Starting January 2028, PlayStation owners across Mexico face a single-vendor reality for every new game purchase. One company will decide what each title costs, where players can buy it, and whether access survives the next terms-of-service update. Federal Representative Iraís Reyes and Senator Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, both from the Movimiento Ciudadano party, have announced plans to file an antitrust complaint before Mexico’s Comisión Nacional Antimonopolio. Their argument: Sony’s move could violate Mexico’s Federal Economic Competition Law. This isn’t a format debate. It’s a fight over who controls access to entertainment.
What Sony Actually Announced
Physical discs for new PlayStation games end in January 2028, replaced by digital downloads and boxed codes.
Sony confirmed on July 1, 2026, that disc production for all new PlayStation titles stops in January 2028, according to Reuters. New games will only exist as PlayStation Store downloads or retailer-sold download codes — a plastic box with a slip of paper inside, not a disc. Sony’s official blog frames this as responding to “shifting trends in consumer preference.” The company has not publicly addressed any antitrust concerns.
What the Mexican Complaint Argues
Lawmakers say Sony would become “both the referee and the player” inside its own ecosystem.
Roughly 1.7 million Dutch PlayStation users are already in court over this — but Mexico’s complaint zeroes in on specific, concrete harms:
- Without discs, PlayStation owners lose the ability to compare prices across stores and must buy exclusively through Sony’s platform
- Major retailers — Liverpool, Sanborns, and GamePlanet — would lose the ability to compete on new game sales
- Mexico’s second-hand game market, described as “massive” by Senator Colosio, would effectively vanish
- Sony previously removed over 500 movies and TV shows from user accounts without refund, cited as evidence of digital license risk
- Digital-only distribution assumes reliable broadband, which remains unavailable across rural Mexico
“If discs disappear, anyone who owns a PlayStation will no longer be able to choose where to buy their games and will be forced to purchase them exclusively through Sony’s store,” Reyes stated, according to LevelUp. The complaint frames Sony’s vertical integration — hardware, storefront, distribution, pricing, licensing — as a “relative monopolistic practice” under Mexican law. Senator Colosio adds that when a consumer buys digitally, they aren’t purchasing a game in any traditional sense; they’re acquiring a license, on Sony’s terms, revocable at Sony’s discretion.
Mexico Isn’t Alone
A Dutch class-action lawsuit now seeking over €400 million cites Sony’s disc-free announcement as fresh evidence of a closed pricing monopoly.
Dutch nonprofit Stichting Massaschade & Consument escalated its “Fair PlayStation” lawsuit on behalf of those roughly 1.7 million users, targeting Sony’s 30% store commission as an effective pricing monopoly once physical alternatives disappear.
“No discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it,” foundation chair Lucia Melcherts told PCGuide. Think of it as the Apple App Store wars — except your $500 console is the walled garden, and there’s no sideloading escape hatch.
If Mexico’s regulator opens a formal investigation, Sony could face fines or mandated distribution alternatives. Petitions against the plan have reportedly gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures. Sony, for now, is saying nothing. Whether that silence holds against regulators on two continents is the question worth watching.
