Amidst Sony's Disc Debacle, Capcom Sales Data Is a Brutal Reality Check for Fans of Physical Media

Is that 6.7% enough to cover the costs of printing the disks, packaging and distribution across the globe? Don't forget Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo 30% cut as well. So probably not and that is why most publishers will be up for getting rid of physical media as it's just not worth.

And this is why the big studios/publishers haven't come out and condoned the announcement...

Leasing digital code is like leasing an apartment. You can boast about all the money you’ve saved and the convenience of it, up until the point you get evicted and thrown out into the street. It’s then you realize the value in owning your home.

>A future that's practically all-digital has been inevitable for a long time

Except it isn't inevitable, if Sony can make a turntable for a market that isn't as expressive as streaming in the music industry then they sure as hell can continue their strategy of an optional disc drive for those who want a physical option.
While at that, they also could license to third parties the whole disc manufacturing, authentication and distribution proccess.

Can we go back to talking about AI or something?

@UltimateOtaku91 The report also says that 90.8% of sales come from overseas. So for what it's worth, Capcom's likely shipping a lot of physical games all over the globe.

So...for the ones claiming Sony is lying about their physical/digital sales, is Capcom lying about their physical/digital sales splits too? To be clear I buy the majority of my games physical, but I could care less about Sony discontinuing discs in 2028.

Capcom games are always heavily discounted digitally after a few months. Resident Evil games spend more time on sale than not on sale so this isn’t surprising. Once again, launch weeks aren’t like this but post launch it’s only going to go one way especially given how pc went

Now let's sit back and await the spin on this from the usual suspects about the figures being manipulated, or not counting this or that region, or the sample being wrong etc etc.

At this point, we just need the 'He's dead, Jim' meme for those bits of plastic.

"Just 6.7% were physical" is misleading by your own reporting. Just in the next paragraph saying 60% was on PC. Since we know that PC dont have physical games, that will push the physical games to around 20% of console games sold.

And again, you mention that heavily discounted old games will tip the point toward digital, meaning the percentage will be higher for new games.

So no, dont shove the argument that everybody is already buying only digital down our throats using bad statistics.

@TheSingularity it didn't take long

@Balaam_ you know what real homeowners such as myself enjoy? Not cluttering up our houses with plastic boxes and *****.

@ReignMan_27 People Claiming that Sony are falsifying their financial statements is such a hot take by those people that their hands must need treatment for first degree burns from holding onto that logic.

While the devil is in the details, it all points to the same thing.

Sales figures are surely gonna be affected by availability too. Older games are often not available on disc and new physical games are selling out seemingly because they are manufactured in low numbers.

@ElPenitente lol as sure as night follows day

To be fair the only Capcom game releases in April - June 2026 were Pragmata (had physical shortages meanwhile it was digital only on Switch 2) and DMC5 on Switch 2 which was eshop only.

Capcom treating Switch 2 Key Cards as digital sales is an important thing to consider when looking at physical/digital split. Personally I think that's the right way to categorize Key Cards, they require a full internet download to use games so they're not true physical releases.

Are these numbers for the number of sales or the revenue? I think it’s the latter.

Either way, 6.7% of the total sales becomes 20.4% of all consoles sales. Assuming that a huge chunk of the sales for consoles are digital, discounted older games, the physical share for the new games is not looking bad. Maybe a third?

Edit: @PazuzuOvBabel You were five minutes earlier than me, and we both had the same thoughts about these numbers. But our findings wouldn’t make up a sensationalist title for an article.

The physical copy of pragmata sold out on release in the UK. I had to wait 3-4 weeks to buy my physical copy. No disc no but.

One thing I will find funny is I have seen a few people say they want to see discs go extinct to help the environment and not waste plastic that will pollute it. But guess what codes will come in? lol

And no I don't buy physical except for the Japanese games publishers are too cowardly to release in western countries. I would have liked the Resident Evil special edition on disc though, but it sold out because they only printed a limited number.

I'm getting increasingly confused by this argument. Unless it's 0%, I don't really see why the ratio would matter.

Do you guys get paid for every single article you make on this topic that's just the same thing over and over?

@SodaPop6548 I've been saying that this whole time , digital ownership needs to be updated, yes losing a choice does 100% suck, but we to focus on getting the future of digital games settled at least.

Nobody disputes that digital is larger. The leap from "most people buy digitally" to "physical no longer matters" is the problem. Even if physical is a minority it still creates price competition, supports the second-hand market, and gives consumers ownership options that disappear when discs do.

@ShogunRok The real „Brutal Reality Check“ is that for Capcom, PC accounts for roughly the double revenue than PlayStation.

And Sony decided to leave the market for PC games.

So when we apply these percentages, we see that RE Requiem sold 469k and Pragmata sold 167.5k physical copies if we assume each sold that exact percentage physical. Obviously this isn’t exact in real life, but let’s go with it.

…sorry, how exactly is this showing discs are dead? Thats a combined 636k physical copies.

That is NOT BAD. This isn’t “oh no, discs are dead” that’s “hey, this actually justifies still making physical copies.” Especially when this is a COMBINED NUMBER that includes PC sales (digital only that the article does mention) as well as Switch 2 GKCs that Capcom themselves told us a while back they count as digital sales. So NONE of the Switch 2 sales would count as physical.

It’s fun to actually, you know, carry the math to its conclusion instead of tossing out what seems like a tiny percentage and saying yup, discs be dead. This also doesn’t take into account that both games were damn hard to get physical copies of for a while, which is not the hallmark of an item not in demand.

Forgive me, but shouldn’t an article on this topic be addressing little facts like this?

@Max_the_German Kinda my takeaway here.

Using the same logic to justify abandoning physical, we might as well say consoles are clearly trending downward and developers should stop bothering with them soon.

So a hair over 20% of their console sales are physical.

6.7% overall when only 32.9% are console sales, means that it's less valuable to compare the 6.7 to 100 than it is to compare 6.7 to 32.9, which is a hair over 20%.

The underlying point remains and is still valid, but 20.4% of console sales is not as dire as 6.7% of all sales sounds.

It's still something that publishers have reason to want to go away, which I still think is driving this even more than Sony. How much profit do they make on the physical sales vs the digital sales? How much do they lose in manufacturing, shipping, wholesale pricing, and buy-backs from retail? How does that compare to their margin on digital? Standard practice is to assume they get just 50% of the retail price - that's less than the 70% from the Playstation store even if the disks and shipping were free.

If 6% of total revenue is disk and console makes up 30%, then disk sales are 20% of the console market. If we did a deeper dive and removed box revenue where its more digital Xs) and then removed dlc/microtransactions revenue, I think we would see that physical is still far from dead. These miss reported revenue comparisons are Trump stealing fake news lol

@JPEGMakima They don't get paid for each one of these articles, but they know the tears of the vocal minority sustain me and I am grateful for this.

I agree with the figure being calculated by some based on this data (assuming PC is all digital) that 20% of console sales here are physical.

But, I just don't know how financially sustainable this is, given the initial outlay.

It needs to be taken into consideration that Physical is in decline, and 1 and a half years from now, this 20% will be lower.

93% digital is pretty crazy though.

@TheSingularity Nostradamus over here lol.

@Rich33 If we could have a report on the actual costs of providing physical copies, that would be a much more compelling argument in my eyes than physical's downward trend.

So long as physical is selling, I don't see much reason to not provide it. If we learn a game has to sell an extra 200k — or something — just to recoup the costs of producing physical, there'd be something there.

What i can say? People can try and spin as much as they want but fact is the vast majority buy digital.

@Balaam_ The facts you're comparing a hobby to owning a house speaks volumes.

...hmm, looks like some are still buying physical discs?! physical is far from dead at least as I see it

@Pat_trick You understand shops will still sell games right? If Amazon want to sell the game cheaper then PSN they still can.

Seems like fuzzy math. Like others have pointed out. Isn't the real story PC has overtaken consoles? And Why would console makers cut out 20% of their customers?

So 20% of PS5 games then. Good to know.

I'm sick of hearing "hey guys physical disc sales are low!". We know and we don't care! It's the same for music CDs and Blurays BUT GUESS WHAT, nobody is out here trying to shut those down. Why is it video games that gets the axe out of nowhere? Consumers should have options and if Sony truly nukes game discs they are solidifying a monopoly. Enough with the Gilded Age robber baron nonsense. Consumer rights need to be upheld!!

I do think that the numbers are a little bit misrepresented here. More than 60% of the sales were all on PC, so the numbers we should be looking at are the 32% of console games that were sold. Of that 32%, about a fifth of them were physical.

@DennisReynolds That's true today. The concern is tomorrow. Retailers can only compete if physical copies continue to exist. Remove the format, and PSN becomes the default marketplace with far less price competition.

Your lack of foresight never fails to amuse me.

As I've said before, all digital is inevitable and companies like Sony are not going to cater to a minsucle minority no matter how vocal they are. Boycott all you like, Capcoms figures prove that your lack of a purchase will not affect Sony or their all digital decision in the slightest. The level of physical purchases wont cover the manufacturing costs of releasing physical games and certainly wont go any way in covering the costs of producing a console with a disc drive. I 100% prefer physical but this is a route that everyone is going to take, not just Sony, so we may as well get used to it.

