Anyone currently checking their PS5 playtime on their profile might be surprised: For several physical titles, the console suddenly shows 0 hours, even though dozens of hours have long since been played. Disc-based games are primarily affected; digital purchases seem to be largely spared from this issue. For fans of physical media, this comes at an inopportune time—after all, Sony’s move away from Blu-ray is already sparking debate.
What’s behind the 0-hour glitch?
For days now, reports have been piling up on Reddit from players whose console dashboards no longer display any playtime—or show incorrect playtimes—for certain titles. In a widely discussed thread in the r/PS5HelpSupport subreddit, a user describes how, of all things, the disc versions of “Kingdom Come: Deliverance II” and “GTA 5” were reset to 0 hours, while digital titles are tracked correctly. A physical game with additional downloadable DLC—“Persona 3”—remained unaffected, however, suggesting that a linked digital license bypasses the issue.
PlayStation Support has since confirmed the bug but is keeping details and a timeline for a fix under wraps. Those affected can still launch and play their games as usual—only the displayed statistics are incorrect.
No Connection to Sony’s Digital Plans—But Additional Fuel for Controversy
The obvious assumption that Sony wants to push disc players to switch to the PlayStation Store by using faulty statistics cannot be substantiated. A more likely connection is to another, already known issue: In mid-June, random adult titles suddenly appeared in the “Recently Played” lists of numerous users. Sony removed this spam promptly, but apparently at the expense of the underlying tracking data—including the playtime display for physical titles.
Timing-wise, however, the error comes at a particularly inopportune moment in an already tense debate. Sony has announced that it will stop producing new PS5 discs as of January 2028, thereby shifting entirely to digital games in the long term. For fans of physical collections, a bug that affects their disc-based games of all things feels like yet another annoyance on top of everything else—even if the two issues are technically unrelated.
Another reason to oppose the push toward digital
This trend is also evident with upcoming titles: Those who pre-order GTA 6 will find only a redeemable code in the case instead of a disc. This rules out the possibility of reselling or trading the physical version later on. Those who play using the physical disc are also often reliant on day-one updates via download—so even with a physical disc, it’s nearly impossible to completely avoid the shift toward digital gaming.
Conclusion
The current glitch with PS5 playtime is annoying, but it’s likely just a side effect of the spam cleanup in June and not a deliberate jab at physical media. Those affected need not worry about their save data or trophies—the damage to the stats display is purely cosmetic. However, an official update with a timeline for a fix has not yet been announced.
