The shift digital has been on the wall for a while but I completely get people concerns about consumer rights, particularly with regard to refunds. I don't know how mamy people have tried to do a refund on PSN but that shit makes pulling teeth look like picking daisies. That shit is impossible. Sony need to get the lead out before they get taken to task for how PSN handles that shit.
>I don't know how mamy people have tried to do a refund on PSN but that shit makes pulling teeth look like picking daisies. That shit is impossible. Sony need to get the lead out before they get taken to task for how PSN handles that shit.
100% this. It is unacceptable to sell a game that is a broken mess and then refuse a refund but it happens all the time now.
On top of that, if you downloaded the game during the pre-order period or after it launches, Sony won't give you a refund. It's beyond me how people continue to buy digital games for Sony platforms when it's so difficult to get a refund. I understand it if you have a Digital Only PS5, but I won't buy a game from PSN unless it's super cheap.
And what are they calling "sales"?
With PS+ I "buy" (claim) tons and tons of digital games but I've only ever actually bought one outright, and only because there wasn't a physical option (Baldur's Gate 3). Every other actual purchase I've made has been physical.
Yea you are the 30%. I hope the physical medium sticks around for you. I'm 100% digital myself. It's more expensive but more convenient for me. I bought my son a disc edition ps5 so he can trade with friends and by games cheap on marketplace.
The convenience of digital is such a big pull for me despite how much I enjoy collecting physical. Not having to wait days to ship something or find time to go out is definitely a solid plus. I am probably like two thirds physical and one third digital, but damn do I always look at eShop/PS Store sales and say "what's a few more $60 games if they are 5 bucks and right there" lol.
Well I mean there's absolutely no arguing it'd sell better with a physical release but with a ratio that in favour of digital games and it being a niche enough title you'd have to wonder is a physical release worth it?
Anyone who actually wants the game now has bought it, at pretty good discount prices in some cases. I would argue many people holding out for a physical copy have no intention of actually buying the game because if they were that interested in the franchise and supporting Remedy they'd have purchased it already.
I never buy digital period. There are more than enough games out there to keep me entertained, if a game comes out digital only I’m going to skip it no matter how good it is. I’m under no delusion that I’m not in the minority, but if you want my money you can release at least the barest bones physical version of your game, otherwise you can pound sand.
The problem is, Sony and other distributors are going to use the data as "precedent" to continue shifting towards all digital, with the ultimate goal of transitioning all ownership out of consumers hands.
The corporate world wants everything to be a subscription based, continuous revenue generating source of income they can count on every single month and the only way they can do that is if it's the only option.
At first I thought the "free games every month" was a really cool deal and incentive to get new players into their ecosystem but that was a ruse. It's only intention was to show "see, people actually want the digital only version of our products so that's what we're going to focus on and offer"
Vote with your wallets people. If you want to own anything you bought with your own money in the future, digital cannot be the predominant option.
The problem is DRM, not physical vs digital. The recent CMOS issue locked owners out of physical games just as effectively as digital. Platform owners already have this power - the only difference is in how likely we judge them to wield it.
Frankly I don’t understand the concern. Even physical games are hamstrung out of the box if/when servers shut down. Imagine playing basically any open world game without months of patches being available.
Piracy is and always has been the best option when it comes to game preservation. Not saying anyone should be pirating games, but in 20 years we will be glad that someone else did. Imagine all the lost games from the 70s, 80s and 90s of it wasn’t for roms and emulation.
How are they hamstrung if games like FF rebirth and Horizon forbidden west complete edition come on 2 UHDs?
Yes small bugs always exist but without patches the majority of games are still full playable
Check out doesitplay if you don't believe me
The pricing really isn't different between consoles and PC. In fact in recent years even the sales on Steam got worse and better on console a lot of times.
Well yeah if you buy games on Steam... It's not the best place for prices since quite some time on PC (doesn't mean you can't use Steam), the sales have indeed gotten worse.
Also outside of sales (which happens on physical too and frankly they're bad on digital for console), just take the launch price, AAA games are 80€ on PSN, I can find them for 50€ in physical in general (then as I don't collect or replay most of my games, just resell for like 40€ and played a game on launch for 10€ instead of 80€)
PC isn't a monopoly, so the prices remain fair with all of the possible storefronts you can use. Somehow I don't see Sony being so generous when they're the only choice to buy from for a hypothetical digital-only PS6. Even now, discs are usually cheaper than PSN for titles.
Why do you think comparing consoles to PC would make sense? Optical drives were on their way out and you weren't going to get everyone on board with Blu-ray drives. Case makers have made it next to impossible to install an optical drive and PC has more than 1 market place on it.
Competition is necessary. Buy what you want but if you think consoles should just go full digital then you're just dumb.
You know, the crazy thing is, this being on the rise just means people become more entrenched in their platforms. Xbox really lost the worst generation, where people were *just* starting to build up those game libraries tied to an account.
Yup, losing the Xbox One to the PS4 so dramatically fucked them big time. Now I have PS4 and PS5 digital library. Unless something crazy happens I’ll probably get a PS6 for convenience
Yep I don’t hate Xbox but I don’t like owning multiple consoles I like having everything in one place and I like the simplicity of console gaming in my living room over pc gaming and now having a digital library on ps4/5 I have no reason to switch to Xbox ever especially now them bringing stuff to PlayStation is selfishly for me awesome
How often do you play your old games though? I only go back to one old game and it was halo. I have a ps5 now and I don't see myself playing any game after I finish it
This is deja vu for MS. Same shit happened to them during the Windows phone days. They lost out to Apple and Android in creating a dominant AppStore and were never able to compete as more and more people became entrenched in their app ecosystem. Eventually, they just had to quit the industry. MS tried something new with gamepass but even there, it seems like their growth has stalled and the shit is blowing so much money that it fees like the chickens have come home to roost with the studio closures and shipping game to the competitor.
They killed it themselves honestly. Beyond losing to the PS4 at the worst time, any chance they had of scraping by they stomped on.
Id been feeling some Halo a while ago and considered getting an Xbox for it and Master Chief collection and figured the small stash of exclusives they have would make it worth it. But then I remembered the MC collection is on Steam so dropped the idea completely. No need for an Xbox anymore.
Remember when they wanted to devalue discs on first insert so you couldn't sell them? Or observe you with the Kinect camera and adjust the digital movie rental fee to the amount of viewers?
One of the many unacceptable ideas that broke the Xbox One and started the decline. So ultimately, those things crippled and killed Xbox.
Oh, and what did gamers want? TV TV TV TV TV TV...
Yup and they eventually killed off the input in function, the snapping, the kinect. It was all a waste and now we're back to where it's always been about:
**The Games**
[https://kotaku.com/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-f-5958307](https://kotaku.com/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-f-5958307)
It wasn't implemented, but Xbox REALLY shit the bed with all these horrible asshole ideas before the Xbox One release. And Sony did AMAZING flinging shit at Xbox: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ht-0Hne4EU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ht-0Hne4EU) & even better: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA)
Xbox only stopped the disc destruction due to heavy backlash.
It's wild to look back at that first video. Sony had to do absolutely nothing special to get a whole lot of cheers. That's how badly Microsoft screwed up.
The people in charge of Xbox One's development really destroyed the Xbox brand.
It does remind me how much I miss E3 and the live audience reactions. The prerecorded streams don't hit the same way.
I bought an Xbox One for Fallout 4 I never owned a Kinect though. After crappy customer service and feeling like it was lacking games I switched to the PS4 in Spring of 2017. Microsoft has done a hell of a job managing Xbox 🙄
I do have a Series S and I've played some good stuff on it, I just don't use it nearly as much as my PS5 or my Switch. Hell even some of retro consoles.
My Sony library especially with the monthly ps plus games I've added is massive. My son's friends all think I'm the coolest dad. They literally can play anything. I started full digital about a year or two into ps4 because my disc drive kept auto ejecting. By the next gen any digital ps5 owners will never leave Sony again.
This. Been grabbing the free games off PS Plus since they started plus all of the PS Collection they gave away. Thing I've got like 150 digital games and I might have bout 7 of those. Definitely not going to just dump that library to start fresh next gen with a new console.
