In June 2013, PlayStation was untouchable, standing on the battered body of Xbox after a breezy round three in the ring. The "Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video" twisted the knife during the PS4 generation, with now-former Sony executives Shuhei Yoshida and Adam Boyes spending 21 seconds showing just how easily users could lend game discs to each other. In 2026, Yoshida and Boyes have recreated the now-infamous passing of the disc as Sony moves to end support for physical games in January 2028, and the conversation is very different.
In a September 18 Twitter post, Yoshida shares two photos from the floor of PlayStation's Tokyo Game Show setup. Both see him catching up with "best friend" Boyes, but one has sparked far more conversation online.
Met with a best friend :D @amboyes @PlayStation_jp #TGS2026 pic.twitter.com/2ZjsrLMNaPSeptember 18, 2026
With shocked expressions, Yoshida and Boyes look to the camera and hold an imaginary game box – a near-perfect recreation of their part in that PS4 instructional video, but with one important piece missing. Soon, there won't be any PlayStation discs to share at all.
This doesn't read like Yoshida or Boyes intentionally taking a serious shot at PlayStation, but many people online have pounced on the post as a measure of how Sony has changed in the past 13 years.
"Damn, there isn't anything being shared," reads one reply to Yoshida's post.
"It's been all downhill since you have been gone," says another. Yoshida left PlayStation in January 2025 after 31 years at Sony.
"This is how you share games with your friends in 2028," writes a user sharing the post.
The comments on that original 2013 video, many of them posted around two months ago after Sony's disc announcement, tell a similar story. "You've become the villain you mocked," argues the current top YouTube comment. "This is how you own yourself 13 years later," says another top-voted reply.
After the news broke that Sony is moving away from discs, Yoshida speculated that the end of physical games might not be "such a big issue" given how many on-disc games are still dependent on downloads, not to mention the overwhelming volume of digital sales compared to physical.
Preservation group DoesItPlay found that 34% of PS5 games and 50% of Xbox Series X games require a download to fully function.
"Personally, I'm a totally digital consumer," Yoshida said at the time. "I don't want to manage discs or swap discs. I want all my games on my dashboard, and I just select a game and play it. So, I'm completely digital."
