PlayStation's Newest Survey Sparks Community Pushback Against Sony's Plans to End Physical Game Discs

PlayStation has released a survey that any member of the public can fill out, as long as they’re an adult — and players are using the opportunity to push back on Sony’s plans to end the production of physical game discs.

PlayStation published the survey on September 25, just days after reports surfaced that the company had sent a different survey around to game developers.

This most recent open survey contains questions regarding customer satisfaction with their PlayStation 5 console, including aspects like PlayStation exclusive games, user interface, game performance, the ability to play online with others, the DualSense controller, as well as both PS5 exclusive games and the console’s overall library.

Players are also asked to list all the consoles they currently own, including those not under Sony’s umbrella, such as the Nintendo Switch, Gaming PCs, VR headsets, etc. At a few points during the survey, players are asked to elaborate on their choices, giving them the ability to offer direct feedback to PlayStation — and while none of these questions directly address physical media, there’s certainly room for players to bring up the topic on their own.

Many fans are hopeful that this is a sign PlayStation and Sony are showing some hesitation toward their plans to kill physical game discs starting January 2028, a choice that has been met with vitriol from just about every corner of the gaming community ever since it was first announced in July.

“I don’t think they are ready for the responses, but this survey is a sign that they are at the very least aware that their public image has taken a helluva kicking lately,” one user wrote on Twitter/X.

“Filled it out. Respectfully told them they’ve been the worst all year lol,” another remarked.

Another player attached a screenshot of their written response in the survey, where they wrote, “To access this information, please insert the ‘my opinion’ disc into the disc drive, plus download the needed information from the internet.”

As previously mentioned, this survey comes hot on the heels of another survey that PlayStation reportedly sent out to game developers just a few days earlier. Speaking on the Broken Silicon Podcast, host Tom said it was “one of the biggest” surveys that developers had ever received from PlayStation, and similarly questioned if it didn’t signal some hesitation on Sony’s part regarding its choice to stop making game discs.

However, it’s worth noting that executives at the company have maintained their stance on the subject, with chief financial officer Lin Tao saying in a July investor Q&A that it is going to “cautiously move this forward” despite being well-aware of the public’s “strong views” on the topic.