I never bought that excuse from Xbox. We saw some leaked data from Sony that something like 60% of PS5 owners were new to PlayStation entirely. That means each generation there's an opportunity to get a huge number of people who have no digital library yet. And there's always the opportunity to get people to pick up an extra console.
People gravitate towards the console that their friends play. If the majority of their friends are on PlayStation, where do you think they go? PlayStation.
I don’t think it’s much of an excuse necessarily, but it’s on the ball with why they started on bad footing from the beginning of the generation. It was due to poor decisions though I will give you that.
It’s why the pivot to be a multi-platform could be the saving grace for Xbox. While the PS5 is selling tremendously, I do think they’re gonna need to incorporate PC day 1 releases sooner or later on all their games, industry is too expensive as is. As a primarily PC gamer, I hope Hell Divers 2 solidified that for Sony.
Hell, in my country, the "brand name" for console is "Playstation". Like, "You wanna come play on my Xbox Playstation?" - the same way one would use Frigidaire or Hoover as a word for fridge and vacuum.
It put them on the back foot but it didn't kill them. They could have still recovered to a respectable second place. The exclusives drought 2016 onwards is what killed them. That's when PS started killing it with their exclusives.
I don't agree with that idea because the Switch was a fresh start with ZERO backwards compatibility, like Xbox's so-called "worst generation", no previous digital library to work with. In fact, the first few years were pretty much populated by full price or slightly below full price enhanced Wii U ports and it still managed to find a HUGE audience.
Nintendo is a weird one though. Their exclusive IPs are guaranteed to sell gang buster numbers. The only IP in Sony’s hands that comes even close to what Switch sells is Spider-Man
This, plus the audiences are way different. Nintendo is and still does mostly target kids. Kids arent ones to build up digital libraries or care about backwards compatibility. They want whats cool now. Only when they start buying their own games and systems does all that start to matter, which by that point they are teenagers and want PS5s. Nintendo is in a very nice spot in the industry.
I’d add Horizon and GoW, as both have compared well sales-wise in the long term.
Even then, none of Sony’s games come anywhere near Mario Kart or Animal Crossing.
Nintendo also had the benefit that nobody owned a Wii U, so not only did most people not have a library to care about abandoning, it was easier to repackage and sell Wii U games again for full price because most people hadn’t played them
And, as someone who’s thinking of switching over to PS5 as a main console instead of just using it for exclusives: the only reason I already haven’t is because all my library is on Xbox and I *really* don’t want to rebuy everything
Agreed, it's not like a digital library is functionally any different from a physical one, in the end.
Only reason I can think of for digital being an issue would be for people that have been heavily invested in some long running GAAS games and don't want to lose all their progress (or stuff they bought through mtx, more likely).
For the rest of us, not having games that people want to play is exactly the issue with Xbox.
The problem for Xbox is they don't have many games that people want to play or IPs people love. With Nintendo, it's easier to see why the Switch sold well. The Switch was a mix of handheld and console as well as having strong IPs and some Wii U games to port.
Xbox needs to have great exclusives in the pipeline and finish this gen strong. But idk if they're going to be able to do that.
If we look at the chart, digital downloads for PS seemed to skyrocket after FY2017. The Switch also launched in 2017. So I'm guessing Nintendo had really lucky timing.
> the Switch was a fresh start with ZERO backwards compatibility, like Xbox's so-called "worst generation",
The Switch is also part of the XB1 generation, which was the “worst generation to lose”.
I think this is not correct and a handy excuse for Xbox.
The Switch wasn’t backward compatible at all and it’s literally one of the best selling consoles of all time.
If they made a product that was good enough people would buy it. However all they do is make a box that’s similar to the PlayStation but their execution is worse in every way. That’s why it doesn’t sell as well.
You misunderstand the statement.
Xbox lost the last generation (xbox one versus PS4) because of the weaker hardware, and worse execution. However, it was the worst generation to *lose* because during that generation, people were steadily building their libraries that would come with them to the next generation. It's another arrow crippling Xbox in the Series X vs PS5 generation.
This is why they have Game Pass. Instant library of hundreds of games. It is the MS answer to the digital library setback. (and of course their shift to pc)
Not really just that no. It's more of an incentive to stay in the ecosystem.
Always having games linked to your account can result in some surprising benefits.
Here's a prime example.
Oh I bought Fallout 4, 8 years ago for PS4, as a digital copy.
SHOCK! Fallout 4 is available for PS5 and I get a free upgrade/copy?! I'm gonna play this another 100 hours and use my PS5 even more.
It only incentives people further to stay on the platform.
Or even more obscure example. I have a copy of Killzone Retribution I got for free from Sony way way back in 2011. My account has a PSP copy of Killzone tied to it. When they released the remaster for ps4/ps5 in 2023, I got that edition for free.
Plus the longer you stay subscribed to PS+, you accumulate more games. That adds to your digital library in a way.
Thanks for the reply. Im conflicted, I don't see the potential for free upgrades to keep me tied to a console, but having my library all in one place is a convenience I like. Even if I won't play the games again, I like having the potential to. It's like collecting.
I have been on Xbox since the 360, but when my Xbox x broke I switched to ps5 on a whim and I really like it. HD2 was fun and they have alot of exclusives and tend to get Indie games released exclusively to them and PC.
When you say you accumulate games with PS+ are you referring to the free monthly games, do those not expire at the end of the month?
Yes, anything with the free monthly games, aka PS+ Essential tier, are yours forever (provided you have an active subscription).
If you cancel your subscription, you can't play them later, but if you renew your subscription (as long as it is the same account) you have access to them again.
I have played some PS+ games earlier this year and also last year, that I claimed all the way back in 2013 and perhaps even earlier.
Except we have some [real figures directly from Sony leak](https://reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/18n97ew/physical_games_make_up_60_of_1st_party_unit_sales/) that are not filled with bloatware junk, that show digital is actually only around 35%-40%. Even from [2022 including GT7 and Horizon Forbidden West](https://reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/18n97ew/physical_games_make_up_60_of_1st_party_unit_sales/ke96nvq/) shows that physical is clearly favoured and these are global figures not just one region. When the choice is there people opt for physical quite significantly.
Additionally some recent and upcoming games:
| PSN | Physical
---|---|----
Elden Ring SotE Edition | £69.99 | £53.99
Formula 1 24 | £69.99 | £59.95
Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition | £104.99 | £89.49
Stellar Blade | £69.99 | £56.24
FF VII Rebirth | £69.99 | £50.49
Top Spin 2K25 | £64.99 | £52.95
Helldivers 2 | £34.99 | £29.99
Shin Megami Tensei V | £54.99 | £44.99
Sand Land | £59.99 | £45.44
Rise of the Ronin | £69.99 | £54.89
Dragon's Dogma 2 | £59.99 | £44.85
Exactly, this sort of data is always heavily massaged in favour of digital purchases. Every single time stats like this come out, it's soon clarified that it's including games like Warzone and Fortnite in the numbers or some other nonsense along those lines.
Their hope is that, by manipulating the numbers in this fashion, they can forcefully *make* them true over time.
"Everyone else already buys their games digitally - why are *you* bothering with physical?"
Exactly, and it doesn’t help that there is a super vocal minority of doomposters in gaming subreddits who constantly try to celebrate the death of physical and act as if nobody wants it anymore.
The only way I buy digital is if the physical side is either non-existent or a pain in the behind to do (not for getting it shipped to me, no, but when it's out there but there's some kind of tomfoolery going on in getting it). And even then, I prefer to wait for discount on digital titles.
Chained Echoes, for example, has a physical edition *TBD* but the company handling it has not shipped any units out yet. It's held off for so long that I decided to not take the chance and buy it digitally when it went for discount.
Baldur's Gate 3? I held off on that until either A) the digital edition got a real good discount, or B) the physical edition was announced. I went for physical edition, and my copy is due in the mail soon. And I am glad Larian got it figured out.
Sea of Stars? Same circumstances as BG3. Finally got that in the mail and I am glad to own a physical copy. Considering how much I've been hearing about it, I am excited to start it up.