I think PC has the whole Capcom catalogue from 100yrs ago available to purchase whereas consoles have limited available games, explaining the high PC percentage. I mean people can't even buy GTA4 on PS4/5.

From a purely gaming perspective, Physical media is obsolete as the disc and drive are too slow to play games from and have been for over a decade. The ONLY reason you need to keep putting the disc in the slot is to prove you still own that bit of plastic, still own a Licence key to unlock access to the game installed on your Hardware.

Its essentially been hanging on because of its one big advantage that some gamers value highly, that being able to sell or trade their Physical licence matters - but they don'y play games from Physical media and the vast majority rely on the internet to update the 'pre-release Alpha code' they had to send to the disc manufacturer a month or more in advance so the discs could be sold on day of release. So many games require updates, fixes/patches and/or receive additional content post release that improve the game with numerous QoL and much requested additions.

Digital isn't an issue for an open platform like PC and Capcom has 2/3rd of its sales on PC - an all digital platform and has been for years. Of course they can still play there PS3 era (and older games) on their latest hardware - but you can't put your PS3 disc in a PS5 to play it and also don't require a Sub to play over half the games and if you refuse or stop paying, games you paid $70 (or more) are blocked, and no longer playable even if you own the disc on consoles - that's more the issue than 'digital vs Physical' and it seems that the locked nature of Console gaming, the lack of 'control' gamers have on Console, is perhaps why they feel they want to keep 'discs' that gives them a 'tiny' bit of control ...

might have something to do with capcom purposely not printing enough physical copies to sustain the demand, in addition to the higher than normal pc sales on these titles. if people cannot find a physical copy, they will resort to digital and the publishers can then show their shareholders the data that favours digital. funny how that works.

also, that 6.7% figure works out to more than 20% of all sales (for console) being physical in this example. not a small number by any means. would have been much higher if capcom printed more discs too.

I dont get why people seem so compelled to try and make the others “get over it”. Doesn’t affect them one bit. If you prefer digital, nobody is forcing you to anything, might as well carry on doing your thing, unless you for some reason personally has something to gain from it, i dont know why you would care. Let people voice their dissatisfaction how they want. It seems even within the community people want to keep infighting, its not if as keeping discs will make devs publish fewer digital copies. Many dont release physical already and thats fair. Others see value because each community is different. The thing is after this no one will be able to choose.

To be fair, the partner and I are only really buying physical for Switch and Switch 2 (catching up on all missed on the console or what we’d prefer portable).

So, even though I’d love to see more reports of physical games sold on PS5, I’m definitely part of the issue where this is concerned.

However, I guess just more reports like this will be analysed and scrutinised until the 2028 date approaches. PS Portal, along with being able to share the same copy of a game in realtime with my partner killed physical for me.

One copy of a multiplayer game and two people playing in the house at the same time? Yes please!

Do wish there were a way for physical to continue for those that want it, but it wouldn’t be from Sony directly.

@Pat_trick GTA 6 digital only but is still being sold by retailers. A quick check on Amazon shows they're selling it for less than it is on PSN. Maybe that's the future for the physical market. Empty box is still a box to put on a shelf.

The slow reveal of kind of the proper figure was a bit skewed. Then as some pointing out about Capcom's Switch cards internally considered digital sales. Makes the headline seem a bit baity.

I got pragmata on disc and resident evil on digital. Choices are good 👍 We shouldn't care whats best for their margins. Some people want the physical item.

As someone who has a large physical movie, game, and vinyl collection. Fucj Sony for this move. I dont care how little the percentage is. Open up your process to let others make disc's if you dont want to.

Fact is the majority of gamers do not care! You say it’s caused an outcry. It hasn’t really, there’s been maybe a few thousand moaning on social media. The only way Sony will listen is if you use your wallet. Yet the vast majority are still buying digital!

The Resident Evil catalog is routinely on sale for $5. I'll pull the trigger on $5 and have repeatedly. Shoot, I own 3 physical copies of the original RE2, but I played the digital one this past weekend.

What's the share of physical to digital on games released this year? That's what I'd like to know.

Amazon never fulfilled my Resident Evil Requiem Deluxe Edition preorder from the beginning of November. Gamestop canceled my Collector's Edition of Resident Evil 4 Remake a week or two before it released even though I preordered as soon as it went up.Sony published Collector's Editions have been download code only for years now. The PS5 came out as a version with a disc drive or a digital only model, PS5 Pro just released compatible with the PS5 Slim Disc drive no option of buying it included, they've been planning this for years but, the data might be skewed.

Sony is also cheating data. When you grab "free monthly games" thru PS subscription you actualy buy it for £0. Right now I've grabbed KCD free PS5 upgrade for my PS4 disc version...? no... I've bought it for £0.

and that is the way how these statistics are screwed to the ground just to fit their purpose...

Pushsquare I beg you to stop spreading false statistics!

@Balaam_ Where do you live that leases are cheaper than mortgages?

Junk data. 60% of their playerbase don't have physical media.

Of course old games sell more digitally for them because they're dirt cheap and accessible. And print runs on discs are long dried up.

Skewed statistics as usual. I'd like to know what percentage of physical is left once you removed games unavailable physically on the platform and games sold under 10€/$/£.
Having the average sale price repartition for both physical and digital would also be interesting. I bet a majority of digital sales are below 20€, and physical above 40€

@Pat_trick Well Sony have literally said this. I'm not going off fear mongering distant futures i'm going off today and the not too distant future. I'm not worrying about the state of gaming in 5 years because well why would i? Quite frankly i find the constant negative discourse around gaming exhausting, i just can't imagine ever having a constant 24/7 negative mindset around something i love doing tbh. If gaming becomes not viable for me anymore i will just move on to something else that is. I find that mindset more healthy for me then constantly worrying and feeling negative over a freaking hobby.

@MrPeanutbutterz and there's the spin 😂😂🥴

You'll keep using the old line, o older game sales are probably pushing that figure.

Like that even matters.

Unfortunately this is probably the exact same numbers for the majority of publishers now.

Vocal minority, shouting from the roof tops about physical games. Which I understand and wish it wasn't true.

But digital is the future.

Just like vhs was once the main source of movies. Then dvd, then blu ray, then 4k blu ray but let's be honest the vast majority of us are digesting our movies and tv series through digital means.

Its no different for games, the convenience of just pressing a button and instantly playing out ways the getting up grabbing a box, taking physical disc out and putting it into the console each and every time you want to change a game.

And the people who keep saying the skewed statistics, your just lying to yourself to make it fit.

These statistics are nit of the money these are of game sales. Stop trying to make it fit so it feels better

@PanFriedSoup You will own nothing and be happy.

We're being gaslit into thinking no one buys physical games

@Bez87 How lazy do you have to be to find the motion of putting a disc into a console too much? the move from VHS to dvd wasn't so bad yknow why? Both of those are physical objects that you own once you buy.

@ShadowRJ Then out of that 5th you then have to split it between PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch2/Xbox One/Series.

So out of that 6.7% how much of it is for Playstation consoles, then it becomes more apparent why Sony want to drop physical.

That's the bigger picture to me, that this 6.7% is across 6 platforms.

This is getting more annoying than woke vs chud arguments. The vocal minority is indeed incredibly loud.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Push Square are going to have to ban themselves for trolling/baiting at this rate.

@UltimateOtaku91 they don’t get a 30% cut on physical games, it is around 10%. The 30% cut is only for digital games and that covers also the online store hosting of the game.

@Krlozgod Ah I see, so wouldn't the retail store selling the physical games also get a cut then? So it still adds up to a similar amount although maybe slightly lower, 20%-25% maybe.

@JPEGMakima "How lazy do you have to be to find the motion of putting a disc into a console too much?"

Not sure about that logic.

Shall we just not bother with remote controls either then, because how hard is it after all to get up and change channels when we want to? That's how it used to be done and no-one complained, right?

Shall we stop doing online shopping, because how hard is it to just walk into town and buy the same thing from a shop? What's the big deal?

Dismissing convenience is a wobbly wall to sit on.

@UltimateOtaku91 yes, the retail store also gets a cut. It ends up being almost the same revenue for third parties, the party that is getting really benefitiated is Sony because they don’t have to split revenue with retailers for third party games and for their own games they keep all the profits.

Again this isn't about disc enthusiasts. It's about a complete monopoly of a marketplace to dictate pricing free from any competition for what amounts to a license rental.

Pushsquare, Sony, and the rest of the media arm continue to push these skewed context numbers articles to try and convince the masses that they are stupid for pushing back against the obvious ramifications.

It's completely a bs redirect. All the while completely side stepping the price differences available via physical options alongside the resell value.
This is more ridiculous than posting and Cheerleading corporate profit number releases. Wtf are we doing.

It's not the physical vs digi you should be concerned about. It's the marketplace monopoly it creates with a company that has fully embraced an anti consumer model. Thus implementing horrible sales compared to physical and price gouging tactics like dynamic pricing.

