Zelnick Won't Talk About Sony's Disc Decision. He Just Made the Same Argument.
Take-Two's CEO spent Friday's earnings call declining to comment on Sony killing PlayStation discs, then explained why GTA 6 isn't getting one, using almost exactly the same logic.
On the same call where Take-Two talked up GTA VI's early preorder numbers, CEO Strauss Zelnick fielded a question about Sony's decision to stop manufacturing PlayStation discs starting January 2028. He wouldn't comment on Sony specifically. He didn't really need to, because what he said next about GTA 6 landed in almost the exact same place.
What Zelnick Actually Said
"Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed," Zelnick told analysts. For a big game like GTA 6, he said, discs "just don't really make sense for the consumer," since most games already require an online connection to play anyway. He compared physical media's future to vinyl records, still around, still meaningful to some people, just no longer the default. Take-Two isn't ruling out physical releases going forward. Zelnick just doesn't think they'll make sense as often.
The Same Case Sony's Making
Sony's been running the identical argument since announcing its own disc cutoff on July 1. CFO Lin Tao broke the company's silence on the backlash during its own earnings call, saying Sony would "cautiously move this forward" because digitization is progressing across every kind of media, not just games. Two of the biggest publishers in the industry are making the same pitch in the same week, using the same word underneath it: inevitable.
The Number That Doesn't Quite Back That Up
In the quarter ending June 30, 82 percent of full-game PS4 and PS5 sales were digital. That sounds like the trend Sony and Zelnick are both describing, except the same figure was 83 percent a year earlier. Digital's share didn't grow. It slipped by a point. Whatever's driving these decisions, it isn't a chart showing physical buyers disappearing quarter over quarter, because that's not actually what the numbers say.
The Pushback
A Change.org petition against Sony's decision has pulled in more than 330,000 signatures. A community group called DoesItPlay is organizing a week-long boycott, PSBlackout, running August 23 through 30. The UK's trade association for the entertainment retail industry called the whole move "a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice." Sony's said none of it is changing anything. Take-Two didn't even need to be asked about Sony directly to end up making the same case.