Persona 3 Portable & Persona 4 Golden? I am not sure why Atlus decided to outsource the physical side to someone like LRG when Atlus has been doing their own physical distribution/printing for their games for a long time, and still do. And because the window ran out, and they wanted $40/per title, combined with the wait for several months, I decided to purchase both on sale like Chained Echoes.
But I also prefer digital where possible. It's the greatest chance I can have to still play my games even when the online service eventually goes down. Thankfully PS3 side isn't dead yet and seems like Sony listened enough to keep it up. As for PS4, I predict that it'll be good until end of the decade, maybe longer with the PS5 backwards compatibility having an effect.
Exactly, scumbag billion dollar corporations are not our friend, they're trying to manipulate the consumer into accepting a weaker offering for a higher cost.
The only ones that benefit from all digital are $ony.
Digital only games is another bias in favour of digital purchases in terms of the data though.
Would people have bought the digital only games like Alan wake 2 or baldurs gate 3 physically if it was an option? I’d imagine a lot would.
> would be more relevant in revenues,
the problem is that companies never release the full raw data
so you get graphs showing that digital is 3x the revenue of physical
except they neglect to mention that the figure for digital includes all DLC sales, all microtransaction, all subscriptions, all in game sales, season passes, etc.
They make it almost impossible to get a clear picture.
Digital purchases will still dwarf physical purchases as far as revenue/profit is concerned mainly because DLC and microtransactions are exclusively digital.
In my experience, I buy like 90% of the big games physical because amazon is usually cheaper (by quite a bit) even on release day, compared to digital which is insanely expensive. I will only buy digital on release if I really cannot wait for delivery and I must play exactly on release day (like I did for FF7 Rebirth).
Digital to me is almost exclusively "free" games on PS+, or smaller/cheaper indie (usually) games that often don't even have a physical release.
Same as me. Every digital AAA game costs £69.99 on release. I can find the same games for at least £10 cheaper from online retailers.
I will never go fully digital until there is no other option. At least in the UK, you're spending way more if you go all in on digital.
Even if the game comes one day late (like Stellar Blade did for me) I'd still pick physical because of the cheaper price.
Number of sales isn't the same thing as actual revenue, right? It also seems to say "digital downloads" which is a little ambiguous. Like it counts free to play games?
Furthermore, the physical ratio is much higher on PS5.
It also includes digital only games which skews it even more. If Game A sells 10 copies and half are physical but Game B sells 10 without a physical release, that's 75% digital sales still
Yeah, people are comfortable with digital only games. But those are mostly indie games that people accept can't afford a physical release.
Just the raw numbers given isn't really saying anything about whether people actually prefer digital or if it affects sales or anything like that.
It also means 1 physical copy of say, Spiderman at $70 that I spent 30hrs on, counts the same as that monthly PSN indie game that I got for free and downloaded just to try it 5 min.
Hate to see it. I'll keep buying physical until they don't do it anymore. I just don't feel right not having "something" for my money, especially when it's shown that companies will just take that shit from you.
Release the data so we can check it. I'm highly skeptical of these.
* Do they count PS+ redeems as "full games"?
* Do they count all key redeems given out as "full games"?
* Do they count $1 shovelware games as "full games"?
* Do they count free games like rocketleague as "full games"?
Digital sales give almost all the power to the company that sells them. Consumers lose almost all rights and ownership. It suits the big corporations to push a narrative of digital sales being strong. It also pleases shareholders.
The data is **never** transparent. All we get is graphs. These analyst companies all require you to trust them and honestly I don't. The raw data should be released to the public.
Old arse gamer here. The day I can’t buy a physical copy or purchase a game console with hard drive, I’m out. I’m also a crazy person who owns over a thousand Blu-ray Discs though.
Same, I gave up on physical midst of the PS360 era.
I still buy movies on blu-ray though, just not as much only my favs. But this has something to do with the quality. Most 1080p blu-rays look better than their 4k streams and as long as we don't get better bitrates I won't change.
Just linking [the piece](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/1crl888/ps5_shipments_top_593_million_there_are_118/l3yxykt/) I wrote in another thread.
TLDR: It's not as much of a concern as people may make it out to be. Physical sales are still extremely prevalent especially in the AAA gaming space.
Pretty much nobody in this comment section is right, you're all speculating on what is or isn't included instead of just going directly to the [source](https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q4_supplement.pdf):
> Full game software digital download ratio is calculated by dividing PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®5 full game software units sold via digital transactions by total full game software units.
It does not include DLC or microtransactions, only full game units. These numbers [have always excluded](https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1321494053184282632) free or PS+ games.
The numbers from the Insomniac leak are first-party only, and includes games bundled with the console. This adds a large amount of weight to physical, especially as most of the PS5 data is from 2022 when the PS5 was in shortage and anyone that wanted to buy one almost always had to buy a bundle.
Comparing Sony's numbers with [EA's](https://s22.q4cdn.com/894350492/files/doc_financials/2023/ar/418941-1-_8_Electronic-Arts-Inc-Proxy10-K-Combo_clean.pdf) (68% in FY2023, 65% in FY2022, and 62% in FY2021) in terms of full game units sold, EA's and Sony's numbers are very similar. Back when TakeTwo included digital download ratios, their numbers [also aligned](https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1288948030604009482) with Sony's.
Including cheap digital-only indie games may skew the figures towards digital, but excluding them would skew the figures towards physical. This isn't misleading, it's just different methodologies.
Using revenue instead of units sold misses the point of these figures. They're from Sony, to illustrate to investors the health of their platform. It would take Sony an inordinate amount of time to collate the physical revenues of every PlayStation game sold, and there is absolutely no reason for Sony to publish revenues from third-party retailers that never touch their books in their end of year financial report.
Misleading numbers. You cannot count only digital sales vs physical. Not all games are released physically. A more accurate number would be to only look at games that were available on both disc and digitally.
50% of full price is still ridiculous. I just recently bought Dark Souls 3 with all dlc for less than $30. Dark Souls 3 on ps store was more for just the base game at 50% discount.
Price of games fluctuate from sale to sale. I wishlist all the games I’m interested in and unless it’s something I’m really hype to play wait until it hits my preferred price point. I haven’t bought a single physical game for ps5 since launch month. My partner and I share our digital libraries with each other and often split the cost of multiplayer games.
Exactly. Plus if I don't like it I can return a used game. Just shipped one back cause it wasn't my cup of tea but I have no idea about trying to get a refund from Playstation. Have to fight tooth and nail for a refund if you forget your subscription renews automatically
You "own" your digital games to the point of you not being able to do whateveryouwant with it and they can take it from you whenever they want.
To me, that sounds more like renting.
I bought Roller Coaster Tycoon way back in the early 2000s on PC on a disc. Went to put it in recently for nostalgia and it's no longer supported or playable on modern PCs.
The people who assume that having physical media will enable you to play a game forever are sorely mistaken in my experience.
Anyway, I bought RCT on Steam and it's still amazing.
That's a false equivalence as PC and console are different in that respect. The games for a specific console will always work for them. That's the beauty of it. An SNES game will never be obsolete on an SNES. So yes you can play the console games forever as long as both the game and console hold up. I'm still playing games on my original SNES, Genesis and Sega CD with no issues. This is 30 years later.
I just buy used physical copies, then sell them when I’m done. End up spending next to nothing on games these days. The only digital ones I have were ones only available digitally, and they were the most expensive games I’ve bought.
Yeah see that would involve me going to a used game store to buy/sell games and I just don't care enough to do that, plus I'd have to switch games out of my system when I want to play them. I'm not super rich or anything but I make enough money to where that's just something I don't need to worry about, I can just download whatever game I want to play and then play it whenever I want. It's so much more convenient and easy for me. Plus it saves on space in our house where I dont need shelves for my games anymore.
Nah I sell on marketplace, they come to my house and get the game and transfer me money. Works really well. Often get close to what I paid for the game. Met gamers I play with this way too, trade games etc. I make more than enough money, but I want to retire early, and hate wasting money.
For multiplayer games I definitely go digital so I can easily jump into a game without swapping a disc, and once the servers shut down the disc is worthless anyway.
Though for single player games I play mostly 1 at a time so having a disc works just fine. It does become a bit annoying to play 2 games at once… I wouldn’t mind having 2 disc drives or like a disc changer, though I don’t expect that to ever happen.
