Will disks soon disappear? A report from Japan caused a stir at the start of the week. However, upon closer inspection, gamers can breathe a sigh of relief – at least for now.
For more than a year and a half, the gaming industry has been suffering from ongoing waves of layoffsBut other technology sectors are also struggling with similar measures.
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According to the latest reports, another Sony department is affected by mass layoffs. It seems to be a direct result of the digital revolution, as the production of recordable media is apparently being scaled back. But are disc games also affected?
250 employees laid off from disk production
The Japanese publication Maine reports that Sony is cutting 250 jobs at its recordable media factory in northeastern Japan, citing the decline in demand for optical media and the continued rise of streaming services.
Later, other sources explained that the production of “pressed discs” would not be affected and that the layoffs would only be made in the area of production of recordable media such as CD-R, DVD-R and BD-R.
The disk specialist Twitter/X-Account President of Physical Media summarizes:
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- This does not apply to territories outside Japan.
- This is about CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R and not pressed discs.
- Physical media will not disappear.
Pressed discs are the type of optical discs that are mass-produced for the music, video and gaming markets.
Likewise, sources familiar with the matter indicate that at least some of the layoffs are due to the offer of early retirement schemes is due to.
Sony's factory in Tagajo recently employed around 670 people. It is unclear whether there will be further layoffs in the near future. According to Mainichi, Sony intends to gradually phase out the production of optical storage media such as Blu-ray discs.
What about games on disk?
Even though the technology giant's gaming division is not explicitly mentioned, the question arises whether the plans mentioned will have an impact on game sales sooner or later. It should be noted here that disks are still the dominant form of distribution for at least some blockbusters, such as “God of War: Ragnarök”:
Overall, the digital share usually fluctuates between 60 and 80 percent. Overall, the disk share is continuously decreasing. PC games have been distributed almost exclusively digitally for years, for example via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
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