Digital marketplace Steam runs a majority of the PC market, and mobile platforms in the current era never offered a physical alternative. New console announcements like Google Stadia ditch any physical media. Sony offers the $20 monthly PlayStation Now service, game streaming in the vein of Netflix. Beyond excluding the disc drive, Microsoft offers Xbox Game Pass, an all-you-can-play digital game buffet at $10 a month (or $100 a year) that even includes new releases. A 2018 report from Nielsen states a majority of game consumers prefer physical. That’s not only Xbox and PlayStation involved, skewing the numbers, making the total loss difficult to pin down. A 60% drop in physical sales from 2009 to 2017 seems dramatic but consider the revenue sources. Overall industry sales need to consider the rise of apps too. Sales of EA Sports’ FIFA still generated 75% of core sales from discs in 2018, according to the UK report. The UK’s Entertainment Retailers Association reported that 80% of game sales were digital in 2018 – although that number included content like costumes and in-game currency, not just the games themselves. Simply saying physical games sales fell in revenue doesn’t consider the multitude of other factors. For example, D3 Publishers’ Earth Defense Force franchise, previously available in digital and physical forms, went digital only with the two most recent entries.īut as Pachter notes, this shift to digital is not definitive. Many games don’t see physical release at all, especially in the growing indie space. The majority of sales are still on disc, so it’s not even a close call,” Pachter continues.Ī majority or not, physical sales dropped in recent years, indicating a shift in consumer spending and the availability of digital content. “I suppose it’s up to the console manufacturers, but my guess is that the video game publishers would push back if discs were dropped. The all-digital Xbox One is the first major console not to include an option for physical media. “The record labels still make CDs and the movie studios still make DVDs, so yes, I’d say it’s too soon to abandon discs for consoles,” writes Michael Pachter, managing director at Wedbush Securities when asked about Microsoft’s plans to drop a physical disc drive from their latest Xbox One model.
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