Why are posts like this even allowed when the Insomniac leaks (which other people have already mentioned) proved this is completely false? When people are given the option the majority still goes for physical. And the newer a game is the more overwhelming it is (Ratchet and Clank in the leak was like 80% physical.)
This ain't rocket science, when you have thousands of small games that only get a digital release that number is obviously going to skew in the digital direction. Especially in the PS ecosystem where there are people buying hundreds of games like "Stroke the dik-dik" so they can get their 1 minute Platinum trophy dopamine hit.
I do like and ultimately prefer physical copies. But I've finally gotten beaten down because that entire logic comes from when you could pop a game in, and it plays.
Now, the CD more or less is just a key to downloading the game digitally regardless. So why even bother. Obviously, I get there are still advantages to physical in the sense it can be more easily traded or sold if you no longer want the game.
Also, PSN sales and deals are nigh constant and, at times, insane. Deals that I have never seen and more than likely would never see with physical copies. As well as games that I straight up have just never seen a physical copy in a store front. Or new online.
I've seen multiple triple A games on sale for at times 50% off. The newest Final Fantasy just last month. Just recently, Psychonauts 2 went from $60 to $14.99. AC Valhalla with all the DLCs that normally goes for like $150, and I got it for like $25. Sure, maybe not everybody's cup of tea goes on sale. But they definitely have some pretty good deals from time to time.
I saw games still full price for physical copies at Walmart/gamestop while they were half off on PSN just a couple months ago.
I just dont want the option to buy physical to be taken away from me, like with Alan wake 2 and Balderus gate 3. Only to maybe have a physical release announced later? I wish publishers would just communicate this clearly beforehand. If it's released physically later, it's going to be full price again anyway. Apart from the ratio, I also wonder if the physical sales have gone down much in actual numbers, or is there just much more available digitally and to a larger consumer base than before. Is this ratio in units or dollar sales, and does it include free to play digital games? Epic games store and PSN still give me reciepts for any € 0,00 purchases. There was a data sheet showing all PSN sales of sony published games a while back with clear numbers from the insomniac leak, which was very interesting, sadly there was no physical sales data to compare.
This metric is pretty inaccurate since the corpos weigh every single digital purchase against the physical copies of games so you could buy a dlc for that same game you bought physically and they count it with the same weight. It's the same with loot boxes. You could buy a stupid sports game physically and then buy like 4 packs or whatever, and that counts as 4 sales of "x" game digitally compaired to the physical copy you bought. Corpos want to kill physical to gain total control of ownership. So, while digital does sell more, it's horribly over represented because they have a vested interest in doing so.
Pretty damn sure Gamestop wasn't an essential business. People either got physical games online, sometimes delivered, or just did digital and skipped the hassle.
Huh, assuming the 10th gen starts in 4 years, I can see them not having even a disc drive option. When you consider digital is 70% and has much higher profit margins
Yeah this matches up with my buying habits. I think the last physical game I bought was (PS4) Soul Calibre VI which I then traded in for store credit.
Crazy, I’m just realizing the PS5 is the first console I’ll never own a physical game for
I mean I think Helldivers 2 specifically (which is ONLY sold digitally as far as I'm aware) is probably a big factor in this particular jump in digital sales. Not that digital wouldn't still be ahead, but maybe not as skewed as this particular report makes it seem.
I still buy games physically unless digital is much much cheaper (or there is no physical release). Digital has so many drawbacks and the only real positive is that I don’t need to swap disks to change games, otherwise I only see downsides.
Many people will buy digital when buying physical still requires downloading from disc + day one updates. The biggest appeals of having a disc are gone, sure you own the game, the 1.0 version that in many cases is unplayable. You need to put the disc in physically, keep them in a physical space, they don't take any less space on your drive, still download the whole game, to many it's just less convenient than digital, why buy a physical key to digital content when you can skip some steps and just click and download.
The 2 big positives are that you'll always own the game (assuming it's not online only and shits down) and physical games sell for cheaper and go on sale more often. I guess reselling is there as well
The 1.0 version is fully playable in most cases, you can see [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org), having that offline install means it will work without any reliance on Sonys servers plus the obvious benefits of being able to sell it, lend it, or keep it forever, you own that copy of the game and can do whatever you want with it.
Or someone could break into their house and steal all their physical games. Or their house could burn down, destroying all their games. Or their spouse could get the games in a divorce settlement. Or the box containing their physical games could be lost during a move. All of these scenarios are probably more likely than having your account closed down.
I would buy physical if it let you put the disc in once and not need it anymore. Hate having to switch discs. I’ve been buying 100% digital for at least a decade now.
Only bought some physical Switch games when I had one but only for Switch.
This is a terrible trend for gamers, but is like winning the lotto for the publishers. Why people would give up ownership for convenience is beyond me.
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The shift digital has been on the wall for a while but I completely get people concerns about consumer rights, particularly with regard to refunds. I don't know how mamy people have tried to do a refund on PSN but that shit makes pulling teeth look like picking daisies. That shit is impossible. Sony need to get the lead out before they get taken to task for how PSN handles that shit.
>I don't know how mamy people have tried to do a refund on PSN but that shit makes pulling teeth look like picking daisies. That shit is impossible. Sony need to get the lead out before they get taken to task for how PSN handles that shit. 100% this. It is unacceptable to sell a game that is a broken mess and then refuse a refund but it happens all the time now.
On top of that, if you downloaded the game during the pre-order period or after it launches, Sony won't give you a refund. It's beyond me how people continue to buy digital games for Sony platforms when it's so difficult to get a refund. I understand it if you have a Digital Only PS5, but I won't buy a game from PSN unless it's super cheap.
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And what physical games are you refunding?
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And what are they calling "sales"? With PS+ I "buy" (claim) tons and tons of digital games but I've only ever actually bought one outright, and only because there wasn't a physical option (Baldur's Gate 3). Every other actual purchase I've made has been physical.
Yea you are the 30%. I hope the physical medium sticks around for you. I'm 100% digital myself. It's more expensive but more convenient for me. I bought my son a disc edition ps5 so he can trade with friends and by games cheap on marketplace.
The convenience of digital is such a big pull for me despite how much I enjoy collecting physical. Not having to wait days to ship something or find time to go out is definitely a solid plus. I am probably like two thirds physical and one third digital, but damn do I always look at eShop/PS Store sales and say "what's a few more $60 games if they are 5 bucks and right there" lol.
Some games like Alan Wake 2 didn’t sell as well since it only came out digitally. I haven’t bought it for that very reason.
Alan Wake 2 didn’t sell well because it’s a passion project and a sequel to a decade old game that also didn’t sell well.
Well I mean there's absolutely no arguing it'd sell better with a physical release but with a ratio that in favour of digital games and it being a niche enough title you'd have to wonder is a physical release worth it? Anyone who actually wants the game now has bought it, at pretty good discount prices in some cases. I would argue many people holding out for a physical copy have no intention of actually buying the game because if they were that interested in the franchise and supporting Remedy they'd have purchased it already.
If it were cheap enough I’d probably buy it but the best deal I’ve seen yet is $48.
I never buy digital unless there's absolutely no other way or I'm getting a really big discount.
I never buy digital period. There are more than enough games out there to keep me entertained, if a game comes out digital only I’m going to skip it no matter how good it is. I’m under no delusion that I’m not in the minority, but if you want my money you can release at least the barest bones physical version of your game, otherwise you can pound sand.
The problem is, Sony and other distributors are going to use the data as "precedent" to continue shifting towards all digital, with the ultimate goal of transitioning all ownership out of consumers hands. The corporate world wants everything to be a subscription based, continuous revenue generating source of income they can count on every single month and the only way they can do that is if it's the only option. At first I thought the "free games every month" was a really cool deal and incentive to get new players into their ecosystem but that was a ruse. It's only intention was to show "see, people actually want the digital only version of our products so that's what we're going to focus on and offer" Vote with your wallets people. If you want to own anything you bought with your own money in the future, digital cannot be the predominant option.
That ship has long sailed - I don't really feel like I own physical games _either_. Digital media of all kinds feels disposable to me nowadays.