I thought I would be more upset than I was with the move to digital. Truth is, I have a collection of over 2000 physical games (and that's just across Sony platforms).

I can just revert to my impossible backlog at any time. And, as a bonus, I find these games to be more engaging on the whole compared to modern stuff. So, my response was a resounding "meh".

If the market has spoken, give them what they want. I am not a part of the market anymore. And that's okay. Stuff moves on. For my part, I'm good and will be playing physically for the rest of my natural life anyways. I'll be over here, in my little bubble.

And for those that can't break in to physical collecting because of (ridiculous) prices, emulation is amazing these days. We still got options.

But yeah, Sony isn't getting any more of my money. But I bet about 10 Fortnite players would make up for that loss. I understand I'm easily replaced as a high-spending customer. Good for them, I'm out. And it actually feels... kinda nice?

I prefer my content on a piece of plastic that will eventually make it's way to a local landfill or the ocean. It's my right in 'Merica to have a tantrum over something so insignificant to my actual gaming experience. I'm so angry, I going to quit the PS5 and buy a PS6.

Not surprised but curious the split between the US and eu/uk , aa games are cheaoer over the pond

Apparently Sony is counting free-to-play titles, such as Fortnite and Genshin, towards their statistics for digital sales.

It is sad that they are presenting the numbers in a way like this. For sure physical is going to be a smaller percentage when considering in the total sales that includes PC where physical is non-existent. If you only consider console games that’s 20% which should be even higher because for whatever reason Capcom consider Game Key Cards on Switch 2 as digital games, and also there was a shortage on Capcom physical games this year, Pragmata, Requiem, and even Star Force Collection and Monster Hunter Stories 3 were sold out for weeks or even months, which limited a lot of potential sales.

@DennisReynolds I know physical games are cooked, but this data is still arseways.

@UnlimitedSevens I am thinking on doing the same as you, I have a list of more than 15 games I want to get on PS3, plus 10 more for other consoles, that list will likely increase. So I may stay with just the older stuff or if I decide to move on to this digital future it will be on PC because Play Station is 100 years behind STEAM in the store policies.

@JPEGMakima When my happiness doesn't hinge on owning stuff, yeah, I will be happy. Besides, nothing is permanent, everything is transient.

@PanFriedSoup Cool give away all your belongings then! By your logic that should mean nothing because we're all gonna die one day anyway!

@Krlozgod

PS3 is an absolute goldmine of experiences. And pretty much all of it is still there, physically.

I gotta recommend Puppeteer, Dead Space 2, and Enslaved on PS3. I could go on forever. So damn good! Like, why am I gonna spend my time being upset when I got all this goodness right here? 'Retro' games are an embarassment of gaming riches. Only thing I'm really missing is time haha.

Sony needs to come out with their digital plan. Are they going to give us a refund policy? The ability to gift games? Will game prices be cheaper (more/better sales) to compete with steam sales? What benefit do we get for sticking with Sony and their next $1000+ machine when all they are really releasing with first party is 3-4 games most people will pick up per generation. Why would someone not just buy a steam box or potentially a project helix if it has a steam store on it?

I still think by far the best gauge in measuring how much of the audience wants physical is to look at the digital-physical split for individual games that get a physical release. From what I’ve seen, it’s generally between 2:1 and 4:1, though occasionally as high as 9:1 (FIFA). These other statistics aren’t irrelevant but can easily distort the picture. You need to control for games that don’t have a physical option, DLC, etc.

What's with all the inflammatory articles lately? Can you report on sales data without bringing up how one side needs a reality check? And as others have mentioned, that percentage is including PC, which didn't have a physical option, and it had been sold out in some places.

@crimsontadpoles You must be new here (!)

We all know why they're doing endless articles on this, and it's not for noble reasons. I agree though - you'd forget this site is supposed to be about games per se if you read it over the past month.

What @PazuzuOvBabel said 🤝

I guess it's easy to deceived people with statistic like this as if no one buy physical games anymore when companies released digital only games and reduced physical games availability.

I'm still waiting for physical release for Kunitsu-Gami, Ghost n' Goblins Ressurection, Strider 2014, and Onimusha 2 HD for PS4/PS5. But i guess Capcom not gonna bother to do it...

@UnlimitedSevens I just bought Enslaved recently, sadly digital because the I can’t find the physical copy for cheap in my country, plus I already own it for 360. I also have Puppeteer but again digital because it was offer for free as part of a settlement program, plus the game is super expensive physically. I will get Dead Space 2 this weekend physically, and the Limited Edition which comes with Extraction on the disc. I just bought the story DLC for it and 3 before the store closes next month in my country.

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Like others state above, including PC sales, excluding Switch 2 key cards and completely excluding the fact Capcom have had major shortages of physical copies for their big games this year undermines the whole defeatist tone of this article.

Physical console sales for Capcom titles would likely be at 30% or more when all of the above's taken into consideration, which is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. Even at 25%, turning your back on a quarter of the console market seems way too foolish by Sony, Capcom and other publishers to even contemplate, yet here we are..

So 1 in 6 of Capcom's console games sold are physical plus the Switch Game Key Cards which are counted as digital,. This is assuming there are no physical PC copies of their games. This ratio would be higher if they released all of their games physically.

@Enigk it’s more like 1 in 5 and if we count
GKC probably 1 in 4 or even 1 in 3.

@themightyant Just doing basic math disapproves the entire thrust of this article. But I guess inflammatory articles get the clicks.

I think Capcom is manipulating the data. Here's the true percentage of their digital sales on consoles:
Total Digital Sales: 93.3%
PC Sales (Digital Only): 60.4%
Total Console Sales: 39.6% (100% − 60.4% PC share)
Console Digital Sales: 32.9% (93.3% total digital − 60.4% PC digital) !!!!!!

So the majority of their sales on consoles are actually physical (67.1%)
They basically lied...

@Balaam_ This is a bit off topic but those trophies you spend a majority of your time earning (and complaining about) are purely digital. So what if one day Sony decide to get rid of them? That means you’ve wasted hundreds, if not thousands of hours with nothing to show. I’d say like money, time is pretty valuable yet you’re happy to waste that.

I’m just saying you seem to care so much about ownership but you won’t ever own these trophies you care so much about.

“And I don’t really like to say it…” yet you did. Congrats Push Square. I got angry, I clicked your headline, I commented on your inauthentically-written rage bait. You win. Stop kicking me now please.

I think it is also worth noting Capcom does small physical releases even with launch. Pragmata and RE:R sold out at launch physically and were very hard to find until they did a reprint.

So 60% of sales were on pc which is all digital. Yeah, I wonder why physical is so small…
Come on, this is a PlayStation site and Sony are killing PlayStation physical games.
The only relevant data is how many ps5 games did Capcom sell and how many of those were physical?
As others have said, these numbers actually shows that physical is making up around 20% of console sales. If we could remove Xbox and switch plus any Capcom games not available on disc from those numbers my guess is Resident Evil 9 and Pragmata are probably selling 25-30% physical on ps5.
No one’s denying it’s dwarfed by digital but I would hardly call physical dead.
It’s a scummy move from Sony, killing off an entire format. Vinyl, books, cd’s, dvd’s, Blu-ray’s: no one’s denying touches those. They are allowed to die or to thrive in peace.

No, it's not.
Capcom games are constantly on sale on digital stores for sub 10 euro prices (which are great deals and why their games sell so much). Give us a week one spread and then we'll talk.

Even if it were though, it's irrelevant. The issue is about ownership and competition. That's what we are losing. Physical will always have collectible value though.

Yes, as noted by @themightyant @DzarkGaz @RobN the math represented is a tad misleading. 60% of the market didn’t even have physical as an option. 😂 It doesn’t reflect player preference when PC can buy the game either digitally, or… umm, digitally. Guess what? They chose to buy it digitally! 😆

And want to buy RE2 remake? There’s no new discs being printed so 100% of sales are digital after the launch period.

It’s all the illusion of choice. I’m not arguing the definitive and increasing slant toward digital, mind. But come on…. 93% of game sales being physical is like saying 93% of shoes sold are white when 60% of stores in town only stock white shoes, whilst the other 40% stock both white and black.

Of those 6.7% physical sales, roughly 5.9% were to PushSquare regulars, most of whom post on virtually every single thread about an upcoming game that they won’t be buying it unless there’s a physical release.

Don’t worry though. Once there are no physical discs to buy, they’ll have even more time on their hands to invest in this hobby. And I thought their dedication to it was already maxed out…

Still doesn’t help the fact that we have no way to back up and play our own backed up games.
If Sony would just implement a system that we could burn our own backups, problem solved.

I get the sentiment. Really I do. Discs are a physical
license key, sometimes with very little data on it (90%+ will initiate a download), and you can resell them.

Unfortunately, with live service games, this doesn't matter. What you have is useless plastic once the servers are taken down, or at the very least, a stripped down game (if single-player campaign is available) to avoid lawsuits. You'd have to wait for user servers and a hacked version of the game and hope they don't get hit with DCMA violations.

If PSN can't do a validation of the physical license, it's also useless, but this is often done while downloading game data. It's a convenient way to force internet requirements.

