UK Sales Charts: Call of Duty Sinks to 11 Year Low at Retail

I know I'm just 1 person, but this is the first switch I've made to digital in the series. Having got a 4tb hard drive last year I'm Probably not going to pick up any physical games again. Purley driven by laziness And the hoping that they'll all transfer to the ps5 and beyond when they subsequently release.

I still love having a new game as a physical disc. There is nothing like the sound of taking off the plastic wrap and cracking open the case for the first time. The smell of freshly varnished printed artwork on the disc, and the label artwork on the case. The convenience of getting a game without having to leave home, hell, setting it to download from the app while you're away from home, will never replace my love of a tangible disc. Long may it last.

Every game moving forward is going to be down at Retail.

Is it the first time I do not see GTA5 in a chart of top 10?

@Tasuki CoD needs a break...

Does anyone else feel like this news with physical and digital is more like bitter sweet for Activision? I mean think about it. The lowest in physical sales, but the highest in digital sales. I don't know; if I was a representative of Activision, I will have mixed feelings about this. I mean you can point out that it came out much earlier than past Call of Duty games, but I don't know.

I've never bought a digital game in my life that was over 20$ indie. (hollow knight, the messenger, etc) is getting the digital version cheaper on AAA Game? No printed disc , no art work, no retailer cut, etc. If not who do they pass the savings on to?..... hmmm.

Yeah, I think the market is moving to digital, slowly, but surely. I still prefer physical.
I just don’t understand why the digital copy is not discounted at least a little bit vs buying it new at retail, since they are cutting out the middle man and seemingly the profit margin is higher with digital. If they pass a little of that savings on to the consumer, then more people would buy digital. It’s a win-win. But I guess this article shows people will move over anyways.

@gingerfrog Physical disks very rarley save hd space, as game installation copies the entire content to the hd anyway. So I'm buying only digital too, but having a large xtra drive isn't the consideration.

@Tasuki
Activision said more people connected to black ops 4 than wwll day one, so it's doing pretty well

Low at retail best ever digital launch on PlayStation, may not be all doom and gloom

@beemo “I used to buy everything digital and I've recently switched back to physical.”

That’s like saying ‘I used to buy discs but recently switched back to VHS’. Your backing the wrong horse, the beginning of the end for physical started awhile ago and eventually when the people who buy physical are in the very small minority, it’s not going to be feasible to continue to produce cases, discs, logistics and shipping fees, it’s not going to be worth it when developers and publishers stand to gain full profit from people buying their games digitally.

A physical copy for an online-only game is pretty much pointless anyway.

I always buy Physical where possible and I can see a time when Physical maybe overtaken by digital sales but I still think there is a market for BOTH!

For CoD to be the biggest selling 'digital' game on PS4, that wouldn't require a significant amount of sales. A million or two at most which may sound like a lot, which it is for some games, but for a franchise that normally sells 20-25m, that's a relatively small fraction.

I am sure that CoD may well of lost some of those sales to Digital, BUT I am sure that sales are down too - the lack of campaign for example was a big sticking point for many and its whether or not Battle Royale is a good substitute for them.

From my perspective, this is the first CoD since CoD4 that I haven't bought at release, the first CoD game since MW2 that I haven't pre-ordered the 'special' edition version. If I do buy, it will be when the price drops and it will be a physical disc version.

@MaccaMUFC And that's when I will quit buying games.

I prefer physical for new games so if I dont like it or complete it can then sell it and get some money back. But with older games and the very good playstation digital sales buying quite a few of them digital.

@RainbowGazelle If it’s that easy for you to just quit playing games over that then you can’t be all that bothered about gaming. Just seems to me you’d only be cutting your nose off to spite your face but nobody would care and the developers and publishers certainly wouldn’t.

I feel that certain games are moving towards digital, whilst others perhaps aren't.

To use the new Call of Duty (which is ONLY online multiplayer, lest we forget) as an example for all games would be folly. This is a game for which a disc would be pointless because, in ten years once they've shut the servers down, you'll be left with a shiny drinks coaster. At least with the others, keeping hold of a disc has some value, because you can play the campaigns for as long as you've got a working console.

It's an interesting statistic, for sure, but not a damning indictment of the state of modern gaming. Nowhere near.

the UK console market is still dominated by physical discs, ~80% in 2017 according to gameindustry.biz - given the number of pre-owned discs in game/cex etc. that i see, the popularity of cashing in a disc to buy the next thing is still there. and there's the fact that it's 60 quid on PSN, and ~45 on disc if you look around. if CoD physical sales are down 59%, even if digital sales are well up, it would have be up something like 300-400% to match total sales. extremely unlikely, imo.

could be a lot of reasons.. no campaign, or people didn't want to download a 51gb day-1 patch, or it released early in october rather than its traditional november schedule.. sandwiched between spiderman, tomb raider, assassin's creed, fifa and red dead redemption 2.. or maybe people think it'll drop significantly in price for black friday.

