Wolverine Trailer Becomes Latest Target in PlayStation's Disc Backlash

Image credit: PlayStation

PlayStation fans are keeping up their protest against Sony's decision to stop producing physical game discs, and the backlash is showing no signs of slowing down.

The controversy kicked off on July 1 when Sony confirmed it would end disc production starting January 2028. The company then went quiet for nearly a week before returning on July 7 with a trailer for its new FlexStrike wireless fight stick on its official X account. Fans, however, had other plans. Instead of talking about the new hardware, the comment section turned into a flood of over 60,000 messages, almost all demanding Sony reverse its stance on discs.

Comments like "BRING BACK PHYSICAL GAMES," "NO DISC NO BUY," and "Don't Kill Video Games" have become common sights under nearly everything Sony posts now.

Even PS Plus-related updates haven't been spared, with fans commenting things like "Cancelled my PSN+", "BRING BACK PHYSICALS," and "Cancel PS PLUS."

The backlash has spread across Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, and YouTube. Basically, wherever PlayStation has a presence, fans are showing up with the same message.

One of the most recent examples came from the Wolverine trailer, which is currently sitting at over 11,000 comments even though it hasn't crossed a million views yet. For context, older Wolverine videos from Sony barely touched 20,000 comments, even after nearing 10 million views. The gap says a lot about what's actually driving the engagement right now.

Interestingly, the comments themselves haven't turned toxic. Fans seem to be having a bit of fun while still making their point.

One popular comment joked, "Wolverine was really getting PHYSICAL in this trailer, he has such a DISCtinct presence."

Another read, "Wolverine's treasured photograph shows the significance of physical media."

Then another quipped, "You know who isn’t the hero? The killer of physical."

Smaller developers caught in the crossfire

While Sony might be able to shrug off the noise, smaller studios are feeling the heat in a different way. New Zealand-based Eat Pant Games recently launched their platformer Teeto, and its official PlayStation trailer got buried under hundreds of disc-related comments instead of feedback about the game itself.

The studio wrote on Bluesky, "Omg! our game just launched and PlayStation posted our launch trailer! 400 comments whaaaaaat! I wonder what people think of our game? Oh… oh no."

The developer later addressed the criticism directly, saying, "We've literally had people tell us to CANCEL our digital release and do physical only. IDK if people realise that we are just 2 people and this is our first game. We'd LOVE to do physical & we support physical ownership but our game kinda has to do well digitally first."

Teeto isn't alone either. Trailers for titles like Moss: The Forgotten Relic, Hela: of Mice & Magic, and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls have all seen similar patterns, with downvotes outweighing upvotes by a wide margin.

Meanwhile, a Change.org petition asking Sony to reverse its decision has crossed 330,000 signatures. Still, that pressure doesn't seem to be changing anything behind the scenes, especially with Sony's Austria facility already shifting toward optical microlens production instead of discs.

For now, it looks like Sony is choosing to wait this one out rather than respond directly.