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79% of PS5/PS4 games sold during Sony latest fiscal quarter were for digital version

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch

In Q1 of fiscal year 2021, digital purchases stood at 71 per cent. The two following quarters saw the percentage drop to 62 per cent, and then it returned to 71 per cent for Q4. The beginning of fiscal year 2022 sees the statistic at its highest ever of 79 per cent.

79% isn’t high enough.
 
malcom tucker GIF
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And back in 2013 when console makers were pushing digital sales with 500gb HDD, most gamers were resistant at the time for a million reasons.

Fast forward to 2022 and it's almost 80%. And that even includes many gamers spending more money for an external HDD. Something most gamers didn't think of back then.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I wonder if this is because the vast majority of releases are digital only now?

I’d be more interested in how games with traditional physical releases are faring. What’s that breakdown?

Yeah, there are so many A and AA games that only release digitally. In the last quarter the only AAA game that I can recall was Lego Star Wars. This is also reflected in the drop of overall games sold. Down 20 million units from Q1 last year.
 

Elios83

Member
It was a slow quarter for new big releases, while smaller AA and indie titles are typically bought digitally by everyone nowadays.
But the point is that even Sony is trying to kill physical sales for good.
Deluxe editions are now digital only releases and even the collectors have a steelbook without the disc but with a digital code.
It's clear that in these conditions there is little sense to buy physical anymore unless you want to sell your games.
 
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StormCell

Member
Good. Producing these physical games is a complete waste of natural resources. But i'm sure there will be plenty of protest from people who, apparently, still buy CD's and DVD's/Blurays.
Personally, publishers have ruined buying physical. Day one patches and continued refinement of the games long after release has made it seem completely pointless to even own a physical copy. Nowadays, your best bet is to just download all of your games and keep them on local storage.
 

El Sueño

Member
What is more eco friendly: the plastic of the games or keeping the servers working 24/7 for people to download games?. It would be interesting to know (sorry for my english).
 

Rykan

Member
What is more eco friendly: the plastic of the games or keeping the servers working 24/7 for people to download games?. It would be interesting to know (sorry for my english).
Keeping the servers is far more eco friendly. An enormous amount of plastic and paper need to be produced for the boxes, which then need to be transported all over the place to stores. A good number of these game boxes will be purchased online, so thats even more transportation.

A lot of these games will eventually end up disposed of and in the trash.
 

Lognor

Banned
Damn, that's massive! I hope we don't start seeing more digital only releases. I haven't jumped on that bandwagon yet. At least Nintendo is still lagging far behind and that is where I buy all of my physical games.
 

ANIMAL1975

Member
I was just told in the other thread that those numbers don't count _ because of PSN sales that are all digital, and because of digital only games that enter the equation. Xbox wins easy the digital sales ratio war.
This makes no sense. The digital % is skewed by games that are digital only (games like Sifu for example that has no physical release) and games from PSN sales that are obviously all digital.

The conversation around digital sales split at the launch of a new retail game is an entirely different thing.

To put it as politely as possible, it’s quite embarrassing for you to question the higher digital share on Xbox given the prevalence of the discless Xbox Series S. What were you thinking?!
What was i thinking


All my PS5 games have been physical:

Miles morales
Sackboy
Demon’ Souls
Returnal
Ratchet & Clank
Horizon Forbidden West
Gran Turismo 7

😎
I have 2 ps4 boxed games (one came bundled)
😎
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
I was just told in the other thread that those numbers don't count _ because of PSN sales that are all digital, and because of digital only games that enter the equation. Xbox wins easy the digital sales ratio war.





I have 2 ps4 boxed games (one came bundled)
😎

I had 1 boxed PS4 game ( SW Battlefront 2 bundled) and 5 or 6 X1 games. The rest all digital, well over 100 on Xbox and many of the big exclusives on PS.