I haven't bought a COD game this generation which I'm sure no one noticed but I used to buy day 1. They are great fun but my head used to be wrecked. Not exactly relaxing.
The only time I buy digital is if the price is really good, I just don't like it.

@Oizon haha, that's the first thing I look for too in these sales chart articles.

@MaccaMUFC you do know people still buy Books, VHS, Cassette and vinyl right? and how long have they been "dead"

Physical media will never go away due to one simple fact, legacy in 20 years time when all the online servers are off physical will be the only version of these games still available to buy (even if you can't play them)

there is also another thing to remember you NEED retail in order to actually sell your console to the public and look at what happened when MS first released the Game Pass, shops stopped stocking the XB1 for a while because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to sell any games for the system and thus not make any money off them (it was a knee jerk reaction) now just imagine if they went completely digital, what incentive would any shop have to sell your system if they can't sell games and make money and that's another reason Physical wont go away

@MaccaMUFC I simply prefer owning a physical copy that I can sell if I don't want it anymore. If games go all digital, I'm not interested. I've got a big enough backlog now, so it should keep me going for years anyway.

@MaccaMUFC for me personally if digital games (I'm taking the big hitters not indie stuff) charged a price taking out disc, cars, packaging etc.. rather than being more than a physical copy I'd agree with you the rise in digital is there to see but while people still like to own something they can hold it won't go away any time soon. I remember iTunes launching and that being the Death of CDs but a decade and a half later there still around

It's online only title, why gamers buy it on disc? It's like buying fortnite or ff14 on disc.

@wiiware i have FFXIV on disc but that's mainly for collection purposes so i have a complete collection

@get2sammyb I'd be curious to see actual copies of the game sold compared with 3, as obviously digital sales will be higher than they used to be and reading the other article they are very clever with their words. Sales could be games sold but is likely a total cash value including multiple editions and other other bits of DLC available at launch. Ubisoft have also gone the cash route and I don't suppose they care of they sell to less people but make more money

Why would you even buy a disc with this game nothing is on it. 😑

@Splat Bull this gamedisc is just a coaster though.

@wiiware Final Fantasy has a nice case atleast. 😁 😜

I don't find I'll replay a story driven game anymore, so physical always, then if I'm not blown away, it gets traded in.

@get2sammyb I don't think this game is the correct medium to face the digital physical argument since its online only just as fortnite and switching off the server will result in no game at all.

However with frequent sales and retailers closing and offering no value benefits it keeps us 30 and 40 years plus to move the physical medium forward. I think younger generations accustomed with apps are digital by a long way as they don't value games like we do.

@Th3solution They can't discount the digital versions without pissing off the retailers carrying the physical version & they know that lazy players will pay full price for the "convenience" of digital.

@Oizon @AnthonyStark86 Don’t worry GTA V will definitely be back in the top 10 again soon.

@FullbringIchigo When you say retail/shops I assume you mean gaming stores? Well I don’t think they are really needed to sell consoles now that you can get them direct from the manufacturer or Amazon and other online sites and supermarkets/department stores. The only ones who would really kick up a stink are the gaming stores like GAME, GameStop etc who rely on selling pre owned games. Also the way things are these days with the closures of high street stores, at least here in the UK, there is only one major gaming store company GAME to buy consoles brand new and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went under again and gone for good.

@MaccaMUFC it can count to online stores too, why would Amazon or Zavvi stock a console if they can't get sales from games and accessories remember consoles are always sold at a loss because they make the money up from sales of games and stuff

plus like you said there is the pre-owned market, that is HUGE and just stopping physical releases would cause a HUGE vacuum in the market that could end up making the console gaming market a lot worse than it is now

@FullbringIchigo Amazon isn’t a multi billion dollar company because they sell games and accessories, they also don’t rely on taking a percentage off others selling pre owned games on their site, like you see on eBay and such. So I really doubt they would be too bothered if all games went digital but to make up for not having physical games to sell, they could sell games in digital form by emailing over a code or have it sent in a gift card.

The pre-owned market is huge? To who exactly? Seems to me people buy games new or wait for them to be in a sale and we’re constantly seeing digital sales on the rise across the board.

Who stands to be hardest hit if everything went digital? It’s the gaming stores and people who sell second hand games. Who cares if it upsets them? I say good riddance when it eventually happens and so will the developers and publishers, they lose out on sales to the preowned market and that’s not necessarily a good thing for gamers. Developers having more money could allow them to create more quality games. Also digital prices are higher than in stores because the stores would complain if digital prices were cheaper but if they were taken out of the equation then digital prices could be lowered, I don’t see them increasing as people would eventually have something to say about it and hit them where it hurts with their wallets.

@Dreamcaster-X I guess they do have to partner with the retailers, but I think places like GameStop make their money mostly on pre-owned anyways. And placed like Best Buy likely don’t make much from game sales, I don’t know.