Instead, we'll have to push for expanded rights of our digital licenses - including allowing physical backups (1 per license, USB stick for key-only or writable Blu-Ray for game data + key or full external USB drive to export game to another system) that can work in any system (i.e. not bound to account). This will unbind the license from your digital account once intention to sell or transfer/export is initiated though, but can then be resold at will. If only doing a backup, it will remain bound and license will be restricted to only your PSN account. These are common-sense requests.

@Torus It makes no sense how people are for an all digital future with no ownership. And they take this ridiculous tough guy stance like it makes them badass or something. I've yet to hear anyone make a single argument for how this is positive for consumers.

It truly sucks to be in the hobby of gaming that includes collecting, especially when you consider the game as the main part of the merchandise of the favorite title you collect from. The gaming landscape is disappointingly stopping faster as a collector's haven for hobbyists. I guess it's why PS5 Wolverine won't even release a physical Collector's Edition. Just a standard copy on disc.

When streaming becomes the main push of this industry in the near future and it will affect the digital distribution of games, it will be the time to "get over it" for the "digital enthusiasts". Lol

For the one millionth time:

The importance of physical has little to do with its sales.

It is vastly better for the consumer to have a product that preserves their purchase.

An all digital future WILL lead to us further being taken advantage of by the industry.

EVERY SINGLE GAMER SHOULD BE SHOUTING ABOUT THIS.

@get2sammyb - Likewise, the article could have simply listed the more accurate/relevant statistic that physical games made up 20% of console sales and made the same argument, but instead deliberately listed a much lower number, then added the comment that 60% of these numbers were PC, thus all but guaranteeing a slew of angry comments from people pointing out the problem with the data.

Also, just because physical gaming is a niche, doesn’t mean it’s obsolete, or serves no purpose, and should be wiped out completely. As others have also pointed out, film and tv still have a physical market, and that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; heck, vinyl of all things has made a small comeback as a niche, so why not simply reduce the scale of production, but keep it as a option for those who are interested? I mean, we already have the PS5 pro having a physical drive as a add-on, so it’s not like there’s any downside on the hardware side of things, so why the need to wipe out physical gaming media completely? It just devalues the medium, and makes it that much easier to see it as a shallow consumable that’s about as meaningful as buying a can of coke.

These numbers are so skewed it’s practically fake news. Whats the physical vs digital for new console games this year from capcom. When their nearly entire library constantly goes on sale for $5-$10, of course people will buy that up in droves.

but pc sales are digital only...

@Balaam_ That’s a pretty bad analogy.

First of all, most people rent apartments. They don’t own homes, and owning a house is not exactly the default option for everyone.
And second, losing access to a digital game licence is annoying. Losing access to your home means you’re homeless. Slight difference. 😁

so 2/3 of capcom game sales are to pc and not consoles..

they did a small print run of discs thats why they sold so few

And yet, those numbers still mean nothing to me. Because I'm not a corporation.
I don't care what other people do with their money. I care what I do with mine. Everybody gets what's happening. The pushback against all-digital isn't about "not understanding" why.

How many ways do people have to repeat this is about preference, preservation, ownership, options, etc.?

@DennisReynolds Yet you're constantly arguing against everyone here.

You're more negative than you think, buddy.

Move on people. Why are you still giving this oxygen. The writing is on the wall. If you want physical games to exist stop buying digital. Obviously we are mostly buying digital, we have spoken with our actions.

@FullMetalWesker it doesn't just devalue it, it loses its value fully.

@Max_the_German "is that for Capcom, PC accounts for roughly the double revenue than PlayStation."

Yes for Capcom! if Sony was getting double or even the same amount of revenue for PC as Playstation then everything would have been ported.

But that wasn't the case, after like the third or fourth Playstation first party game ported no one really cared anymore 🤷🏻‍♀️

@themightyant haha I don't know, I just calculate it at that moment 😊

@themightyant I am disappointed I Push Square too, at first it seemed they were against the digital only feature, but with all the recent headlines is obvious they are chasing the advertisement money with the clickbait.

@Juanalf The main difference between PC gaming from Sony and Capcom is:

You can get RE Requiem day and date on all platforms.

Where Sony tried this model (e.g. Helldivers 2), it worked!

For all we know, the digital game codes may not even be inside plastic boxes anymore when 2028 comes. Just "environmentally friendly, easily dissolvable" thin cardboard gift cards with the game art and title over it.

Oh great, looking forward to collecting 'one-and-done' strips of cardboard with game art on it at least that would make me feel like I bought something, not akin to buying "air". :/

Seriously, how does many see value in these intangible offerings. If convenience is the only reason, then it fails to make me see it's money's worth.

Next time I would like to see data from only consoles. Including data from PC is bogus.

@get2sammyb You are either being intentionally dishonest or you don’t know how percentages work. Right there in your site’s very own article, it’s stated that 60% of sales were from PC, which doesn’t have physical releases. That massively skews the numbers. If you isolated for console sales only, and you eliminated games on digital sale, also acknowledged in your article, then physical sales would shoot up to like 30%. Why are you disingenuously leaning into Sony’s narrative?

Terrible reporting. That means 20% of sales are physical on console. And what would they be for games that are les than two years old? They’re probably be up to 35-45%. This article is so disingenuous and twisting the numbers without a real breakdown it’s not even funny

@Hylian-Likely Bingo. The article is twisting numbers. Not to mention it sales, not money from the sales. Old digital games on sale won’t run for nearly as much as a new copy of Resi physical further twisting numbers.

This is misleading for a number of reasons. First, if only 32.9% of sales were on console, then only 32.9% of sales are on platforms where there are such things as physical games. 6.7% in that context means that 20.4% of console sales were physical, which is a huge number that becomes staggering if you consider that not every capcom game even HAS a physical version, smaller digital releases etc, AND that switch 2 game key cards are not counted in this figure.

If you filter purely by which capcom games are available physically to begin with, and by regions that get capcoms physical games, factor back in game key cards, and see how many consumers opted for a physical version, you might be looking at nearly half or more people opt for a physical version of a game that's available physically.

EVEN WORSE - this can't measure secondhand used game sales, and also, in service of this debate over ending physical games egregiously misrepresents the fact that it's not "this many people buy only digital games" because most people buy a MIX of physical and digital games. Especially digital only games, which as I said aren't filtered out of this statistic. And that's the problem with Sonys original 15% statistic as well. It's not about digital only users. It's total game unit sales, and only select major games are available physically ever.

Ridiculous way to portray these facts

@SASLord
It’s easy to sell out when they didn’t make very many physical copies. Death to physical

@spottedleaf
Developers don’t take 2nd hand sales into account because they make $0 on them. Physical is dying your multiple paragraph breakdown won’t save it and I’m glad we will stop printing worthless plastic discs

Well 60.4% sales are on PC which has been digital only for many years, 32.9% are on console and 6.7% out of that is physical which is still a lot.

I personally bought Pragmata physical and I still think the option should be there.

@Random_play05

For all we know, the digital game codes may not even be inside plastic boxes anymore when 2028 comes. Just "environmentally friendly, easily dissolvable" thin cardboard gift cards with the game art and title over it.

Yup. Pretty much it will be like gift cards with game artwork in the front and the game code is on behind where you need to scratch it with a coin or your nails.

I bet a lot of retail will not stock this cardboards cause almost no one who bother go to a game store will pick a $70-80 piece of paper over a physical game. Heck, i'm not surprise if dedicated game stores sold more retro / second hand games over this code in a box / cardboards.

@SuppressorSteve I don't care either way because I moved to PC and switch 2 and don't touch my PS5 pro much anymore, so I dont really have reason to chomp at your bait, but I still care about intellectually honest reporting which is why I posted a correction. I care more about things being true and accurate than whether the outcome is changed

It is gutting about what is happening with physical discs and the second hand game market in particular (and there is a need to strengthen digital rights etc), but….

This was always coming folks and some of the reaction is getting a little daft in my view.

20.4% of console purchases may be physical but that doesn’t make the 6.7% any less evident that as a whole: physical is a tiny part of Capcoms sales. PC doesn’t have the physical option sadly from a publishers perspective looking at these numbers - physical just looks like a dwindling market, or put it like this - if the rest of the physical market became digital: they would make more money (physical discs cost them more), and that physical market is small enough that it would likely just become digital, and even if some sales were lost: it wouldn’t make a huge difference because it is 6.7% at the end of the day (PC sales would carry it).

The simple fact remains - whether 20% or 6% - not enough people are buying physical discs to convince publishers it is a viable business with a future. They are looking at the trends, getting smaller and smaller all the time - and whether through disc production stopping or the market naturally decreasing, it is going to likely happen we whether we like it or not.

And it sucks and I’m similarly gutted about it. But this is what happens with technology. VHS tapes got replaced by DVDs. CDs by streaming. People’s choices matter and we have not engaged with physical deeply enough to keep it viable. And the complexity here is that: Sony make the Blu-ray Discs games: and they have a responsibility to those working there to re-tool the factory to towards growth vectors to keep people in work. Supporting shrinking physical media game markets would be the opposite of that.

