grand Theft Auto 6 is staying digital-first, for now, unaffected by Sony's 2028 disc cutoff, but these policies have fans fearing an end to owning games outright.
More people have viewed PlayStation's announcement that it's ending physical disc production for new PlayStation games in January 2028 than the people who have watched Rockstar Games' first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI less than a week into its announcement on July 1. So far, the bad news post has pulled nearly 140 million views as of the time of writing. In comparison, the first (and leaked) GTA 6 trailer hovers at around 126 million views.
This is not how Sony wants to go viral, especially after raising the prices on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro ahead of this year's make-or-break holiday season.
GTA 6 Trailer 1 vs PlayStation Disc Ban Announcement
| Post | Date Posted | Reported Views | What It Was |
|---|---|---|---|
Sony's disc-ending announcement | July 1, 2026 | ~130 million | Bad news that went viral |
Rockstar's GTA 6 Trailer 1 | December 4, 2023 | ~126 million | A generational reveal |
Rockstar's trailer had well over two years to rack up its views, while Sony's post blew past it in a fraction of that time.
A company's unpopular policy update should not outdo the biggest game trailer in years, and the fact that it did tells you how raw a nerve this hit.
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The timing is what makes it sting for Grand Theft Auto fans specifically. This dropped right in the middle of pre-order season, and GTA 6's own physical edition is already a case with a download code and no disc. So the biggest game around had already made discs a sore subject and then Sony confirmed the whole format is on its way out.
Rockstar reportedly has no disc planned for GTA 6 at launch or later, which means the game that has everyone paying attention is also the poster child for the change people are angry about. Fans are disappointed, and it is not hard to see why.
For anyone who does not understand why people care so much about a disc, the answer is that people just like owning things. A physical disc is something you own. You can resell it, lend it to a friend, or keep playing it years later even if online services shut down. A digital game is a license, which means platforms can revoke your access to it, delist it, leave you stranded if the servers go dark, and there's no resale market to recover any value.
So, when discs disappear, players are losing ownership, resale, lending, and a chunk of game preservation all at once.
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The reaction has been loud and broad. Retailers are pushing back, there are petitions and calls for boycott, and even comments from politicians in Brazil and France. Rival companies pounced too. Xbox leaned into advertising physical discs for its own games, and GitHub joined in with a tongue-in-cheek stunt offering to burn code to a CD-ROM, both needling Sony while the wound was fresh. Sony, for its part, went quiet on social media as the storm rolled through.
So what does it mean for you if you play GTA 6 on PlayStation? In the short term, not much changes.
GTA 6 launches in November, well before the 2028 cutoff, and it was already digital-first anyway. Longer term, the games you buy after 2028 on PlayStation will be digital by default, so if owning a permanent, resellable copy matters to you, you might want to speak out.