Sometimes the internet finds the right old tweet at exactly the right moment. That is exactly what happened this week when a Hideo Kojima post from years back started making the rounds again, right as Sony confirmed that physical PlayStation discs are on their way out for good. Read together, it looks less like a coincidence and more like the Metal Gear creator calling his shot years in advance.
The Tweet That Started It All
Back in August 2021, Kojima went on a bit of a Twitter tangent after buying a Tangerine Dream box set on CD. He mentioned that physical formats like CDs would eventually disappear, and that thought seemed to spiral into something bigger. Ten minutes later, he posted the message that is now getting passed around every gaming forum and X timeline again.
He wrote that eventually, even digital data would no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative. He warned that whenever something big shifts in the world, whether that is a government, an idea, or just a trend, access to that data could be cut off without warning. He said he would become a have-not, unable to freely enjoy the movies, books, and music he loved, and he was clear that this fear had nothing to do with greed.
At the time, this read as one creative mind worrying out loud about the direction media was heading. Streaming was already the norm for music and film, and game storefronts were quietly becoming the default way people bought their games, too. Kojima’s tweet got some attention in 2021, but it was mostly treated as a passing thought from a guy known for being a little dramatic about his hobbies.
The Tweet Is Suddenly Everywhere Again
Fast forward to this month, and Sony just gave Kojima’s warning a very real deadline. PlayStation confirmed that physical disc production for new games will stop entirely in January 2028. Every PlayStation title released after that date will only exist digitally, whether you grab it from the PlayStation Store or pick up a code at a retail counter. Your existing disc collection stays untouched, and anything released before the cutoff is safe, but going forward, discs for new PlayStation games are done.
Reports soon followed suggesting Microsoft’s next Xbox console, currently going by the codename Project Helix, may also skip a disc drive entirely. If both of those play out the way current reporting suggests, we could be heading into a console generation where neither major platform holder sells a single new game on disc.
Suddenly, a tweet that felt like idle worrying in 2021 reads like someone watching the future unfold in real time.
GTA 6 Already Hinted This Was Coming
It is worth remembering that this shift did not come out of nowhere. Reports around GTA 6 already suggested that its physical edition would not include an actual disc, something that quietly signaled where the biggest publishers were heading long before Sony made anything official. When one of the most anticipated games in history treats a disc as more of a formality than a real product, it tends to tell you where the rest of the industry is about to follow.
Sony has framed its own decision as a response to how people already shop rather than a move designed to force anyone’s hand. Digital sales have been outpacing physical ones for years, and the company is simply catching up to habits that were already well established.
The Part of the Tweet People Keep Skipping
Most of the attention on Kojima’s post focuses on the line about physical media disappearing, since that connects so directly to what is happening with PlayStation and Xbox right now. But the more unsettling part of his message was always about ownership itself, not just the format games come in.
Digital purchases already come with limits that a lot of players do not think about until something goes wrong. Storefronts can delist titles. Licensing deals expire. Servers shut down. Kojima knows this firsthand, since his own PT demo was pulled from the PlayStation Store after his split from Konami, and players who had already downloaded it were blocked from getting it again. If anyone had a personal reason to worry about digital access disappearing overnight, it was him.
None of this means physical games are gone completely overnight. Older PS5 titles on disc still work, existing libraries are unaffected, and Nintendo is still holding onto physical releases for its first-party lineup on Switch 2. But the direction is hard to ignore. Once January 2028 hits for PlayStation, and if Xbox’s next console follows a similar path, an entire console generation could exist where buying something you can physically hold is simply no longer an option for new releases.
