PlayStation’s Shift Away from Discs Hits Unexpected Games: ‘Retweeting Doom Won’t Protect You, Sony’

A week after Sony’s controversial move to phase out physical discs for the PlayStation 6, the backlash is intensifying and taking on a more organized form. With the PlayStation social media accounts back in action, even posts about other games are getting caught in the storm of discontent.

After a brief silence, the PlayStation X account resurfaced with a post promoting Sony’s new arcade fight stick ahead of the summer launch of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. The response was swift and overwhelmingly negative, with the post quickly being ratio’d as users flooded the comments and retweets with their frustration over the company’s decision to abandon physical media by 2028. The post has garnered over 27 million views and more than 65,000 comments, with very few expressing anything positive.

What started as an initial wave of anger has now morphed into a continuous stream of criticism directed at everything the PlayStation account shares. This includes trailers and updates for games available on Sony’s consoles. For instance, a preview for The Blood of Dawnwalker, a new vampire RPG reminiscent of The Witcher, received over 2.5 million views and 16,000 negative comments.

Sony also announced the August 20 release date for the Souls-like RPG Mortal Shell 2, which attracted 9,500 negative comments. News about the July 14 Apex Legends x Cyberpunk event drew 8,500 negative comments, while a trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online Season One update received 4,400 negative comments. Even a July 7 tweet from the Doom account promoting the new Dark Ages DLC became collateral damage when PlayStation shared it.

Responses to these posts have been pointed. One user remarked, “Retweeting Doom will NOT save you Sony, and we are NOT playing Doom or any other game on PlayStation anymore.” Another quipped, “OH? So you can physically retweet but you can’t release physical games?” A third added, “I feel bad for anyone retweeted by PlayStation right now. Oh well. You all know what to do.”

The question now is how long these online protests will persist and whether they will influence Sony’s long-term strategy. “I do think Sony will respond in some capacity given the backlash (and honestly, they shouldn’t have announced this until they were ready to disclose how discs would work on PS6),” noted a research and insights director. “But I’d be surprised if they do a full reversal at this point.”

In the meantime, a petition urging the company to reconsider its decision has already surpassed 227,000 signatures.