After the concerns that have emerged in recent days, Bethesda has confirmed that Starfield will arrive in stores with the inevitable game disc for the Xbox console versions. Who still prefers them physical copies can therefore breathe a sigh of relief. This time it went well… in the future, who knows. It is no secret indeed that the retail market is shrinking from year to year and the risk that it could become a niche not deserving of attention from publishers in the near future is real.
But let’s talk about current numbers. According to the report published by GamesIndustry at the end of last year, in 2022 the digital market accounted for 94.2% of revenues overall. On PC, where the physical format is now adopted in very rare cases, we reach 98% of the total. But even on consoles there is now an abysmal difference: digital represented 72% of total takings, while retail only 28%. Of course, the count also includes the purchase of DLC, battle passes and microtransactions, so it does not accurately represent the proportions between physical and digital copies sold, but it is clear, however, that we are not too far away.
As regards the English market alone, one of the largest in Europe, the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), speaks of 89.5% of games sold digitally and the remaining 10.5% in physical format in 2022.
These data only confirm what has been known for some time: the digital market is now the master also in the console space and in recent years we have seen rapid growth stimulated by Covid, the rise of free-to-play live service games and subscription services. And in all this it is no coincidence that Microsoft for Xbox Series S, the cheapest console to enter the current generation, has preferred not to integrate an optical reader to keep the price of the console even more competitive.
Clearly there are still those who are strongly linked to the physical market for a whole series of reasons. It is no coincidence that the announcement that Alan Wake 2 will be sold only digitally led to heated discussions and criticisms of Remedy, even on our pages.
Yet, by virtue of the above, it could be the first in a long line of AAA games that will not hit stores. For example, according to the well-known market analyst Matt Piscatella, in the next two years we will see more and more publishers completely abandoning the physical market and by 2028 it will be the norm on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, while on the Nintendo side the transition will probably be slower, but still inevitable.
All in all, the writer finds himself in agreement with the thought and timing shared by Piscatella, but now we leave the floor to you. Are digital copies destined to largely or completely supplant the retail market in the next few years? Or do you think / hope that the physical game market still has a future despite everything?
Let’s talk about it is a daily opinion column that offers a starting point for discussion around the news of the day, a small editorial written by a member of the editorial staff but which is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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