PS6 may be disc-less by default, detachable drive sold separately

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 will be all-digital by default similar to the PS5 and PS5 Pro, sources tell Insider Gaming.

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The PS6 will share one of the biggest new features of any console generation: The elimination of a disc drive. New reports indicate that the PlayStation 6 will not ship with a disc drive when it launches.

Instead, the PS6 is expected to be an all-digital system upon release. Consumers would have to buy the disc drive separately, similar to how things currently work with gen 9 PlayStation hardware.

Why go this route and nix disc drives, especially when Sony is associated with the Blu-ray standard? The answer is simple, as it usually is: Money.

The reality is that the current business model of separating disc drives and selling them to consumers at higher costs is just another way for Sony to improve margins and monetize consumer choice.

The extra accessory also means consumers have to make more effort to acquire it, which could just push them more towards digital out of convenience. Really, though, Sony wants consumers to buy directly from their digital PlayStation Store and not necessarily from retailers; Sony gets better margins from purchases on its own store.

For the last few years, Sony has made multiple hardware revisions to the PlayStation 5 family of hardware to reduce weight and size, which drastically reduces shipping costs. This was always important, but it's especially important now that US tariffs are disrupting global trade.

The PS5 Pro is the clearest example of Sony's aggressive hardware pricing strategies, and the company recently raised the price of all PS5 console hardware in the United States by $50.