PlayStation 5 owners warned against making damaging mistake that can leave your games destroyed

Gaming preservationists are warned about a costly mistake that could be ruining their collections, with PlayStation 5 owners potentially losing hundreds of dollars with a simple error.

The gaming world has largely moved to a digital landscape, with 95.4% of all game sales in 2024 being digital purchases.

Still, as we've seen through games selling for thousands at auction, the physical market can still mean big business.

Considering a Dark Souls 3 prestige edition went for $800 back in the day, you'll want to keep your games in pristine condition.

Even for those who open up their rare copies and boot them up to play, you might be slashing their value when it comes to the PlayStation.

Given that the price of Nintendo Switch games has now climbed to $80 with Mario Kart World, and remembering those whispers of GTA 6 costing $100, you want to make sure you're not burning money when it comes to keeping your catalog of games in their best shape.

We've already been told you should regularly play your games to ensure they're still working, but just don't leave them in there.

Despite rumors of a PlayStation 6 in the distant future, the PS5 is still performing well as it continues to compete head-to-head with the Xbox Series. After being warned about how standing our PS5s vertically could be destroying them, we're now told that we're eviscerating our games by leaving them inside the console.

Over on Reddit, one person asked: "Is it ok to leave a game disc in the PS5 even when you're not playing the game?"

The replies were quickly flooded with those who advised against it, with one person saying: "I used to leave discs in my (PS4) all the time, one day my disc drive broke, likely because it was spinning and scanning the disc every time I took it out of rest mode. If you don't play disc games much it's best for the console to leave them in their cases instead."

Another added: "Technically yea, but personally I like to remove it because the console does periodically spin it up and I don't like risking extra wear on discs. The other reason is that keeping it in the bay will also expose it to the ambient heat of the console. Again, these are really only issues on the long term, so it's up to you."

Not everyone was convinced, as one naysayer said: "Extra wear? Like what? It's read by a laser, which is light. The likelihood of you wearing out a disc with light is pretty much nil. You're not going to wear out a disc from ambient heat either.

“That would be a class action lawsuit if Sony has designed the PS5 with a flaw like that. You do you, man. But your reasons are plain incorrect."

At the end of the day, it's all a matter of preference, with the PS5 safety guide mentioning nothing about leaving a disc in a console. There is a reference to not leaving games at an angle when in their cases due to fears of them getting 'warped', but when it comes to storing one inside a console, Sony is quiet on the matter.