Not trying to argue with anyone here because I love physical too and I’m likely going full retro after this. And I’m still sad we don’t have video shops around anymore. But you can’t fight against the tide man. Things change and we have to accept our role in that.

Since PC is digital only. Why don't they give a percentage of consoles only?

I think if we only count console sales, Physical sales would probably be 16.9% and digital sales would probably be 83.1%. So somewhat higher than what they make it seem.

@JPEGMakima its not about being lazy, sometimes its about convenience and storage or not having the space or having children.
For example myself, have been a avid collector, I still have my ps1,ps2,ps3,ps4 collection of games, I probably still have my super nintendo games somewhere at my parents.

But as I've had a family with kids and some are caring of stuff and others are not so much, the handling of discs is a scary thing and I have lost games because of it.
Also my kids are avid gamers, I can family share on ps5 and so I made the decision to go all digital, means my library, readily available for them to play on their console. We can also play the same game at the same time and play multiplayer on that same game without having to buy 2 discs.

Like me and my son at the moment are playing through grounded. Because I pay for ps plus, they get the games.

He can play grounded at the exact same time as me and the online also works for us to play together. If I had the disc version this would not be possible.

Also your statement about vhs to dvd but then forget to mention the fact 99% of people now consume all films and series digitally. I bet majority on here mostly watch netflix, prime and other streaming services than buying the blu ray.

Also games have gone through alot of physical.

Cassette tapes, Floppy disc, cartridge, Cd, Dvd, blu ray and now its gone digital. Same exact pattern.

@add286 and I'd love to see a strong refusal of this tide for once. Consumers had accepted the tides so many times now that companies see consumers as gullible and manageable/controllable, and why so many good things are long gone now. Music and movies became temporary licenses that can be revoked from your digital library even when you already purchased them. Heck, your entire digital movie library can be revoked and you can do nothing about it because many agreed with their essay-like ToCs.

We're nearly dystopian now because of these "go with the flow" shenanigans.

Yes the convenience saved many people time. But did people used those free time more conservatively? I doubt it since we won't be telling people to "touch grass" if they did, honestly. I'd rather have less convenience on certain things, at least it's making some "touch grass" as they head out of their houses to spend ample time after picking up your item of choice.

@CutchuSlow thats not how percentage works.

If 93% of their entire sales are digital which includes pc and console. That still makes the physical 6.3%

Stop trying to make it fit for your own peace of mind.

Or the people who keep saying the numbers skewed.

Its purely just denial. Companies selling these games are not evil entities, its business. If the demand was there for physical games and the data did not show that year on year digital was the majority.

Then all these companies would not be thinking of giving up the physical games business. But this is just another data point coming from these companies showing how much of a minority physical game owners are now.

@Random_play05 The problem is you have to convince gamers to buy physical, not digital. The choice was ours and we didn’t go that down that path (in all honesty, they didn’t present those two options as equal. digital DLC etc but people evidently prefer digital mainly).

The other problem is that when you look at this more widely: other media etc. it is evident that people will choose convenience over all else. CDs far better sound quality than compressed Spotify streams but people don’t care. blu-rays - way, way better than Netflix but again people choose the convenient option. Physical discs - so many more benefits to digital but again people choose digital. I’ve been watching these trends take place for about 35 years now man, and until people decide on mass to choose better options, we are stuck with it.

Personally I am just going to go full on retro. I don’t need a grand console, I have a decent backlog across many systems and I’m okay with moving on.

6.7% of Playstation owners making all the noise about this whole thing sounds about right.

Inevitably strikes!!

Awful reporting, not doing due diligence with the math and giving additional context for what that means (it’s not 6.7% on console, how does that breakdown etc etc). Also going digital on PC is not the same as going digital on console. Poor form guys. Really poor.

I'm deleting this site from my bookmark! @sammybarker @robertramsey

Blu-ray's, cassette, VHS and vinyl records are still made and sold today. You can still buy CDs and DVDs new.

Who gives a ***** only 6.7% bought physical 6.7% of a million is 67,000 people.

✨✨You all don't talk about vinyl records Represents less than 5% of total equivalent music consumption when factoring in massive streaming numbers. ✨✨

But you can go to https://vinyl.sonymusic.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopSQhDL7IRQAgU7NgyYd_v7IWp5H3taSyv0d-UKYYFS32nDcRGv and purchase new physical vinyls.

You cannot convince me that stoping physical gaming is justified when you can buy physical media of everything else.

Bit disappointed by this reporting more drilling down in the numbers was needed as others have shown. Usually expect better from Push Square. There is to many variables and we will never get all the data to make an informed decision. This is more about Sony getting more from there current playerbase as they have stated in previous reports if all digital Sony gets more money. Sadly gamers are easily manipulated and monetized with people paying extra to play a day earlier even preordering digital items.

@ShadowofSparta the 6.7% is the more important figure. They could just add some context re: console sales but as the PC market represents 60% of Capcom sales in comparison to 30% in console sales: that 20% physical discs sales on console is probably not large enough really - as the bulk of their sales are coming from elsewhere. If the total of physical sales was 20% (and on console that was nearer 50%), we’d have a stronger argument but more context doesn’t change the underlying point.

@bindiana to be honest: they haven’t shown anything, they are just ignoring the more substantive figure. 6.7% is the more important point as it shows the underlying trend of the industry. People have chosen to game on PC, and essentially have chosen digital distribution, rather than physical. So, looking at the whole picture and in terms of the money that Capcom could make from going all in on digital (even at a cost of losing physical sales), they would be likely fine (showing how small the physical market has become, sadly because it has largely confined to console and has eroded even there).

It sucks, but everyone is taking numbers and trying to bend them to their view here.

Digital is the future of gaming, simple as that. We can argue like children on an internet forum all we want but SONY & Microsoft don't care what any of us think.

That’s hilarious. And physical game obsessives will still spin this as a biased or inaccurate figure. 😂😂😂

@Neuromancer Exactly, talk is cheap. If even a tenth of the people who claim they are going to boycott a thing on Reddit actually did so, they wouldn’t ignore online rage bait campaigns as they do.

@add286 Regardless of whether 6.7% is the more important figure, the way it’s reported is very misleading. I’ve seen a lot of people in this thread come away with the idea that that’s figure for console too, so they’ve failed there and they’re verging on playing with statistics it is territory. They’re not really thinking about the numbers, they’re just surface level reporting them. I’d get ridiculed if I reported something like this at my job.

That said I personally think digital on OC is completely different to digital on console so saying the majority of PC sales is digital just isn’t a strong enough argument for me. Multiple storefronts, drm free versions, the ability is save executables anywhere etc. The proposition for digital on PC is just no as stringent.

@RoomWithaMoose
I think thats a very good point.
My suspicion is that the outlay / production and distribution costs of discs are much higher than most people give credit for, and may be on the rise.

However, you are quite correct, we just do not know.

Its common sense that as sales numbers reduce, these costs when worked out on a per unit basis, increase.

I also think its fair to say that game development costs have increased significantly since the last price rise in 2020. Inflation alone has been very high, with game prices not reflecting this, and most just don't consider facts of this sort, or their impact.

That said, I don't understand why the decision has been made to just end discs, without first raising physical copy prices.
Maybe it has to do with a perceived backlash against a price rise.
Maybe it is because it causes a legal complication - we know that physical discs are currently the legally required (anti monopoly) alternative to Sony's own store.
Putting the price up could be an issue (legally), and when the legal alternative only needs to be like for like (digital code), that may make a lot of sense as to why this decision has been made - though you would think they could offer digital codes and price increased discs out to retail at the same time to negate this.

There could also be other factors we just don't know about - maybe for example the production facility they use is becoming more expensive to run, for some reason we are not aware of.

It would be nice to know some real answers, but I wonder how complex this whole situation is behind what we see.

@themightyant as you well know, all numbers need to be contextualised into that 6.7%. Great, that physical is going up but that does that represent / change that overall number substantially? That is what accountants in Capcom are looking at. Can we say that physical will go next year? Or the year after? Does it have a chance of bucking decades of decreasing physical sales?

And I said: they should the mention the context here re: console numbers. But again; you are not engaging with the salient and central point: on the whole, physical needs bigger numbers to make the argument that it is viable.

And look I’m with you: I don’t like it. But there is a point where we have to accept some of these numbers as generally representative of where things are at.

@add286 idk anymore other than say it's a ridiculous future.
It's a shame since I really wanted to have such a gaming collection as part of a hobby. But only a decade ago did I achieved financial stability (our economy sucks badly, unfavorable for low to even middle class) that is enough for me to finally start my hobbies that included video games. Though my current collection isn't that big since I truly purchase and collect what I like strictly. I'm a collector, not a hoarder.

Our country really didn't got into the video games industry officially until the PS3/360 generation so it's difficult to even find ones below that generation here.

Here's hoping Nintendo continues to provide even though I already hate their idea of game-key cards. At least there I can continue my collection albeit more selective than ever.

@ShadowofSparta yeah I think the article could be better written and the numbers could be analysed with a little more depth. But again their central point is largely correct from what I can see.