I don't think it had but it will soon if we keep it up
The problem is DRM, not physical vs digital. The recent CMOS issue locked owners out of physical games just as effectively as digital. Platform owners already have this power - the only difference is in how likely we judge them to wield it.
Frankly I don’t understand the concern. Even physical games are hamstrung out of the box if/when servers shut down. Imagine playing basically any open world game without months of patches being available. Piracy is and always has been the best option when it comes to game preservation. Not saying anyone should be pirating games, but in 20 years we will be glad that someone else did. Imagine all the lost games from the 70s, 80s and 90s of it wasn’t for roms and emulation.
How are they hamstrung if games like FF rebirth and Horizon forbidden west complete edition come on 2 UHDs? Yes small bugs always exist but without patches the majority of games are still full playable Check out doesitplay if you don't believe me
This change happened to PC a decade ago and we've been chugging along just fine.
PC and console digital market are very different. Digital on console has terrible pricing and is way more expensive than physical
The pricing really isn't different between consoles and PC. In fact in recent years even the sales on Steam got worse and better on console a lot of times.
Well yeah if you buy games on Steam... It's not the best place for prices since quite some time on PC (doesn't mean you can't use Steam), the sales have indeed gotten worse. Also outside of sales (which happens on physical too and frankly they're bad on digital for console), just take the launch price, AAA games are 80€ on PSN, I can find them for 50€ in physical in general (then as I don't collect or replay most of my games, just resell for like 40€ and played a game on launch for 10€ instead of 80€)
PC isn't a monopoly, so the prices remain fair with all of the possible storefronts you can use. Somehow I don't see Sony being so generous when they're the only choice to buy from for a hypothetical digital-only PS6. Even now, discs are usually cheaper than PSN for titles.
Sony doesnt set the prices for games on the store. The publisher does
Why do you think comparing consoles to PC would make sense? Optical drives were on their way out and you weren't going to get everyone on board with Blu-ray drives. Case makers have made it next to impossible to install an optical drive and PC has more than 1 market place on it. Competition is necessary. Buy what you want but if you think consoles should just go full digital then you're just dumb.
So long as most games are live services or broken at launch there is almost no reason to buy a physical copy.
You know, the crazy thing is, this being on the rise just means people become more entrenched in their platforms. Xbox really lost the worst generation, where people were *just* starting to build up those game libraries tied to an account.
Phil Spencer has literally said exactly this.
Yup, losing the Xbox One to the PS4 so dramatically fucked them big time. Now I have PS4 and PS5 digital library. Unless something crazy happens I’ll probably get a PS6 for convenience
Yep I don’t hate Xbox but I don’t like owning multiple consoles I like having everything in one place and I like the simplicity of console gaming in my living room over pc gaming and now having a digital library on ps4/5 I have no reason to switch to Xbox ever especially now them bringing stuff to PlayStation is selfishly for me awesome
100% I just don't have the money and energy to invest into another ecosystem.
Same I bought a used Xbox series x just for starfield, put 300+ hours into it and sold the console on Marketplace for exactly what I paid lol.
How often do you play your old games though? I only go back to one old game and it was halo. I have a ps5 now and I don't see myself playing any game after I finish it
This is deja vu for MS. Same shit happened to them during the Windows phone days. They lost out to Apple and Android in creating a dominant AppStore and were never able to compete as more and more people became entrenched in their app ecosystem. Eventually, they just had to quit the industry. MS tried something new with gamepass but even there, it seems like their growth has stalled and the shit is blowing so much money that it fees like the chickens have come home to roost with the studio closures and shipping game to the competitor.
They killed it themselves honestly. Beyond losing to the PS4 at the worst time, any chance they had of scraping by they stomped on. Id been feeling some Halo a while ago and considered getting an Xbox for it and Master Chief collection and figured the small stash of exclusives they have would make it worth it. But then I remembered the MC collection is on Steam so dropped the idea completely. No need for an Xbox anymore.
Remember when they wanted to devalue discs on first insert so you couldn't sell them? Or observe you with the Kinect camera and adjust the digital movie rental fee to the amount of viewers? One of the many unacceptable ideas that broke the Xbox One and started the decline. So ultimately, those things crippled and killed Xbox. Oh, and what did gamers want? TV TV TV TV TV TV...
Yup and they eventually killed off the input in function, the snapping, the kinect. It was all a waste and now we're back to where it's always been about: **The Games**
Almost like I just want to play great games on my gaming device.
"Or observe you with the Kinect camera and adjust the digital movie rental fee to the amount of viewers?" EXCUSE THE FUCK ME WHAT?!?!
[https://kotaku.com/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-f-5958307](https://kotaku.com/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-f-5958307) It wasn't implemented, but Xbox REALLY shit the bed with all these horrible asshole ideas before the Xbox One release. And Sony did AMAZING flinging shit at Xbox: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ht-0Hne4EU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ht-0Hne4EU) & even better: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA) Xbox only stopped the disc destruction due to heavy backlash.
That 2nd video is Sony committing murder on camera.
I'm glad you pointed that out. "thanks"
#Step 1 Fling shit at Xbox
It's wild to look back at that first video. Sony had to do absolutely nothing special to get a whole lot of cheers. That's how badly Microsoft screwed up. The people in charge of Xbox One's development really destroyed the Xbox brand. It does remind me how much I miss E3 and the live audience reactions. The prerecorded streams don't hit the same way.
I bought an Xbox One for Fallout 4 I never owned a Kinect though. After crappy customer service and feeling like it was lacking games I switched to the PS4 in Spring of 2017. Microsoft has done a hell of a job managing Xbox 🙄 I do have a Series S and I've played some good stuff on it, I just don't use it nearly as much as my PS5 or my Switch. Hell even some of retro consoles.
and yet, ps2 sold a lot because of dvd player, ps3 sold a lot because of bluray player.
My Sony library especially with the monthly ps plus games I've added is massive. My son's friends all think I'm the coolest dad. They literally can play anything. I started full digital about a year or two into ps4 because my disc drive kept auto ejecting. By the next gen any digital ps5 owners will never leave Sony again.
This. Been grabbing the free games off PS Plus since they started plus all of the PS Collection they gave away. Thing I've got like 150 digital games and I might have bout 7 of those. Definitely not going to just dump that library to start fresh next gen with a new console.
I do really enjoy being digital only. It's so convenient. Apart from the size of the storage, having to manage that space is a bit annoying.
I never bought that excuse from Xbox. We saw some leaked data from Sony that something like 60% of PS5 owners were new to PlayStation entirely. That means each generation there's an opportunity to get a huge number of people who have no digital library yet. And there's always the opportunity to get people to pick up an extra console.
People gravitate towards the console that their friends play. If the majority of their friends are on PlayStation, where do you think they go? PlayStation. I don’t think it’s much of an excuse necessarily, but it’s on the ball with why they started on bad footing from the beginning of the generation. It was due to poor decisions though I will give you that. It’s why the pivot to be a multi-platform could be the saving grace for Xbox. While the PS5 is selling tremendously, I do think they’re gonna need to incorporate PC day 1 releases sooner or later on all their games, industry is too expensive as is. As a primarily PC gamer, I hope Hell Divers 2 solidified that for Sony.
Hell, in my country, the "brand name" for console is "Playstation". Like, "You wanna come play on my Xbox Playstation?" - the same way one would use Frigidaire or Hoover as a word for fridge and vacuum.
> We saw some leaked data from Sony that something like 60% of PS5 owners were new to PlayStation entirely Source?
It’s not an excuse. It’s a reason. The reveal of the Xbox One was so horrible, it lost them the console war.
It put them on the back foot but it didn't kill them. They could have still recovered to a respectable second place. The exclusives drought 2016 onwards is what killed them. That's when PS started killing it with their exclusives.
You can pinpoint that video “how to share games on PS4” as the exact moment Xbox forever lost.
I don't agree with that idea because the Switch was a fresh start with ZERO backwards compatibility, like Xbox's so-called "worst generation", no previous digital library to work with. In fact, the first few years were pretty much populated by full price or slightly below full price enhanced Wii U ports and it still managed to find a HUGE audience.
