‘They May As Well Eliminate the Hardware Too,’ Disgaea Creator Says

What did Sohei Niikawa say?

Sohei Niikawa said Sony has failed to understand what physical editions mean to the fans who value them. The Disgaea creator and former Nippon Ichi executive made the remarks during an interview with Noisy Pixel at Anime Expo, with Push Square subsequently highlighting his criticism.

Niikawa acknowledged the business logic behind Sony’s decision but argued that physical games hold value beyond their practical function. Fans can keep them as objects connected to particular memories, take them to events for signatures, and display them at home.

“For fans, being able to keep a game they love as an object can have a great deal of value,” Niikawa said. “It becomes a memory or a keepsake connected to something that matters to them.”

He then took the argument further: “If they’re going to go as far as eliminating physical packages, they may as well eliminate the hardware too. A television would be enough. Why would you need the console?”

Why do physical editions matter in this dispute?

Physical editions matter here because Niikawa views them as part of the relationship between games, creators, and their audiences. His objection is centred on collecting and personal attachment rather than the technical performance of discs.

The hardware comment is rhetorical criticism of an all-digital direction, not a literal proposal for Sony to stop producing consoles. It points towards a cloud-streaming-only future in which games would no longer require either packaged software or local hardware, although Sony has not announced such a plan in the supplied material.

Niikawa’s comments also expose the gap between a distribution decision and its cultural effect. A boxed game can be signed, displayed, or retained as a specific object; a digital licence cannot fulfil those same functions. Sony’s policy therefore removes more than a delivery format for players who collect physical releases.

What changes for PlayStation players?

Sony’s announcement means new PlayStation games will no longer ship on disc from January 2028 onwards. The policy concerns future disc releases rather than an immediate end to PlayStation hardware or an announced move to cloud-only gaming.

Sony’s January 2028 plan sets the scope of the current dispute, but the supplied reporting does not establish how every existing product or older physical release will be handled. Sony’s precise reasoning for ending new disc releases also remains unclear.

For players who prefer physical editions, the concrete change is the loss of that format for new releases covered by the policy. Niikawa’s intervention shows why the response cannot be measured only through current boxed-game sales: some buyers treat the package itself as part of the work and the memory attached to it.