The rate of decline in US physical video game software spending accelerated in 2024.
Spending on physical video game software in the US has been cut in more than half since 2021 and is now more than 85% below its 2008 peak.
We'll see if Switch 2 can help slow/reverse this trend in 2025.
This is mainly why I quit. And it especially used to piss me off cause it’ll still demand you put in the disc to play even though the whole fucking thing installed and downloaded patches larger than the game. Might as well be all digital with oversize hard drives and be lazy with swapping games. I know still having to put a disc in for a fully installed game is a long time PC thing, but it really frustrated me.
I also went more Steam and cheaper sale games or key sites. Saw a game for like $3 on Steam and $30 on PSN too many times.
Aside from a few PS4/PS5 games I love or are rare, I’m only really physically keeping older stuff and have actually been playing a lot of older stuff.
Should been made illegal to ship massively flawed games that needed 0 day patches, but our system is corrupt and businesses are allowed to run the world.
Turns out when you stop selling something and close the stores people could buy them in, they dont sell as much.
Manufactured decrease in demand.
Don’t forget the rise of the 60+ GB “Day 0 Patch”. You buy any physical game and you have to download the whole thing anyways when you get home.
This is mainly why I quit. And it especially used to piss me off cause it’ll still demand you put in the disc to play even though the whole fucking thing installed and downloaded patches larger than the game. Might as well be all digital with oversize hard drives and be lazy with swapping games. I know still having to put a disc in for a fully installed game is a long time PC thing, but it really frustrated me.
I also went more Steam and cheaper sale games or key sites. Saw a game for like $3 on Steam and $30 on PSN too many times.
Aside from a few PS4/PS5 games I love or are rare, I’m only really physically keeping older stuff and have actually been playing a lot of older stuff.
Should been made illegal to ship massively flawed games that needed 0 day patches, but our system is corrupt and businesses are allowed to run the world.
Exactly according to plan.
When someone buys a used physical game, publishers don’t get any of that money, and the publishers want that money.
Digital-only is how they get it.
Exactly, when people are given the choice, most of them prefer physical media
https://insider-gaming.com/disc-editions-make-up-82-of-all-ps5-console-sales/