The conversation concerning physical media in the realm of video games reached an all-time high after Sony announced the discontinuation of physical games at the beginning of 2028, recently. Avid game collectors (and I imagine parents of your children) have long understood that nothing beats getting to hold the game you paid for right in your hands. It’s not just a trophy for them to stuff onto a shelf, never to be seen again, but a vehicle for conversations, friendships, long nights, great memories, and so much more.
Fortunately, just because PlayStation (and, unfortunately, a majority of gamers) feel that digital sales are better doesn’t mean that fans as a whole feel the same. The RPCS3 X account posted an announcement that features the ability to play PS3 games directly from the disc drive using your original, physical copies.
You can now play your PS3 games on PC… DIRECTLY FROM THE DISC DRIVE!
💿 PLUG AND PLAY! Owning your games as physical media allows you to play games released as far back as 20 years ago without relying on any servers!
See compatible disc drive models at https://t.co/nSzG5S954L pic.twitter.com/d1uKE7Bpyr
— RPCS3 (@rpcs3) September 6, 2026
https://platform.x.com/widgets.js
In a reply to the post, RPCS3 also thanked supporters who helped make it happen as well as shared additional news on disc drive play support. The post said, “This was made possible thanks to digant73 and Megamouse. Recent changes to RPCS3 have extended direct disc drive play support from being Windows-only to also supporting Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD, and have optimised install times for package installations from the disc drive.”
On the RPCS3 page, a disclaimer concerning methods of playing your physical PS3 games using a Blu-ray Drive says, “PlayStation 3 games can be dumped using a PC with a compatible Blu-ray disc drive using dedicated software but may require advanced knowledge regarding dumping data from game discs. More information on compatible Blu-ray drives can be found below.”
Following this is a long list of compatible drives, ranging from popular LG drives to BenQ, Plextor, and even Verbatim drives.
The X post has gathered nearly 60,000 likes since it was initially posted, with fans filling up the comments section with their excitement. The RCPS3 team also used the comments section to answer a few questions that users had, including how to open games this way and even the potential of other drives that could be added to the already long list of PS3-compatible ones.
