Mat Piscatella who works for Circana, the company which tracks video game software sales throughout the United States, has revealed that the decline in physical sales has accelerated in 2024. The peak of physical video game sales was back in 2008 where it reached an all-time high and as you can see from the chart down below each year has seen a substantial decline with physical sales in 2024 reaching an all-time low.
Back in the day, there was always a new Collector’s Edition, a new Nintendo handheld console game separately. People made more exclusives for each console, and there were more systems, like the Vita. There was a lot more stuff to buy back then. Now, everything is just better on Steam, Xbox has “no” exclusives anymore, Sony doesn’t make as many games (or at least it feels that way), and there are far fewer Collector’s Editions to go around. Limited Run Games produces so much expensive stuff that people wanting to buy physical copies have to spend everything on them (and it’s far worse shopping from them if you’re outside the US).
I remember back in 2010, I disliked anything from Ubisoft, Bethesda, or any open-world games. Boring stuff, in my opinion. Now, I think people are starting to realize that buying big, boring games on day one, which consume all your time, isn’t worth paying full price for. People just buy stuff on discount when they see it or try it on Game Pass.
Back then, if I wanted to own a Vita-game physically I had to buy it fast before it went out of stock everywhere. Now, buying games digitally has rarely any incentive for me to spend any money before a discount.
It’s inevitable that it will go down continually but at a slowing rate from now on, likely. Like physical aspects like instruction manuals will never return. There will never be a game to match Startropics.
Shame really. The sad thing is there is no resale value in digital.
I’ve bought so many physical games over the years and always will when I can and I’ve also sold loads after a while and actually got a decent amount for some of them so that’s what people need to think about more when buying their digital games.
The only problem is when the physical sales decline too much it’s just gona bump the prices up eventually so we are forced to buy digitally
It’s because there aren’t any good games to buy! Digital or physical it’s all soulless, woke slop and people are SICK of it!
Except for Nintendo, they still make good games
Why does some r3tard like you always feel the need to defend woke garbage?
Keep in mind, most of these reports are based on ALL digital sales and are very misleading. This isnt just counting a full game download, but also things like dlc and microtransactions. Truth is, there are more physical releases coming out now then ever before, and thats before counting limited print publishers. If anything, the market has settled itself into a comfortable position where the general, yearly sports and shooter majority may choose digital, plus GaaS titles, while other genres are still getting standard physical releases for dedicated game fans. Theres no reason both options cant be available, and any push from companies towards digital only, is purely greed.
It has more to say about the console. Xbox One Series S / PS5 Pro do not have disc drives, so that means people are forced to buy digital games. So there’s no option to even play the physical copy even if you bought it. So it’s not entirely on publishers like EA, Ubisoft, etc – if the console doesn’t support it, then why print it on the disc? Microsoft’s been trying to ditch the disc drive for a few generations now, and now Sony may be following suit. We haven’t gotten a full confirmation on the Switch 2 yet, but thankfully Nintendo is more ‘behind the times’ with more things than the internet, so it’s pretty highly likely there will be physical cartridges (either the same exact ones, or something akin to the 3DS ones where there’s a weird thing on it so it doesn’t insert into the Switch 1/Lite models (like the 3DS cartridges couldn’t go into any DS models).
Unfortunately more and more publishers like the digital route as then they don’t have to pay the cost to print, ship or anything and still make the full cost of the game sale. Even on Nintendo platforms as they’ll print the 2 GB cartridge, and expect you to download the other 58 GB of data.
In the Switch 2 reveal trailer it says the console plays both physical and digital games.
I just pre-ordered XenoBlade Chronicles X Definitive Edition – comes with a physical bonus item when you get it from Best Buy. I expect that going forward, we’ll see games go the way of movies in terms of physical editions – probably at a slower rate than movies though (I think the fanbase for collecting physical games is stronger than for the movie fans), but it’ll certainly continue to become more niche and we’ll see more premium editions, higher prices, etc., as time goes on.
Just the natural progression of things as technology gets better and internet speeds get faster.
The death of physical games is inevitable and has been for a while. Might still be 10-20 years out, but it’s coming. For me my long-term concern is about how we can make digital games more consumer friendly rather than trying to save the sinking ship that is physical.
I do expect 2025 to perhaps see an uptick in physical game sales though with the launch of the Switch 2. I guess the existence of Switch 2 physical cartridges hasn’t actually been confirmed yet (we know that it will play Switch 1 cartridges but Switch 2 physical not confirmed) but I’d be very shocked if Switch 2 games were digital only.
Once its all digital its gonna get even more greedy, prepare
I hate having digital games, because if your account gets perma banned then you lose any digital games you purchased. Then again, i guess if you know what’s at risk you think twice before trolling.
i never trol i just kno nintendo suck for real
Cut the BS. You hate Nintendo… why the hell are you here trespassing?
We’re probably a few years from the bottom but, just like music and movies, video games will find their physical or bust crowd and things will level out. Prices will almost certainly jump at that point, however.
People dont buy stupid things like download code in case or trilogy like only one game physical and two for download. This ruin physical market! And uncoplete/unplayable day one patch titles like Gran turismo 6 😔 sad future. Thank God for PHYSICAL lego and Mtg cards 😅👍
Seeing how bigger cartridges are more expensive, some publishers don’t think it is a worthy investment to release the games with the physical media, just a download code. So, there are 2 factors at play: the price of the cartridge (they don’t want to pay) and most likely how they prefer to reduce costs (they don’t publish some Switch games with the cartridges and only a code, because as they see the digital software is selling more, they are most likely planning to end physical media in the near future).
An example of that is a game like Fornite that was sold in discs until 2018 and now is only available through digital format. There are just too many updates to be put in a disc in ever-changing software like Games as a Service and publishing your software in only digital form is cheaper for them.
That’s only because publishers keep handing out digital sales like candy (despite the larger/beefier games taking up a shit-ton of space on an expensive 128-512 GB micro SD card), assuming you can even get a physical copy that isn’t locked in PAL regions or South Asia.
And don’t even get me started on the disgusting practice of locking exclusive content behind digital-only versions (Sonic Colors Ultimate, Sonic Frontiers, New Super Lucky’s Tale, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, etc.)
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