And I was totally anti-digital during the whole X1 always online hubbub. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
People are fools, hope they like their all digital PlayStation 6. I won't be buying it.
I don't think we will be seeing disc drives on the PS6 and next Xbox.
ah yes, the company known for making physical discs and optical media popular is going to ditch it in their next console because.... reasons, i guess
with Microsoft yeah it's inevitable, they've always been about that digital push and were the innovator for digital since the beginning i'm pretty sure, seeing how they're an OS company (and i'm pretty sure they have to pay royalties to sony for every Series X they sell since they use Blu Ray drives anyways so..... yeah. It's fucking ironic)
But i seriously doubt sony will just throw away physical media, Playstation is the one thing keeping blu ray relevant these days
 

DaGwaphics

Member
ah yes, the company known for making physical discs and optical media popular is going to ditch it in their next console because.... reasons, i guess
with Microsoft yeah it's inevitable, they've always been about that digital push and were the innovator for digital since the beginning i'm pretty sure, seeing how they're an OS company (and i'm pretty sure they have to pay royalties to sony for every Series X they sell since they use Blu Ray drives anyways so..... yeah. It's fucking ironic)
But i seriously doubt sony will just throw away physical media, Playstation is the one thing keeping blu ray relevant these days

It isn't necessarily Sony's decision to make. If you get down to 5 or 10% disk based purchases, you'll start to have most games not even being offered on the format (or being limited run, etc.).
 

Fbh

Member
Convenience had always been one hell of a sales argument so this isn't surprising.

Still sucks though

What a shame.
People are fools for doing that. No control over your game, no ownership... you can't sell it, unpatch it, lend or anything.
Pay for everything - own nothing

PHYSICAL FTW

Not to mention that once consoles go all digital everyone will be locked into a monopoly regarding game purchases.

Pc has avoided this despite being all digital due to it being an open platform with multiple store fronts and key reselling sites.

But a digital only Ps6? It's going to be the PSN price or bust
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
Convenience had always been one hell of a sales argument so this isn't surprising.

Still sucks though



Not to mention that once consoles go all digital everyone will be locked into a monopoly regarding game purchases.

Pc has avoided this despite being all digital due to it being an open platform with multiple store fronts and key reselling sites.

But a digital only Ps6? It's going to be the PSN price or bust

You might see a bit of a rise in digital codes via retail. I'm surprised we don't see more game "gift cards" at retail as it is. Cheap for companies to make, no need to wait to go gold or anything like that, plus they have no value until activated (so stores don't really need to purchase these upfront, assuming they can get a good real-time system going like for airtime cards). Would keep retail in the loop, at least in a minor way. Would be good for gifts and things like that, a touch more thoughtful than just a store card.
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
good. physical media needs to die. it offers no real advantages over digital and is harmful to the enviroment due to the amount of plastic and paper used. with switch cartridges you also need gold/silicon/copper/glass etc.

there was an argument that physical lets you own your games but that's not really true anymore. the day servers go down for digital games then you'll also lose access to patches/dlc. you try telling someone to enjoy the content that is on the disc for Cyberpunk 2077. most games these days have unfinished games on their discs and rely heavily on day 1 and future patches. alright, you might have the FULL game on your HDD/SSD but they aren't going to last forever because they can and will fail.

there is also the argument that you can sell/trade your games. yes, that is true but the amount you get back isn't really worth it and you better hope the game isn't bad or you won't get anything back at all. the only situation where selling/trading games really applies is when it comes to Nintendo games. Not only can you get a significant amount of money back but you can literally make a profit from them. despite my stance against physical media i do still buy some physical Switch games because they hold good value. i can usually get 40-70% of my money back and in some cases i can get back more than i paid!
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
there is also the argument that you can sell/trade your games. yes, that is true but the amount you get back isn't really worth it and you better hope the game isn't bad or you won't get anything back at all. the only situation where selling/trading games really applies is when it comes to Nintendo games. Not only can you get a significant amount of money back but you can literally make a profit from them. despite my stance against physical media i do still buy some physical Switch games because they hold good value. i can usually get 40-70% of my money back and in some cases i can get back more than i paid!
you are literally proving their point when you say this.... you can't do that with any of nintendo's digital games
🤦‍♂️
 

Stuart360

Member
For Xbox maybe, for PS6 i doubt it.
Imo this is the last gen with a disk drive, unless Sony/Microsft produce like a limited edition version that has like a million units or something. By the end of the gen it will probably be like 95% digital on PS5. hell Xbox is already at that point with some games.
Physical users just expect this to be the last gen with a disk drive, then it will be a big bonus for you if we do get one next gen.
 
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