Mat Piscatella: 292 million units of physical video games sold in the 12-month period ending June 2009 in the US. By June 2026 this had fallen to 37 million units.
Posted by Dandelion172
Mat Piscatella: 292 million units of physical video games sold in the 12-month period ending June 2009 in the US. By June 2026 this had fallen to 37 million units.
Posted by Dandelion172
29 Comments
Even if true, they’re betting those 37 millions units will convert to digital. I’m curious how many just flee to PC. I’m certainly considering it.
So how long until this is labeled as “propaganda”?
Nintendo physical cartridges are bs packed in a plastic nugget. Its just an authentication key.
Useless for ownership and preservation. Completely at the mercy of server support.
I don’t like that physical games are going away but gamers have to take responsibility in causing it. We as a community voted with our wallets and for the most part bought digital games.
Again I don’t like it but we as a community had our hand in the industry going in this direction
37 million is not good at all but this is *only* counting it in the US, which seems to be the most digital market (certainly more-so than Europe and Japan/Asia)
It’s important to note that this is for ALL physical, and mat says switch 2 is doing the heavy lifting. Other platforms are down between the teens to mid 30% range as he says.
Only 7 playstation games through june of this year hit 100k physical and jason schreier said none of them reached 275k (since I saw people trying to say “we don’t know how much more than 100k those sold”)
In the UK if you sold 1000 physical units that’d be enough to reach #9 on the charts last week. That’s for the whole market not just playstation.
In japan the weekly famitsu chart was posted today and the #10 game sold 4,500 units.
There is no market on the entire globe where you can point to and say physical isn’t declining and hasn’t been declining for years now.
37 million units only in the US in a digital world is quite impressive. Unfortunately the true customers are shareholders.
37 M is huge in the age of Fortnite and GaaS, for ONE territory. [edit: yes, even all platforms]
Yeah, well, maybe physical sales would be higher if more game HAD a physical release
Dying Light The Beast
Arc Raiders
Marathon
To name a few. Playstation has been PUSHING digital sales over physical releases for years now. Obviously this had an impact on most of player’s consumption.
What about the players who have a shitty internet connection even, no internet connection? What about those who only get game by exchanging them with friends/families because they’re on a budget? What about those who just like to display their collection? And game preservation?
It is easy to look at this statistic and say that this is a rational choice to go full digital.
But anyone that even slightly love games would see why it is a terrible decision to make.
But wait, I thought only 7 games sold over 100,000 thousand? Are numbers just made up?
Oh gee I wonder how business models and practices changing had an effect on these results? Business statisticians are so fucking terrible at their jobs.
Sony right now.
I mean 37 million isn’t anything to snuff at. It’s not like they’re losing money on physical discs. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
The amount of work you fanboys put in for Sony is embarrassing, are they at least compensating you with free stuff?
Big studios also released games at a much higher rate back then . Now we’re lucky to get two per decade
I feel data like this is pretty useless because we’re getting significantly less physical games then we used to.
Both in the sense that more games than ever are digital only now & that AAA games (which always make up the bulk of physical sales) take longer to create compared to 2009.
What Sony doesn’t get is, that for examole for every AAA/ sony exclusive I buy in physical, i buy like 3 smaller or older games digital. So by removung physical they don’t lose 1 out 4 sales, but lose everything because I’m moving to other platforms.
Sony is also closing Playstation Poland ofices today, that’s a wrap for me withbthis company.
I’m not understanding this whole fiasco with people saying that the PSN store will be the only way to buy games. Games will still be sold at retailers, they’ll just be a code in a box instead of a disc. I do agree that Sony should revamp their digital license policies to reflect modern values though.
And what else happened during that time? The massive rise of indie games. And, while there’s still things like LRG and Super Rare Games, it doesn’t change the fact that labeling this as “units” doesn’t paint a complete picture because many, many $10, $15, $30, etc. games never receive a physical release.
Losing 37 million games sales, and the majority of Japan sales isn’t good business.
I don’t mind what mat is doing. I think everyone knows most people buy digital over physical. The issue is completely removing physicals as an option. That’s 37 million copies is still a number. And as users pointed out, most games don’t come with physicals.
Sony can still create ad hoc services, allow third parties to make it or allow customers to make these disc. Like completely removing them is the issue.
They sell fewer than 10 mil of BD4K per year, and they are still being made and sold. If you sell less, you can just scale the production down and keep going. 37 mil in US probably means 100ish mil worldwide. That’s not that small.
So what’s the point of making it sound like there is a justification? They kill it because they think they can get away with it, not because it’s a burden, or they are losing money from it.
Do we think the people that buy physical in the US are the biggest Sony fanboys or just the median gamer?
Because I would guess that people that still buy physical hace higher attach rates, more brand loyalty, and likely represent people who consider gaming to be a significant part of their identity.
And tossing them away is probably not a good long term strategy.
Worldwide it was 70 million for PlayStation only in 2025. I was told by multiple people it’s “small”.
Also possible to attribute that to the boom of indie developers which likely lack the resources to make physical copies.
37 million is a fuckload of units in the US.
There are only 36.4 million PS5s in the US, many of which are all digital consoles.
Physical game sales could go to 0 and Reddit would still move the goalposts to try and argue that the numbers don’t make sense
So there is still a demand for physical games. cool, thanks Mr. analyst.
Let’s be realistic here. I’m someone who thinks the loss of physical is bad for us but not because I care about the medium. I stopped buying discs early in the ps4 gen and I’m happy I did and wouldn’t go back. I’m just concerned with Sony having the monopoly.
Fighting against them dropping discs is a worthwhile fight but it only buys time for the true problem to be solved. Opening up the digital sale marketplace to be more than PlayStation owned. Not only do we win, but Sony suffer too. If they legally have to allow other stores on the PlayStation, can you imagine Microsoft setting up shop and selling gamepass on ps5. Greedy corporations lose their monopoly and we all win.