I don’t know how Capcom look at their numbers (and neither do any of us!). But the fact that they themselves have reported 6.7% of physical v digital gives us some indication of their own framings of different market segments. If they had your view (that digital is different on PC and console), I think that would be reported here. But instead, we get a - perhaps oversimplified - comparison, as you say.

But sadly mate, I suspect Capcom accountants just don’t care for those nuances you bring up and will just see this as changing market conditions they have to adapt to. Physical market on console just doesn’t represent the value they could get elsewhere. And it sucks but it is what it is.

@Random_play05 completely agree, it is heartbreaking because it’s whole cultures dying out really. I think vandalism - the way they have gone about it particularly.

But I’ve been here too many times to count now when big tech changes come and I know how it works out. I wish we got younger players into discs and we didn’t.

Thinking about this, if anything this should worry the Digital People's Front that Capcom might consider dropping support for the PS6 when a further 30% of their Playstation sales move over to PC, leaving only 10-20% (maybe even less when total console sales are currently at 32%) on that platform. Will it be worth their time, porting games to a platform with such a small market that also takes 30% of the revenue?

Whoever chose to skew this article in the digital futures favour for PlayStation is actually a bit stupid, sorry, but it's true. It's actually bad news for the platform, showing that Capcom might not even bother bringing games to Sony consoles at all eventually. They might decide that PC and Nintendo only is the best use of their time and resources once all the sensible people leave Sony.

This whole situation parallels the witch scene in The Odyssey. We're literally watching the Digital People's Front chow down on something that'll turn them into trapped cash cows and trying to warn them, but they don't have the capacity to listen.

@Old-Red I was thinking similar. Or to go further, given we don't know the individual splits of digital sales on consoles; perhaps they will only bother chasing the biggest console. Given key-cards are considered by Capcom to be digital, that could mean Nintendo is seen as the bigger share and Sony then misses out on future titles.

I should say this is hypothetical; I would be surprised if this was the case. But there is no guarantee that any company will continue supporting consoles going forward, as they will push for PC in the same way Sony is pushing for no more discs; to increase their share of the revenue.

@Pat_trick Digital codes will still be sold in stores. It says so in PS blogpost.

Apple recently got fined massively by the EU for blocking developers from informing customers that there are cheaper purchasing options outside of the Apple store. So i have no worries about digital prices in the future.

It's sad that we will lose discs but its not the end of the world.

The annoying thing is that a growing number of single players games on disc or not are beginning to require connections to servers/the internet.

6.7% of Consoles percentage is still a lot.

So once again these numbers are a false equivalency. We need to remove the 60+% of sales that were on pc because there was no choice for disc. Give us the actual PlayStation data for these releases and the number would be more like 30% disc on PlayStation.
Keep up the good work pushing Sony’s anti consumer rhetoric push square.

@Swandivetotheasphalt Not to intrude, but regarding the key-cards as digital sales, when they did Q+A for FY 2024 earnings, they were asked then about Key-Card sales, and they said they considered them digital. I have linked the page below so you can view if you like:

https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/result_2024.html

@add286 Oh 100%. The direction of travel is to digital and they’ll make more money, there’s little value in them trying to look for nuance when they’d be happy to move over already. I do think it’s there and we’ll be screwed over, but so it always is when we’re at the mercy of capitalism.

@Balaam_ adding to your analogy, with renting one has to accept the price or walk away.

@ShogunRok here's some extra numbers and context.

Total Console Sales: 32.9% (Digital) + 6.7% (Physical, as all PC sales were digital) = 39.6% Console Physical Percentage

Calculation: (6.7% / 39.6%) × 100 = 16.92% total physical sales on consoles.

Still not a great number.

Who knows if they've also added plus releases into their digital sales numbers, because just because it's on plus doesn't mean they gave it away for free. Here is a complete list of all Resident Evil games that are currently available or have been available in the past across all PlayStation Plus tiers (Essential, Extra, Premium, and the former PS Now/PS5 Collection):
Resident Evil (HD Remake)
Resident Evil: Director's Cut (PS1 Classic)
Resident Evil 2 (PS1 Classic)
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PS1 Classic)
Resident Evil 4 (Original)
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 6
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Zero
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
Resident Evil: Revelations
Resident Evil: Revelations 2
Umbrella Corps

This is just resident evil, not even all of Capcom. I Like Capcom, but they haven't been treating physical games well either as complete editions always just come with DL codes and all switch 2 games are game key cards. For switch 1 even worse with a code in the box or cloud stream abominations.

I don’t care what the flock does regards to how they purchase. The flock doesn’t see the writing on the wall and just accepts the internet of everything thrown at it. If physical media isn’t offered to me as a premium for consoles. Then I won’t be a console gamer anymore.

@TDHorizon Digital codes sold in stores aren't a replacement for discs. A disc is a transferable licence, you can resell it, lend it, buy it used and retailers can discount physical stock independently. A digital code is typically a one-time redemption tied to an account. Once redeemed, it's gone.

As for the EU, the Apple ruling was about allowing developers to direct users to alternative purchasing methods. It wasn't about guaranteeing long-term price competition or a second-hand market for digital games. Those are completely different issues.

That's why many people are concerned. It's not just about losing discs, it's about losing the consumer benefits that come with them.

@themightyant yeah that’s fair enough, I think some depth to the reporting and the figures could be better. And I also get annoyed at people playing down physical numbers too.

In fact, maybe because I do stats 😂 I’m getting annoyed at spurious use of numbers in this debate from everyone. I respect people boycotting and protesting (and I’ll be doing it in Aug), but I think they need to get people to buy discs to show it’s worth more than anything though maybe too late now anyway.

I generally think - beyond all the stats discussion - if there was money in physical, they would still do it? I think the numbers (from what we can see) likely indicate that is not broadly the case any more….There has been no pushback from publishers as well - which really saddened me - because they were the ones who could maybe pushed Sony to do something else here. Rockstar just went along with it. How different might it be if they insisted on a physical disc for GTA6?

So yeah: I hope there is still a case for physical but even if there is: they just see the growth elsewhere and that sadly means - for us - they will just run towards it.

@add286 there still is money in physical. This is all about controlling the market completely and taking away power from consumers. One have no choice but to play by the rules of all of these corporations. Digital only in an internet of everything world forces normal people to comply. Each passing year is just more wins for corporations.

I am a collector of physical media for sure and predominantly I collect Capcom games, even have an Instagram page set up that 100% features Capcom. This is the only company that I would hate to lose the physical side of gaming from, but with these numbers, it’s easy to say that after this generation, my physical collecting isn’t going to grow much further ahead. Thankyfully, I still need an awful lot of physical games from yesteryear, so right now I am prioritising that side of my collection before the prices take a sharp upward turn!

@Swandivetotheasphalt thanks 😊

@TDHorizon sad that it will be gone. Annoyed that it will eventually be replaced with paper or carton gift cards (expected outcome).

HIGHLY doubt those numbers. Never trust these companies who benefit from killing off physical media

@Cry_Zero Look, I'm as pro physical as you can get, but Capcom can't lie about these numbers to their stakeholders, otherwise they'd be liable for fraud.

@Pat_trick I understand what you're saying about the Apple ruling but primarily looking at initial sales prices and discounts (because I've seen some people worried about the price of games not dropping), is it not similar in the sense that it is developers who determine the price of their codes and the discounts they want for their games (sold in stores), and when on the PS store Sony determines the prices.

So in theory, developers should be able to say hey by the way, we've currently discounted our game to X if you purchase from Y?

Good one digital generation. Another form of ownership up the swanny

@ShadowRJ wouldnt be the first time people lied when they „couldnt“

@Swandivetotheasphalt That's good to know, thanks!

@Balaam_ I would totally agree if all physical games were fully complete on disc, patched with all bugs fixed and required no online connection to run.... but lets be honest, how many games fit this category in 2026?

It is what is it. I really wish that we could go back to buying CD's and Vinyl so that artists got paid more and i wouldn't have to pay £80 to see C-tier bands live, just because they now rely on that for a living... but just because I want it, it doesn't mean it will ever happen.

I think we all forget that we are posting on enthusiast sites where people like games like Granblue Fantasy relink, Pragmata and Onimusha... in reality, the vast majority of players around the world are digitally buying FIFA, Call of Duty, Madden and Fortnite skins. It doesn't matter how much we grumble... this is happening because this is what the market wants.

I personally would like to just discuss the hobby that I get ever dwindling time to actually enjoy with a Wife, 4 year old and mortgage.. but the joy is now being sucked out of that by every comment section talking about physical game controversies. I get it..... but I don't know if I can be bothered with this side of the hobby anymore.

Everyone is so overwhelmingly negative about something that is supposed to be fun. That's it.

steam killed physical games long before sony did.

@lazymike finally somebody else can admit that

Damn, PushSquare is a super garbage site. Just re-posting the same corporate propaganda over and over.

Like this is the 10th article or so with this exact same title? Sincerely, go lick a cactus.

@The_Jobbo I get you, I really do. The way I see it, Sony's at fault for taking the fun out of the hobby for most of us who are complaining. And sadly, the comments sections for the most part are the only way we can vent our frustrations.

