The fight over Sony Interactive Entertainment ending physical PlayStation games just moved from a threat to an actual filing. Two Mexican lawmakers from the Movimiento Ciudadano party, federal deputy Iraís Reyes and senator Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, have formally submitted a complaint against Sony with Mexico's national antitrust commission, asking it to investigate the company for alleged monopolistic practices.
We flagged this when they first announced it back in July. Now it is real. On August 3 they confirmed the paperwork was in.
Sony has said it will stop producing physical PlayStation discs in 2028. If discs go away, the PlayStation Store becomes the only real place to buy new games, and a single company controlling the console, the store, the distribution, and the pricing all at once starts to look, to these lawmakers, like a monopoly.
Those are legitimate concerns. This is not politicians inventing a grievance for cloud. They are formalizing the issue that fans have shouted since the news broke.
What the Formal Complaint Is Claiming
The Concern | The Argument |
|---|---|
One seller | With no discs, Sony becomes the only channel for new games |
No price competition | Retailers like Liverpool, Sanborns and GamePlanet stop competing on price |
No resale | The second-hand and game-trading market disappears |
No real ownership | Digital games are a license Sony can revoke, not something you own |
Breaking down the formal complaint filed against Sony by two Mexican lawmakers.
Filing a complaint with a competition authority is the first step of a long, slow process that may go absolutely nowhere. Reyes and Colosio are also filing as private citizens and gamers, limiting the weight it carries. Mexico's antitrust commission only started operating last year, so this is untested ground. Do not expect Sony to reverse course next week because of a denuncia in Mexico. However, it isn't nothing either. Antitrust is contagious. Once one regulator starts asking whether a platform holder has become an unlawful monopolist inside its own store, others tend to notice, and Sony is already exposed on exactly this front elsewhere.
There is a UK lawsuit worth billions accusing Sony of inflating digital prices through its store, and a Dutch class action making a similar case. The Mexican complaint is another voice in a growing chorus all singing the same song about how killing physical media means the digital store becomes the only option, leading to the kind of control regulators were purposely built to examine.
There is a certain irony in it for Sony, too. The company ended discs to make more money per sale, and in chasing that extra margin, it may have straight into the one argument regulators actually have the power to act on.
For what it is worth, none of this is likely to touch Grand Theft Auto VI, which arrives on November 19, long before the official disc cut-off in 2028 or any ruling. This is a fight about the generation after, but it is the clearest sign yet that Sony's disc decision is not settling quietly, and that the people with actual power to challenge it are starting to take action.
The disc controversy has no grown to the point that it isn't no longer just fans venting online. It is in front of a regulator now, which is a different kind of problem for Sony entirely.