When will physical video games go away?
One of Sonyâs best-ever PlayStation ads is a 21-second video titled, âOfficial PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video.â Itâs a âstep-by-stepâ guide about how to lend your PS4 games to your friends. It has one step: one person hands another person a game box.
The ad succinctly clowns on Microsoftâs original and convoluted game sharing policy for the Xbox One, which let users ditch discs in exchange for daily DRM checks. The idea was so hated that Microsoft walked it back just over a week after the release of Sonyâs ad and months before the console came out. The lesson was simple â donât mess with peopleâs discs.
But more than a decade later, itâs not hard to imagine a future where Sonyâs own ad doesnât apply anymore.
Physical game sales in 2024 were less than half what they were as recently as 2021, and the market has been in decline since 2008, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella tells The Verge. âThere has been a long trend of declining sales in physical games,â Piscatella says. âAnd now thereâs declining distribution with retailers pulling back space, with companies making fewer physical games overall, and with the entire shift towards digit …