I do want to make a point though about the all games on disc. I own 53 PS5 games not from Limited Run, and all of them bar 3 run just fine off of the disc. However, as you've noted, none of those games are of the COD or Fortnite variety (though it does have a lot of AAA in it).

This might surprise you though (it certainly did me)...EA's Fifa games (or whatever they call it nowadays) are all playable from the disc.

@spottedleaf
You are debating about something that won’t change physical media will be dead and gone in a couple years time and life as a gamer will continue

@add286 Yet we have blu-rays and CDs easily available to buy that make money because there’s a market for them that’s catered to.

@TDHorizon That's a fair point if we're talking specifically about launch prices and digital discounts. If publishers can sell digital codes through retailers and direct consumers to them, that could create some price competition with the PS Store.

My concern is that this still doesn't replace what physical discs offer. Digital codes can't be resold, bought used, lent to a friend, or traded in. So while they may help with pricing to some extent, they don't preserve the wider consumer benefits that come with physical media.

This article is bizarre. A percentage figure plucked from a total where 60% is on PC and therefore doesn't have a choice? I'm actually pretty disappointed that so many commenters here have accepted this unquestionably.

Where is the evidence of this figure? What does it include (dlc only available digitally & old games on deep sale)?

RE Requiem sold out physically because they didn't print enough copies. Then people who wanted physical bought it digitally. So, companies are intentionally making fewer discs while also making digital copies the only way to get extra content.

You have to compare apples to apples. If you had a physical game with more than enough copies available and the exact same game/value proposition digitally, I have no doubt that the digital would outsell the physical, but by how much?

Right now, the corporations are providing massaged data specifically to mislead you into accepting the future that they want. I am severely disappointed in PushSquare for not looking into these figures before reporting on them. At the very least, report what the corporations say but don't put your own commentary on it if you aren't going to do the slightest bit of verification and fact finding.

Sony's next console is going to have a very tough time if the economy doesn't have a massive rebound. I expect Xbox and Sony to continue to shed players while PC and Nintendo grow. This is bad for PushSquare, but you all should be doing more to fight for the players than succumb to the whims of a corporation. I am very disappointed.

@Jaz007 sadly mate, Sony make the discs and are the place where they are made. So it is a little different sadly for gaming. As they own distribution, they are have more of an interest in physical disc outcomes. If they don’t think, it is worth it, they will cut it - as they have.

@WhoderMan At least 90% of their articles on this topic skew the other way. Those ones are ok for you, I guess.

You people are plain weird. I'm fact, the takes on this issue are so bizarre I've gone from indifferent to being HAPPY that Sony are doing this now, just to annoy the likes of the crazies on here and elsewhere online.

@TheSingularity

Wanting a corporation to harm its users' buying options (including yourself) is the truly ridiculous thing here.

I bought RE, Pragmata and Monster hunter physically, I didnt realize that this was unpopular

Almost like PC doesn't do physical...weird. Also, Resident Evil Requiem was sold out physically for ages, I had to wait like a month and a half for my pre-ordered copy to arrive. I guess that's because they had to print it especially for me, apparently one of five people that wanted a disc.

Fun story, actually: because of the big delay of getting the physical game, my partner suggested I just cancel it and buy it digitally so that we wouldn't risk spoilers. If not enough physical discs get made and people can't find them, they're more likely to just get it digitally. I STILL haven't played Lies of P because I've never been able to find a disc.

@TheSingularity For a significant number of gamers, building a physical collection is part of the hobby, just as music lovers collect vinyl despite the existence of Spotify, and book lovers collect books despite the existence of ereaders.
Being happy that someone's hobby being taken away is only a rational thing if that hobby hurts or harms others in a way that owning physical media doesn't. In cases where that isn't the case, being happy someone's hobby is being taken away (and I say this as someone who isn't a collector of video games, so it's not my hobby), to put it bluntly, makes you an *****.

@themightyant Thanks for fact checking 'the brutal reality check'. It doesn't ring true at all, at least in that it's skimming over the details and sounds rather hyperbolic. Also ignores all the people using second hand discs, many more people use physical games on consoles than these figures suggest. No doubt it's 'good business' for Sony to scupper that market, but I won't accept its good for customers.

Physical aren't 7%, all this just bullsh..
But Pushsquare aren't interesting in trustful info just in pushing blsht.

These numbers are obviously skewed by the "60% of sales are on PC." Push Square should added this analysis to the end of the article. Capcoms actual phsical sales are 20%. Obviously physical sales have been declining for years. I buy physical when possible and I own 60+ PS4/PS5 games. That's far beyond the average console attach rate so losing my buisness will be 4x the average. Good luck selling PS6s.

“It’s also important to note that a whopping 60.4% of the sales were made on PC. The other 32.9% were made on consoles.”

What's really brutal about this article is the way the data is interpreted and communicated.

Two‑thirds of Capcom’s digital purchases are now already on PC (of which probably around 80%, a low estimate, is on Steam).

There’s no data for the percentage of full‑price digital purchases (at least not in the article), but what you can deduce is that 6.7% (physical percentage) / 39.6% (console percentage) ⇒ roughly 17% of console purchases are therefore physical.

My educated guess is that those ~17% are (near) full‑price purchases, and that of the remaining ~83% console‑digital purchases, at least two‑thirds of those will have been bought in heavy sales (from 67% discount or more, so mostly older games).

That means that full‑price console purchases were about half — but likely more — physical purchases.

This data actually supports the strategic blunder Sony/PlayStation is making right now, because at this moment at least half of the consumers who are willing to pay (near) full price prefer to buy physically.

Please feel free to correct my (data-based) interpretation whit more detailed market data.

Kind regards

@Relaxations

As an example, for the past few years as physical releases have shrunk, I have been buying games at launch since they may sell out and be harder to buy later. Getting a physical copy of Evil West proved pretty difficult after it had been out for a while.

When Sony goes all digital, that "buy at launch" attitude goes away as unless I absolutely want to play something on release day. There will be very few games like that I want to playbon release day.

@TheSingularity only the past month?

@TheSingularity Why are you this angry towards people who loves and collecting physical games?

As pointed by others, that 6.7% includes PC (and Xbox Series S) where physical isn't an option to begin with. So for platforms that do have physical versions, over 20% of sold copies are physical versions. However, games like Pragmata had limited runs of physical copies and people were not able to find it in stores. This also applies to slightly older games that are not available on retail stores anymore. So realistically, physical would've sold more if the availability wasn't an issue.

Of course, this data also includes games that do not have physical versions to begin with (games like Shinsekai Into the Depths which is only available on Apple Arcade and Switch, or Resident Evil 4 VR for Meta Quest).

Numbers don't lie, but it's easy to mislead people with them. Context is everything.

@PazuzuOvBabel I know right the other thing you get one gaame on the disc and the other as a voucher. Fighters are technically useless as a disc there next to nothing on them anymore. Pragmata was quite difficult to find physically

@Relaxations Giive me real physical Complete Edition and ill pay even more. Capcom has not had a Gold Edition fully on disk for years i would even double dip.

Yes and most of these are discounted sales of old games which is generally where digital pushes very far ahead and on platforms with none or limited physical options

RE Requiem was selling out physically, whilst that bundle for Switch 2 sold out immediately and many more wanted it. We all know physical is the minority but I've still not seen amy justification for Sony getting rid of physical media, especially when it's actually growing in other sectors

@WhoderMan

Thanks for sharing this insight!

I am not a 'day one'-gamer, but more of a 'patient'-gamer type.
For me, as a PS-customer of the first hour (first PS bought in 1995), if Sony/PS does not change their strategy, I will probably buy a PS6 (Slim) mid-generation -around 2032/2033 something- and will probably only buy the PS6 exclusive (not-online-multiplayer) games in the 'sale' (because of platform/store monopoly then probably for max. 50% discount...).
But for everything non-PS-exclusive, I will not spend any money on the Sony/PS platform anymore (quite the contrary to what I have done the last few decades).
For my 'standard' gaming platform I will most probably switch to PC/Steam.
Furthermore, I can foresee a rebound for MS/Xbox to (re)position themselves to the pre-Xbone-era.

@Flaming_Kaiser Really? I'm struggling to think of a recent Capcom game that ISN'T all on the disc on day one. I was even lucky enough to get RE4 Remake early, and I was already at the island before the game was even officially out.

if you only print a few thousand disc copies you will sell less disc copies.

they do very small print runs on disc games now

@Relaxations if possible i will use GOG rather than steam because that way you actually own it

@Balaam_ Buying game on disk gives you the same "leasing" rights. The only additional right for physical is resale.

Pretty funny that some people commenting here simply do not believe in the official numbers by a public company that are necessitated to be correct by the law, because those numbers contradict their take on the market which is usually calculated from sample of 1.

@ShadowRJ I think he is referring to the dlc's included in the Gold editions not being on disc, which is correct, but the full main game has always been on disc for Resident Evil games.

@viktorcode How is having a disc with the full build on it, that you can do whatever you want with in any way "leasing"?

@trev666 as I’ve pointed out many times, you can only do that on GoG for very old titles.