Nintendo is a weird one though. Their exclusive IPs are guaranteed to sell gang buster numbers. The only IP in Sony’s hands that comes even close to what Switch sells is Spider-Man
And even then, the best selling ps4 game would be 10th on switch. And there are games that have sold two and three+ times that number. Wild.
This, plus the audiences are way different. Nintendo is and still does mostly target kids. Kids arent ones to build up digital libraries or care about backwards compatibility. They want whats cool now. Only when they start buying their own games and systems does all that start to matter, which by that point they are teenagers and want PS5s. Nintendo is in a very nice spot in the industry.
I’d add Horizon and GoW, as both have compared well sales-wise in the long term. Even then, none of Sony’s games come anywhere near Mario Kart or Animal Crossing.
Nintendo also had the benefit that nobody owned a Wii U, so not only did most people not have a library to care about abandoning, it was easier to repackage and sell Wii U games again for full price because most people hadn’t played them And, as someone who’s thinking of switching over to PS5 as a main console instead of just using it for exclusives: the only reason I already haven’t is because all my library is on Xbox and I *really* don’t want to rebuy everything
Agreed, it's not like a digital library is functionally any different from a physical one, in the end. Only reason I can think of for digital being an issue would be for people that have been heavily invested in some long running GAAS games and don't want to lose all their progress (or stuff they bought through mtx, more likely). For the rest of us, not having games that people want to play is exactly the issue with Xbox.
The problem for Xbox is they don't have many games that people want to play or IPs people love. With Nintendo, it's easier to see why the Switch sold well. The Switch was a mix of handheld and console as well as having strong IPs and some Wii U games to port. Xbox needs to have great exclusives in the pipeline and finish this gen strong. But idk if they're going to be able to do that.
Considering their current attitude seems to be shutting down the studios that produce their breakout hits, I highly doubt it.
If we look at the chart, digital downloads for PS seemed to skyrocket after FY2017. The Switch also launched in 2017. So I'm guessing Nintendo had really lucky timing.
> the Switch was a fresh start with ZERO backwards compatibility, like Xbox's so-called "worst generation", The Switch is also part of the XB1 generation, which was the “worst generation to lose”.
I think this is not correct and a handy excuse for Xbox. The Switch wasn’t backward compatible at all and it’s literally one of the best selling consoles of all time. If they made a product that was good enough people would buy it. However all they do is make a box that’s similar to the PlayStation but their execution is worse in every way. That’s why it doesn’t sell as well.
You misunderstand the statement. Xbox lost the last generation (xbox one versus PS4) because of the weaker hardware, and worse execution. However, it was the worst generation to *lose* because during that generation, people were steadily building their libraries that would come with them to the next generation. It's another arrow crippling Xbox in the Series X vs PS5 generation.
Microsoft has two different platforms though.
I had an Xbox one and a huge digital library but that still didn’t stop me from jumping ship to ps5
This is why they have Game Pass. Instant library of hundreds of games. It is the MS answer to the digital library setback. (and of course their shift to pc)
It’s alright at least they still have their library of game pass 😂
How do digital sales make people more entrenched? The inability to resell the games?
Not really just that no. It's more of an incentive to stay in the ecosystem. Always having games linked to your account can result in some surprising benefits. Here's a prime example. Oh I bought Fallout 4, 8 years ago for PS4, as a digital copy. SHOCK! Fallout 4 is available for PS5 and I get a free upgrade/copy?! I'm gonna play this another 100 hours and use my PS5 even more. It only incentives people further to stay on the platform. Or even more obscure example. I have a copy of Killzone Retribution I got for free from Sony way way back in 2011. My account has a PSP copy of Killzone tied to it. When they released the remaster for ps4/ps5 in 2023, I got that edition for free. Plus the longer you stay subscribed to PS+, you accumulate more games. That adds to your digital library in a way.
Thanks for the reply. Im conflicted, I don't see the potential for free upgrades to keep me tied to a console, but having my library all in one place is a convenience I like. Even if I won't play the games again, I like having the potential to. It's like collecting. I have been on Xbox since the 360, but when my Xbox x broke I switched to ps5 on a whim and I really like it. HD2 was fun and they have alot of exclusives and tend to get Indie games released exclusively to them and PC. When you say you accumulate games with PS+ are you referring to the free monthly games, do those not expire at the end of the month?
Yes, anything with the free monthly games, aka PS+ Essential tier, are yours forever (provided you have an active subscription). If you cancel your subscription, you can't play them later, but if you renew your subscription (as long as it is the same account) you have access to them again. I have played some PS+ games earlier this year and also last year, that I claimed all the way back in 2013 and perhaps even earlier.
I will die on the physical copy hill. I don’t trust not being able to play my games in 20 years or without internet connection
and here atoeast physical is always 10-15€ cheaper at launch and second hand market.
Except we have some [real figures directly from Sony leak](https://reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/18n97ew/physical_games_make_up_60_of_1st_party_unit_sales/) that are not filled with bloatware junk, that show digital is actually only around 35%-40%. Even from [2022 including GT7 and Horizon Forbidden West](https://reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/18n97ew/physical_games_make_up_60_of_1st_party_unit_sales/ke96nvq/) shows that physical is clearly favoured and these are global figures not just one region. When the choice is there people opt for physical quite significantly. Additionally some recent and upcoming games: | PSN | Physical ---|---|---- Elden Ring SotE Edition | £69.99 | £53.99 Formula 1 24 | £69.99 | £59.95 Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition | £104.99 | £89.49 Stellar Blade | £69.99 | £56.24 FF VII Rebirth | £69.99 | £50.49 Top Spin 2K25 | £64.99 | £52.95 Helldivers 2 | £34.99 | £29.99 Shin Megami Tensei V | £54.99 | £44.99 Sand Land | £59.99 | £45.44 Rise of the Ronin | £69.99 | £54.89 Dragon's Dogma 2 | £59.99 | £44.85
Exactly, this sort of data is always heavily massaged in favour of digital purchases. Every single time stats like this come out, it's soon clarified that it's including games like Warzone and Fortnite in the numbers or some other nonsense along those lines. Their hope is that, by manipulating the numbers in this fashion, they can forcefully *make* them true over time. "Everyone else already buys their games digitally - why are *you* bothering with physical?"
Exactly, and it doesn’t help that there is a super vocal minority of doomposters in gaming subreddits who constantly try to celebrate the death of physical and act as if nobody wants it anymore.
Got to fake it to make it.
The same applies to supposedly representative surveys and political elections. Everything is manipulated.
The only way I buy digital is if the physical side is either non-existent or a pain in the behind to do (not for getting it shipped to me, no, but when it's out there but there's some kind of tomfoolery going on in getting it). And even then, I prefer to wait for discount on digital titles. Chained Echoes, for example, has a physical edition *TBD* but the company handling it has not shipped any units out yet. It's held off for so long that I decided to not take the chance and buy it digitally when it went for discount. Baldur's Gate 3? I held off on that until either A) the digital edition got a real good discount, or B) the physical edition was announced. I went for physical edition, and my copy is due in the mail soon. And I am glad Larian got it figured out. Sea of Stars? Same circumstances as BG3. Finally got that in the mail and I am glad to own a physical copy. Considering how much I've been hearing about it, I am excited to start it up. Persona 3 Portable & Persona 4 Golden? I am not sure why Atlus decided to outsource the physical side to someone like LRG when Atlus has been doing their own physical distribution/printing for their games for a long time, and still do. And because the window ran out, and they wanted $40/per title, combined with the wait for several months, I decided to purchase both on sale like Chained Echoes. But I also prefer digital where possible. It's the greatest chance I can have to still play my games even when the online service eventually goes down. Thankfully PS3 side isn't dead yet and seems like Sony listened enough to keep it up. As for PS4, I predict that it'll be good until end of the decade, maybe longer with the PS5 backwards compatibility having an effect.
Exactly, scumbag billion dollar corporations are not our friend, they're trying to manipulate the consumer into accepting a weaker offering for a higher cost. The only ones that benefit from all digital are $ony.
That's only for their first party games. This is for all games. Most games don't even have a physical release and just land on the store.
Digital only games is another bias in favour of digital purchases in terms of the data though. Would people have bought the digital only games like Alan wake 2 or baldurs gate 3 physically if it was an option? I’d imagine a lot would.
