In the game market, 9 out of 10 games will be sold as downloads, and physical media will become a niche due to a sharp drop in sales.

by IQ Remix

Many of the games that appear for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation are released at the same time as the package version and the download version, and some games are only available for download. In addition, the PlayStation 5 that appeared in 2020 will have a digital edition that does not have a disk drive, and the game environment that does not depend on physical media is being established throughout the game market. Ars Technica, an overseas media, summarizes the market share of physical media in such a game market.

Physical console games are quickly becoming a relatively niche market | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/02/fewer-and-fewer-console-games-are-seeing-a-physical-release/

The graph below shows the sales form of games that appeared for home video games between 2018 and 2021, with the blue bar for the physical media version only, the green bar for the download version only, and the orange bar. Indicates that the physical media version and the download version are sold together. Looking at the graph, we can see that the percentage of games that sell only the download version is increasing year by year, and the number of simultaneous sales of the physical media version and the download version is decreasing.

From the graph below showing the number of games for PlayStation from 2018 to 2021, it can be seen that the physical media version of the game (orange) continues to decrease, and the download version (green) increases significantly in 2021. increase.

On the other hand, games for Nintendo Switch are similar to PlayStation in that the download version is increasing, but the decrease in the physical media version is not remarkable.

The graph below shows from 2018-2021 from major publishers such as Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Sega, Sony, Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Microsoft, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It shows the ratio of the shipping form of the game that appeared. The percentage of download version only (green) is increasing year by year, reaching 43.6% in 2021.

Furthermore, for games that appeared from companies other than the above major publishers, the download version exceeded 90% in 2021, and the combined sales of the physical media version and the download version decreased to only 8.1%.

Ars Technica said that the results of the above survey do not reveal the number of physical media and download versions sold, so it cannot be concluded that the share of physical media games is declining in the actual market, but PlayStation 5 Digital -In the current situation where game consoles without optical drives such as editions and Xbox Series S are appearing, 'It is clear that the transition to the download version is rapidly progressing in the home video game console market. In the next few years. , Physical media will be a niche field. '

Meanwhile, Ars Technica said that the physical media game market will not disappear completely, citing Nintendo's announcement that it will end the 'Nintendo eShop' service for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in March 2023 . Insist.