The PlayStation Blackout appears to have made little difference to US PS5 activity. Circana detected no meaningful movement in player numbers or engagement during the week-long protest against Sony’s move away from discs, though its findings do not cover the rest of the world.

Switching off PlayStation consoles for a week was supposed to send Sony a message about physical games. In the US, the available activity figures suggest that message barely registered. VGC reports that the fan campaign against the planned end of disc production had little apparent effect on how many people used their PS5s.

Preservation group Does It Play organised the PlayStation Blackout for the end of August. Supporters were asked to leave their consoles off for seven days, turning opposition to a digital-only future into a visible absence from the platform.

Asked about the campaign on Bluesky on September 14, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said the company’s tracking showed no substantial change in either player numbers or engagement. That suggests limited participation in the US, although he did not provide a count of the people who joined the protest.

The geographic qualification matters. Circana’s figures here concern the United States, so they cannot establish how strongly players responded elsewhere. Activity is also a different measure from sales or Sony’s overall business performance. VGC notes that some fans questioned the chosen dates, arguing that the protest fell in a relatively quiet stretch with few major releases.

Sony had already addressed criticism of its disc plans in July. The company indicated that it intended to proceed carefully despite the objections. During a questions-and-answers session accompanying its financial results, chief financial officer Lin Tao acknowledged the social-media backlash for the first time.

Tao said Sony had received a range of firmly held opinions and understood the emotional response. Games, she explained, are entertainment that many people associate with treasured memories, something the company wanted to take into account. Her comments nevertheless focused on retaining players’ interest within the digital ecosystem Sony is planning, rather than announcing a reversal.

Retailers were part of that discussion too. Sony said it had been talking to them about a future without discs and raised the possibility that US shops could continue selling boxed products containing download codes. A box on a shelf could therefore remain part of the buying experience even when the game inside is no longer supplied on a disc.

Source: VGC, Mat Piscatella (Circana)