99.9% of new AAA games, can only be purchased on PC with online DRM. The disk brigade are mostly not complaining about classic titles from 20 years ago, they are talking about buying AAA new titles.

It is not possible to buy DRM free versions of new titles on GoG for donkey years.

PC gamers are notorious scummy Pirates, so selling anything without DRM on PC basically means you won’t make any money.

For developers and publishers, it is only worth it for 20 year-old games that you sell for £2, simply because people would rather pay £2 to purchase from a reputable site, than get it for free but risk a virus.

I'm one of the 6.7%

In other news "Avowed" sold 100% on digital - because no-one bothered printing discs!

I expect better from you guys. As you said 60.4% of games are sold on PC which is 100% digital.Also Switch 2 keycards are counted as digital. If you were to exclude those and just check PlayStation and XBox sales numbers the percentage of sales for physical is in double digit and you should have done the maths and shared it here instead of running scary headlines like everyone else has done. Above all, all physical copies of RE9 and Pragmata were sold out. How can you expect people to buy physical when retailers have run out of copies to sell? Does that also not force people to buy it digital because they do not know new copies are released? It is easy to skew numbers one way or the other when not looking at all facts or artificially inflating the digital sales due to lack of physical availability or adding figures from devices that are considered only digital. You should be better and do your home work and share al facts.

@KoopaTheGamer @viktorcode @Gediminas @ShogunRok

Read Koopa’s comment as it was spot on, cause what this does say is what is the break down of the 30% sold on consoles. It’s not 6%, also Capcom’s admits all phyiscal copies were sold out and never reprinted. Many gamers had no physical copies to buy and the BIGGEST miss i see on this report from Push and other sites is Capcom admits that they count Nintendo Switch Key Card as digital sales. How much of those make up the numbers i do not know. What is being reported by most people that aren’t brown nosing Sony and trying to make it look like they are ahead of the curve doing the right thing for stopping physical media is about 16% of Capcom’s console sales were physical. Not a huge number but had they printed more copies it would be safe to say 20% of Capcom’s sales are physical which isn’t nothing to not report as that number paints a different outlook.

I swear i have to do all the work around here sometimes. You’ll hiring for a part time job?

@get2sammyb hi Sammy, respectfully, this article is a complete misrepresentation of the data and I'm not sure what motives for that there would be but the actual evidence points in completely the opposite direction to what is being erroneously inferred

Why doesnt Sony just release some numbers to show why they're doing the move? I don't blame them if these are the actual, unspun numbers.....

@get2sammyb Firstly, the 6.7% figure is heavily skewed by including PC sales where physical is effectively nonexistent - therefore doing the maths means the physical share of console sales is around 20%.
Secondly, for some reason Capcom treats Nintendo Switch 2 Game Cards as digital rather than physical.
Thirdly, limited print-runs and stock shortages for new titles suppress physical numbers independently of demand (in addition to Pragmata, also widely reported as true for say Crimson Desert and Expedition 33). I recall reading also of some countries where digital is already the sole option available.
Put this all together and it all points to the opposite conclusion to that inferred. I applaud yours personally and PS's balanced coverage of this issue up to now but this article with its leading tagline are not up to that standard, in my opinion.

@silenos @get2sammyb yes, this article stars heavily in yesterdays “oh no it’s Alex” video (‘They Lied’) for the points silenos makes

To be fair, I think most of the team on this site try to be as balanced as they can but it is disappointing that so many sites ran with the same article and no-one bothered to check the maths

Still, at least it gave the digital zealots something to wave their flags about and made them happy… 😉

@ChikaBambus Game on a disk is leasing the same way as a digital game because of the DRM they share. If a game is revoked (which has never happened, but technically it might) then the console will simply refuse to launch the game as counterfeit. The only way to avoid this is to keep the console offline.

Add to this the fact that you can back up a digital game on external drive, and you will be left only with the ability to share and resale games on disks as the only benefit specific to physical media.

@viktorcode Exactly. So you can still perfectly use your console, and the physical discs, since most of them have the complete build data on them. I count this as a big plus, and add to that the other positives that you mentioned, like being able to share and resale them, makes them a superior option between the two.

There are positives to digital as well, don't get me wrong, but everyone should stop acting as if there is no benefit to physical as well.

1. I have close friends who (you might not believe this), still do not have a reliable connection, as they do not live in 1st world countries. This all digital future is a big hindrance to them, as they cannot download large games fast.

2. Sharing physical games has always been a big positive, as I have done so many times with numerous friends.

3. As you mentioned, reselling physical games to recoup some of the cost is a positive as well.

4. Ownership. Even if Sony bans me for using a foreign country PSN (as its not available in my country), I can still play my entire collection if I'm offline as the entire build is on the disc. What would happen to an all digital collection if for whatever reason Sony bans you, as it happened recently to the Xbox user?

5. Much better price offerings. Most of my physical games that I have bought have been 10-30 euros cheaper that their digital counterparts. This might continue to be the case, as third party retailers will still sell codes, but you cannot be too sure if the pricing is going to be the same as it is right now.

6. I will include this for the sake of it, even though I don't think that it is going to happen, but, theoretically, if their online services do go down for a prolonged period, you can play your digital games, but only the ones that are already installed. I might be wrong but, I think you cannot install new games if PSN is down.

@Bez87 I asked ai to calculate these numbers. It wasn't me. I asked ai to tell me the percentage of sales for consoles only.

@Silenos Please just stop it. Its getting desperate.

Heavily skewed because of PC?

No it isn't. Whether PC is involved or not these numbers are for its entire sales.

All you are doing is changing percentages around by subtracting out a source of income for capcom.

Which of course will make the percentage bigger, you've taken out an aspect of their sales.

That doesnt do anything because a percentage means absolutely nothing when it comes to sales. You've just made the percentage bigger but at the same time you've made the who bought it number smaller.

Do the math. 7m people bought RE9
60% PC thats 4.8m people buying it dogital for PC.
Console 3.1m people bought the game.
Out of the 3.1m people.
only 536 000 bought the game physically.
Thats mean digitally on console more than 2m bought it.

This is just using the percentage on 1 game, but the actual figures are across their entire catalog.

Which means the physical number maybe higher but its spread out over a large number of games, which could in bring the total of physical purchases down game by game.

That figure is for the entire world. Which then translates into why even bother if x amount of copies dont ever get sold and we've over printed and then it comes to the point of at what point is it not cost effective or profitable to even print a game disc?

PC doesnt effect anything the actual sale numbers are still tiny, whether you want to take out the pc percentage or not

@CutchuSlow i've just commented to someone else.

A percentage does nothing. It tells you absolutely nothing of the actual sale of a game.

All you are doing is changing what you are giving percentages to.

Whether PC is involved or not. That doesnt change the actual sales number you've just changed the percentage out look.

60% is pc, 40% console for their entire sales.
If you take pc out, your not changing any actual sale data. Your just making the console the entire focus. Making console 100%.

Which of course then makes physical look like its sold more because the percentage is higher. That doesn't then make the actual number of people who bought physical higher. Just the percentage.

Take RE9 it sold say 7million worldwide.

Lets take 60% of that out because thats PC.
So console sales at 100% is 3.1m.
Digital sales are 83%
Selling 2.6m digitally
Physically for the entire world 16%
Only selling 500k copies.

Then you have to think thats the entire world, only 500k copies shipped to each and every country which sells physical games, then after all the shipping and over printing, how many copies are left in some warehouse because only 2k bought the game in this country or that country, and youve spent alot of money printing the box art with all the different translations and ratings on the box for each individual country.

People are forgetting all of this. It isn't just print a disc be done.

Each country, each different language, means individual box art. Meaning it is a huge cost for not much return anymore.

@ShadowRJ All Resident Evil gold versions are vouchers for the DLC. Monster Hunter Stories 1 game on disk the other a voucher. All their fighting games have tons of versions but always 1.0 version with a voucher. If i buy a physical complete version i expect to get everything on the disc or discs. Read my complete response.

@HonestHick The physical media haters will not respond if it doesn't fit their agenda.

@Bez87 I just wanted to know about console exclusively. It was my own personal interest. I don't need to know about PC sales because PC doesn't have physical. Everything you have said is irrelevant to me.

@CutchuSlow well its not really irrelevant. Because for a company to carry on producing physical disc games the numbers have to add up.

And if a company is selling to every platform and digital is overwhelming beating physical to the point its not cost effective to produce physical games.

Then they ain't going to produce physical games. Whether it applies to you or not, thats irrelevant.

Because the company in question is catering for all. And i gave you the numbers exactly for judt console and they aint good and thats actually being generous on my part giving physical, a bigger number than it probably is
Due to focusing on 1 game and not spreading it out over all games.

@ChikaBambus You missed the part that you can back up installed digital games if you wish, to an external storage. So, you can have them offline, if you have a lot of games and a flaky connection.

Also, games coming on disks do not equal games working offline. That depends on the game, and what actually is on the disk. Many will require account signing.

@ShogunRok I cannot wait for the digital sheep to lose their rental games and hear them screaming bloody murder about it not being fair.I will revel in their misery. Oh and that day is coming also. It's easier for them to control digital sheep than people who are not. Have a baaaaad ballad day