The factory that made physical games for PS5 is already going into a new business

The end of an era: The factory in Austria is being converted

Not long after the news broke that Sony would stop making physical games as of January 2028, many gamers were hoping that the backlash would force the company to change its plan. However, new reports confirm that the transition is more in full swing and irreversible. According to Austrian ORF.at, the Sony DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corporation) plant in Thalgau, which for decades was the heart of PlayStation disc production and produced billions of media, is undergoing a complete transformation. With a current capacity of 600,000 discs per day, its role in the gaming industry was huge.

Sony is investing around 30 million euros in the conversion so that the plant, instead of disks, will start mass production of micro-optics. It is expected that more new production lines will start operating later. 2027, and will be focused on the production of microlenses for the automotive industry, AR and VR devices, and advanced medical equipment. With that, Sony’s last remaining disc manufacturing facility, after closing its US facility, is definitively saying goodbye to its primary purpose and turning to new technology markets.

Drastičan pad narudžbi i sudbina employee

The management of the company DADC, responsible for the production of discs, announced that in recent years they have witnessed a dramatic drop in orders. At one point, PlayStation titles made up as much as 50 percent of the factory’s total output, but it is predicted that this share will drop to only 10 percent by 2028. That’s when Sony plans to completely leave the physical media market, which made this move a business necessity.

As a result, the management informed the employees about the complete conversion of the plant. Although this is a major change in business direction, DADC says that there will be no layoffs. About three hundred employees will go through the retraining process in order to be ready to work on new technologies for the production of micro-optical drugs. It is interesting that the decision on repurposing was made even before the official announcement about the shutdown of physical media, which indicates Sony’s long-term and strategic planning independent of public reactions.

Digital sales as an inevitable future

This move is not a surprise if you look at the state of the market. In the last fiscal quarter that ended on October 31, 85 percent of the games sold for PlayStation consoles were in digital format. On an annual level, that share is 78 percent. Financial data is even rarer: revenues from digital sales in that period amounted to about 1.5 billion dollars, while physical copies brought in only 109 million dollars.

The transition to a fully digital model brings significant financial advantages to Sony and publishers. This eliminates the costs of production, packaging, storage, shipping and retail markups, which can be more than twenty percent of the final price of the game. An additional wind behind digitalization was given by the announcement that it will be one of the most anticipated titles in history, Grand Theft Auto VIbe available exclusively in digital form. All this strongly suggests that the next generation console, probably the PlayStation 6, will be a device without an optical drive.

Outraging the game and fighting to keep the discs

Unatoč with clear market trends, the decision caused a significant outcry among the gaming community. An online petition called “Don’t Kill the Disc” was launched, which quickly gathered more than 16,000 signatures. It asks Sony to reconsider its decision and preserve physical media as an option for consumers.

Critics warn of several key problems brought about by a completely digital future. The first is game preservation, as digital titles depend on servers that may one day shut down, making games unavailable forever. The second is the impossibility of reselling and renting games, which has been a common practice and an important part of gaming culture for decades. After all, it is pointed out that gamers do not actually own the games they buy digitally, but rather. only a license for their use, which is issued byč can withdraw at any time. Unatoč against strong opposition, Sony’s moves and the state of the market show that the decision to end physical media is final.