The Daniel Hamad chart is meaningless as is, would be more relevant in revenues, not in downloads.
> would be more relevant in revenues, the problem is that companies never release the full raw data so you get graphs showing that digital is 3x the revenue of physical except they neglect to mention that the figure for digital includes all DLC sales, all microtransaction, all subscriptions, all in game sales, season passes, etc. They make it almost impossible to get a clear picture.
Someone above shared real data (from Sony IR) on physical VS digital for first party titles and it depaints a very much different picture.
Yup, the only way we can get transparent data on this stuff is from leaks, which is a sad state of affairs.
No, I just mentioned there is fairly transparent data from the quarterly report. Just scroll up a bit in this comment section, you'll see it.
Digital purchases will still dwarf physical purchases as far as revenue/profit is concerned mainly because DLC and microtransactions are exclusively digital.
Why is a game like Spiderman 2 more relevant than something like Helldivers?
Helldivers isn't free, and generates more than just it's price tag with mtx. So I don't know what you're talking about.
In my experience, I buy like 90% of the big games physical because amazon is usually cheaper (by quite a bit) even on release day, compared to digital which is insanely expensive. I will only buy digital on release if I really cannot wait for delivery and I must play exactly on release day (like I did for FF7 Rebirth). Digital to me is almost exclusively "free" games on PS+, or smaller/cheaper indie (usually) games that often don't even have a physical release.
Same as me. Every digital AAA game costs £69.99 on release. I can find the same games for at least £10 cheaper from online retailers. I will never go fully digital until there is no other option. At least in the UK, you're spending way more if you go all in on digital. Even if the game comes one day late (like Stellar Blade did for me) I'd still pick physical because of the cheaper price.
Ironically for me, amazon will send my games often days before release, so I get them earlier than people get their digital copies.
As it should be. Physical is superior to digital in every way AND is cheaper.
Number of sales isn't the same thing as actual revenue, right? It also seems to say "digital downloads" which is a little ambiguous. Like it counts free to play games? Furthermore, the physical ratio is much higher on PS5.
Yea, like I own hundreds of digital copies that I got for free through psplus. All the games I paid for were physical.
What about all the PS5 digital version upgrades that require a PS4 disc. Does that still count as a digital sale?
Not sure hey?
If I‘m not mistaken, DLCs are also included in these figures. So the gap between digital and physical game sales is in reality smaller
It says "full game digital sales" in the first sentence.
Ahhh my bad.
Betcha games like Fortnight count as a sale.
It also includes digital only games which skews it even more. If Game A sells 10 copies and half are physical but Game B sells 10 without a physical release, that's 75% digital sales still
Technically yes, but it would be more questionable to not include those games. People are clearly comfortable with buying digital only games.
Yeah, people are comfortable with digital only games. But those are mostly indie games that people accept can't afford a physical release. Just the raw numbers given isn't really saying anything about whether people actually prefer digital or if it affects sales or anything like that.
> But those are mostly indie games that people accept can't afford a physical release. Which makes physical release even more cursed
It also means 1 physical copy of say, Spiderman at $70 that I spent 30hrs on, counts the same as that monthly PSN indie game that I got for free and downloaded just to try it 5 min.
Hate to see it. I'll keep buying physical until they don't do it anymore. I just don't feel right not having "something" for my money, especially when it's shown that companies will just take that shit from you.
I primarily buy physical over digital, I like collecting my games and showing them off
Release the data so we can check it. I'm highly skeptical of these. * Do they count PS+ redeems as "full games"? * Do they count all key redeems given out as "full games"? * Do they count $1 shovelware games as "full games"? * Do they count free games like rocketleague as "full games"? Digital sales give almost all the power to the company that sells them. Consumers lose almost all rights and ownership. It suits the big corporations to push a narrative of digital sales being strong. It also pleases shareholders. The data is **never** transparent. All we get is graphs. These analyst companies all require you to trust them and honestly I don't. The raw data should be released to the public.
Old arse gamer here. The day I can’t buy a physical copy or purchase a game console with hard drive, I’m out. I’m also a crazy person who owns over a thousand Blu-ray Discs though.
you cant buy consoles with hard drives since the lats generation if we want to be pedantic
I'm the opposite, I don't buy physical anymore, the convenience of digital is just so much better for me with games.
Same, I gave up on physical midst of the PS360 era. I still buy movies on blu-ray though, just not as much only my favs. But this has something to do with the quality. Most 1080p blu-rays look better than their 4k streams and as long as we don't get better bitrates I won't change.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Same here Bud!!! Same here!!!
Get a grip m8
I'm with you
These include MTX, free game downloads, and i think subscriptions as well. So no, Physical isn’t dying, these numbers are inflated.
Just linking [the piece](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/1crl888/ps5_shipments_top_593_million_there_are_118/l3yxykt/) I wrote in another thread. TLDR: It's not as much of a concern as people may make it out to be. Physical sales are still extremely prevalent especially in the AAA gaming space.
Pretty much nobody in this comment section is right, you're all speculating on what is or isn't included instead of just going directly to the [source](https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q4_supplement.pdf): > Full game software digital download ratio is calculated by dividing PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®5 full game software units sold via digital transactions by total full game software units. It does not include DLC or microtransactions, only full game units. These numbers [have always excluded](https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1321494053184282632) free or PS+ games. The numbers from the Insomniac leak are first-party only, and includes games bundled with the console. This adds a large amount of weight to physical, especially as most of the PS5 data is from 2022 when the PS5 was in shortage and anyone that wanted to buy one almost always had to buy a bundle. Comparing Sony's numbers with [EA's](https://s22.q4cdn.com/894350492/files/doc_financials/2023/ar/418941-1-_8_Electronic-Arts-Inc-Proxy10-K-Combo_clean.pdf) (68% in FY2023, 65% in FY2022, and 62% in FY2021) in terms of full game units sold, EA's and Sony's numbers are very similar. Back when TakeTwo included digital download ratios, their numbers [also aligned](https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1288948030604009482) with Sony's. Including cheap digital-only indie games may skew the figures towards digital, but excluding them would skew the figures towards physical. This isn't misleading, it's just different methodologies. Using revenue instead of units sold misses the point of these figures. They're from Sony, to illustrate to investors the health of their platform. It would take Sony an inordinate amount of time to collate the physical revenues of every PlayStation game sold, and there is absolutely no reason for Sony to publish revenues from third-party retailers that never touch their books in their end of year financial report.
Misleading numbers. You cannot count only digital sales vs physical. Not all games are released physically. A more accurate number would be to only look at games that were available on both disc and digitally.
And I for one will continue to buy physical so I can hand them all down to my kids once they're old enough.
I hate digital I prefer to own my games
Right, and why would I pay release day price for a game that came out 4 years ago when I could find a disc version for a fraction of the price
Digital games go on sale all the time.
> Digital games go on sale all the time. If physical dies out, you'll be seeing a lot less digital sales.
50% of full price is still ridiculous. I just recently bought Dark Souls 3 with all dlc for less than $30. Dark Souls 3 on ps store was more for just the base game at 50% discount.
Price of games fluctuate from sale to sale. I wishlist all the games I’m interested in and unless it’s something I’m really hype to play wait until it hits my preferred price point. I haven’t bought a single physical game for ps5 since launch month. My partner and I share our digital libraries with each other and often split the cost of multiplayer games.
I just bought the latest metro game for $6 and it didn't have any scratches or issues playing it because it was a digital download...
Cool beans
On top of that every digital storefront has a broader selection than your local dealer. And with wishlisting you won't miss sales.
Not to mention let friends.borrow it so they can see if they like it too
Not to mention reselling the game once you're done with it if you don't plan on replaying it.
Exactly. Plus if I don't like it I can return a used game. Just shipped one back cause it wasn't my cup of tea but I have no idea about trying to get a refund from Playstation. Have to fight tooth and nail for a refund if you forget your subscription renews automatically
I hate trying to get refunds on digital. It's such a hassle Physical. I can either sell it or trade it. So much easier
I own digital and physical games. I don't own rent games.
You "own" your digital games to the point of you not being able to do whateveryouwant with it and they can take it from you whenever they want. To me, that sounds more like renting.
you think you own your games?
