Sony Reportedly Sent Developers a Massive Survey on Killing PlayStation Discs, and Shuhei Yoshida May Have Just Taken a Jab at the Decision

Sony reportedly sent third-party developers one of the biggest surveys it has ever circulated, asking indirectly how the end of PlayStation disc production would affect their teams. The report comes from leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead, and it lands in the same week that former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida posted a Tokyo Game Show photo that fans immediately read as a pointed jab at the decision.

A Survey Bigger Than Almost Anything Sony Has Sent Before

According to Moore’s Law Is Dead, Sony’s outreach to developers was noticeably larger in scope than the surveys the company usually sends out, and it reportedly touched on how ending physical disc sales would ripple through development teams and budgets rather than asking about it outright. Nothing here comes from an official Sony statement, and the leaker’s own track record on console-related claims is mixed, so treat the specifics as a rumor rather than a confirmed policy shift. Still, multiple outlets picked up the same report within a day of each other, and it fits a broader pattern of pushback Sony has faced since its original announcement.

Shuhei Yoshida’s Pointed TGS Moment

Adding fuel to the story, former PlayStation Studios chairman Shuhei Yoshida posted a photo at Tokyo Game Show 2026 recreating a well-known physical media handoff moment from earlier in his career, except this time his hands were empty. Yoshida didn’t comment on the disc cutoff directly, but outlets like Kotaku and fans across social media read the empty-handed callback as a knowing wink at Sony’s shift away from discs.

Why Physical Sales Still Matter

The timing matters because Marvel’s Wolverine just gave Sony a reminder of how much money is still on the table. Analytics firm Alinea Analytics estimates the game sold roughly 1.9 million copies across all platforms in its first three days, a number we covered last week, with physical discs accounting for nearly 23% of an estimated $130 million in revenue. Wolverine also delivered Sony’s best boxed PS5 launch of the year outside two bigger exclusives, as we reported earlier this week. None of those figures are Sony-confirmed, but they help explain why a survey about the fallout of killing discs would land now.

Marvel’s Wolverine official key art

A Decision Developers Say They Weren’t Warned About

Sony announced back in July that it would end physical disc production for new PlayStation games starting January 2028, closing out more than three decades of PlayStation discs. Games that already have a physical release before the cutoff aren’t affected and will keep selling as normal, and the change covers new PS4 and PS5 releases going forward. Multiple reports since the announcement have said Sony gave third-party publishers and developers little to no advance notice, and that some studios were left frustrated by the timing. The backlash from players was just as loud, with an online “Don’t Kill the Disc” petition and an organized week-long boycott campaign following the original announcement.

Sony isn’t the only platform holder fielding questions about physical media right now either. A separate, unrelated report this month claimed Microsoft has been surveying developers about disc support for its next Xbox generation, suggesting the whole industry is still quietly wrestling with how far to push the shift to digital.

For now, Sony has given no indication it’s reconsidering the January 2028 cutoff, and everything about the survey, its exact questions, and what Sony plans to do with the answers, remains secondhand. But between Wolverine’s disc sales, Yoshida’s photo, and a survey this size, it’s clear the conversation inside PlayStation isn’t as settled as the July announcement made it sound.

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Picture Source: PlayStation Blog, PlayStation