Hideo Kojima describes Sony's decision to end physical games as "terrifying" and warns that "you will not own the data": "There is a server somewhere and you only have the right to turn on the tap."

Hideo Kojima has spoken about the end of the physical PlayStation at a festival
He said he was “very sad” about the announcement and worried about what it means for the property.
He warns that we could be heading towards a streaming future: “Some company will own the server and say, ‘You can turn on the tap for a certain amount of money each month.'”

Famed video game designer Hideo Kojima has revealed that he is “very sad” about the recent news that Sony plans to discontinue production of physical PlayStation game discs in January 2028.

Speaking at the Il Cinema in Piazza festival in Rome, Italy, he said “I’m very sad about this, because I grew up with physical media” and mentioned that he currently collects Blu-ray discs and DVDs.

“Games are a little different because you download them to your hard drive, so the data stays on your hardware,” he continued. “However, if games move towards streaming in the future, that will disappear too. It’s like streaming subscriptions for movies. Like Netflix or Amazon, there’s a server somewhere and you just have the right to turn on the tap. When you turn it on, the data comes out of the server.”