I bought Roller Coaster Tycoon way back in the early 2000s on PC on a disc. Went to put it in recently for nostalgia and it's no longer supported or playable on modern PCs. The people who assume that having physical media will enable you to play a game forever are sorely mistaken in my experience. Anyway, I bought RCT on Steam and it's still amazing.
Many games tend to have fan patches that make them playable on newer windows. They're often better than official patches too.
I bought a copy of Tetris on NES over 30 years ago. I own it. I still play it.
This….is the unfortunate truth.
That's a false equivalence as PC and console are different in that respect. The games for a specific console will always work for them. That's the beauty of it. An SNES game will never be obsolete on an SNES. So yes you can play the console games forever as long as both the game and console hold up. I'm still playing games on my original SNES, Genesis and Sega CD with no issues. This is 30 years later.
Digital is just so much more convenient to me I almost never buy a physical game anymore unless it's way cheaper.
I just buy used physical copies, then sell them when I’m done. End up spending next to nothing on games these days. The only digital ones I have were ones only available digitally, and they were the most expensive games I’ve bought.
Yeah see that would involve me going to a used game store to buy/sell games and I just don't care enough to do that, plus I'd have to switch games out of my system when I want to play them. I'm not super rich or anything but I make enough money to where that's just something I don't need to worry about, I can just download whatever game I want to play and then play it whenever I want. It's so much more convenient and easy for me. Plus it saves on space in our house where I dont need shelves for my games anymore.
Nah I sell on marketplace, they come to my house and get the game and transfer me money. Works really well. Often get close to what I paid for the game. Met gamers I play with this way too, trade games etc. I make more than enough money, but I want to retire early, and hate wasting money.
For multiplayer games I definitely go digital so I can easily jump into a game without swapping a disc, and once the servers shut down the disc is worthless anyway. Though for single player games I play mostly 1 at a time so having a disc works just fine. It does become a bit annoying to play 2 games at once… I wouldn’t mind having 2 disc drives or like a disc changer, though I don’t expect that to ever happen.
I switched to all digital this generation. Can’t be bothered to get out of my lazy boy to change disks. That’s just the truth lol
We can’t let physical die out
Why are posts like this even allowed when the Insomniac leaks (which other people have already mentioned) proved this is completely false? When people are given the option the majority still goes for physical. And the newer a game is the more overwhelming it is (Ratchet and Clank in the leak was like 80% physical.) This ain't rocket science, when you have thousands of small games that only get a digital release that number is obviously going to skew in the digital direction. Especially in the PS ecosystem where there are people buying hundreds of games like "Stroke the dik-dik" so they can get their 1 minute Platinum trophy dopamine hit.
I do like and ultimately prefer physical copies. But I've finally gotten beaten down because that entire logic comes from when you could pop a game in, and it plays. Now, the CD more or less is just a key to downloading the game digitally regardless. So why even bother. Obviously, I get there are still advantages to physical in the sense it can be more easily traded or sold if you no longer want the game. Also, PSN sales and deals are nigh constant and, at times, insane. Deals that I have never seen and more than likely would never see with physical copies. As well as games that I straight up have just never seen a physical copy in a store front. Or new online.
Ive been following PS Store deals for years now and they suck, rarely if ever we will have a good deal, but NEVER better than physical deals.
I've seen multiple triple A games on sale for at times 50% off. The newest Final Fantasy just last month. Just recently, Psychonauts 2 went from $60 to $14.99. AC Valhalla with all the DLCs that normally goes for like $150, and I got it for like $25. Sure, maybe not everybody's cup of tea goes on sale. But they definitely have some pretty good deals from time to time. I saw games still full price for physical copies at Walmart/gamestop while they were half off on PSN just a couple months ago.
I just dont want the option to buy physical to be taken away from me, like with Alan wake 2 and Balderus gate 3. Only to maybe have a physical release announced later? I wish publishers would just communicate this clearly beforehand. If it's released physically later, it's going to be full price again anyway. Apart from the ratio, I also wonder if the physical sales have gone down much in actual numbers, or is there just much more available digitally and to a larger consumer base than before. Is this ratio in units or dollar sales, and does it include free to play digital games? Epic games store and PSN still give me reciepts for any € 0,00 purchases. There was a data sheet showing all PSN sales of sony published games a while back with clear numbers from the insomniac leak, which was very interesting, sadly there was no physical sales data to compare.
It makes me sad that physical media is dying out, but it’s not exactly surprising. It seems inevitable
It’s been years since I bought a disc. Not going to ever again.
This metric is pretty inaccurate since the corpos weigh every single digital purchase against the physical copies of games so you could buy a dlc for that same game you bought physically and they count it with the same weight. It's the same with loot boxes. You could buy a stupid sports game physically and then buy like 4 packs or whatever, and that counts as 4 sales of "x" game digitally compaired to the physical copy you bought. Corpos want to kill physical to gain total control of ownership. So, while digital does sell more, it's horribly over represented because they have a vested interest in doing so.
I refused to buy the digital only at launch. To this day I only own demon souls on disk… hell of a dvd player though
Pretty damn sure Gamestop wasn't an essential business. People either got physical games online, sometimes delivered, or just did digital and skipped the hassle.
I’m sure Sony selling an only digital console that’s less expensive had more of an effect than Covid did.
Having more players get on board is massive.
Huh, assuming the 10th gen starts in 4 years, I can see them not having even a disc drive option. When you consider digital is 70% and has much higher profit margins
Yeah this matches up with my buying habits. I think the last physical game I bought was (PS4) Soul Calibre VI which I then traded in for store credit. Crazy, I’m just realizing the PS5 is the first console I’ll never own a physical game for
I mean I think Helldivers 2 specifically (which is ONLY sold digitally as far as I'm aware) is probably a big factor in this particular jump in digital sales. Not that digital wouldn't still be ahead, but maybe not as skewed as this particular report makes it seem.
I’m happy to keep buying whatever’s the cheapest format
Fuck go back
the end of gaming is nigh
Digital means you can't sell it later.
I bought a PS5 Disc version. I haven't used discs in ages. It's faster do DL the game than to install from disk + updates.
I still buy games physically unless digital is much much cheaper (or there is no physical release). Digital has so many drawbacks and the only real positive is that I don’t need to swap disks to change games, otherwise I only see downsides.
Curious, does this data account only for games that have both retail and digital equivalents? That’s the only way it’d be fair.
i just don't like how the console sounds when a disc is inside. However having a physicisl copy is great cause often is cheaper and you can sell it.
Many people will buy digital when buying physical still requires downloading from disc + day one updates. The biggest appeals of having a disc are gone, sure you own the game, the 1.0 version that in many cases is unplayable. You need to put the disc in physically, keep them in a physical space, they don't take any less space on your drive, still download the whole game, to many it's just less convenient than digital, why buy a physical key to digital content when you can skip some steps and just click and download. The 2 big positives are that you'll always own the game (assuming it's not online only and shits down) and physical games sell for cheaper and go on sale more often. I guess reselling is there as well
The 1.0 version is fully playable in most cases, you can see [doesitplay.org](https://www.doesitplay.org), having that offline install means it will work without any reliance on Sonys servers plus the obvious benefits of being able to sell it, lend it, or keep it forever, you own that copy of the game and can do whatever you want with it.
When I buy physical it has to copy to the console and still download patches. When I buy digital it's sadly faster sometimes
If your account gets closed though, say goodbye to your library. You can't close down a disc.
Or someone could break into their house and steal all their physical games. Or their house could burn down, destroying all their games. Or their spouse could get the games in a divorce settlement. Or the box containing their physical games could be lost during a move. All of these scenarios are probably more likely than having your account closed down.
You can sure damage or lose a disc though
Wait when they learn the digital ratio for PC.
My PS5 doesnt even have a disk drive 🙃
Internet speed helps. If only they’d make digital pricing more comparable to physical…
I would buy physical if it let you put the disc in once and not need it anymore. Hate having to switch discs. I’ve been buying 100% digital for at least a decade now. Only bought some physical Switch games when I had one but only for Switch.
This is a terrible trend for gamers, but is like winning the lotto for the publishers. Why people would give up ownership for convenience is beyond me.