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Does PlayStation's 85% digital figure represent consumer preference?

consoul

consoul

Member
85% of PlayStation game sales are digital.
Apparently.

That figure is being widely quoted as a simple one-liner rationale for the end of PlayStation disc production. It would be easy to accept it uncritically as just common sense, a fait accompli. Why support physical if gamers don't want it?
...but is that what it means?

The figure came from a Sony financial report, where for one single quarter, specifically FY25Q4, the ratio of digital to physical full game sales was 85%. It was a new high. The average over the two year period in that report is 77%, but what the figure really represents is worth considering.

You could be forgiven for misinterpreting the 85% as meaning for every 100 copies of GoW Ragnarok, AstroBot or GT7 sold that quarter only 15 were purchased on disc. Or you might assume it meant Sony made 85% of their software sales revenue from digital games. None of that is true.

The truth is that the vast majority of PS5 games are digital only. Less than 2000 PS5 games have been pressed on disc. How many PS5 games are for sale (not F2P) on the PSN Store? About 7,500.

That's where this percentage figure is misleading. It counts every sale as equal. If you bought Death Stranding 2 on disc and somebody else bought Anime Fantasy Uni 3 for $0.99, the percentage figure considers these as wholly equivalent.

To put it another way, let's say I spend $100 on games this month. I buy one physical AAA game for $69.99 and spend the rest on six little $5 digital only games. What percentage of my game purchases were digital? More than 85%.

The 85% figure does not truly represent 'consumer preference' and cannot in good faith be used to justify the end of PlayStation physical game distribution.

Don't be fooled. The push to a digital only market has nothing to do with what gamers want. It's only about maximizing profit through market control.
 
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The figure I would like to see is how many of the digital sales numbers come from digital discounted sales, versus Day 1 purchases.
 
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Bro, just look at the revenue numbers for FY25

Digital Software:
¥1.056 trillion

Physical Software:
¥125 billion

It's an enormous gap, and digital revenue is 8 timers larger than physical. This doesn't happen because people buy Anime Fantasy Uni 3 for $0.99.

consoul said:
The push to a digital only market has nothing to do with what gamers want.
Click to expand...

If consumers overwhelmingly insisted on buying discs, publishers would continue printing them because that's where the sales would be, but that's not where the sales are, and therefore a digital only market is exactly representative of what gamers want.
 
The percentage is skewed due to various factors, but the general argument of the majority of people trending towards digital is true. The industry helped devalue physical, and consumers prefer convenience.

The physical market didn't shrink enough they should've abandoned it now, and definitely should've improved their digital storefront more. Lacking digital game gifting and a decent return policy is shortsighted, and if they corrected both before this would've lessened the damage because they could show they're gonna improve the ONLY option they're leaving people in 2028.

Even the people who prefer digital on console should know the move is entirely for monetary benefit to them + devs/publishers. No value has been added for consumers, just taken.
 
Not researched enough yet (PENDING), but I've seen murmurs those digital figures could have some Hollywood Counting?

1) There are a LOT of products that are digital only (indies, back compat, DLC, addons) that pumps digital numbers/revenue way up
2) First party/AAA releases have more balanced physical vs digital splits
3) Physical second hand market figures are obviously absent
4) Sony forced normies to go digital only by making bluray drive cost more, suggesting "everyone is digital now bro", when 2022 leaks showed otherwise. Trickery afoot
5) Arrogant Sony wants you to believe you're an edge case clinging to physical so they can force you into their walled garden and profit

Not saying these are facts, I'm just posting what I've seen. Someone else might be able to elaborate more.

Do not blind believe any corpo PR if its endgame benefits them.
 
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LyricalShrike said:
Review the matched title data and digital vs physical revenue data also provided by Sony and reevaluate your argument.
Click to expand...
Where can I find that?

Leaked internal data from Insomniac Games didn't show consumer preference for digital.
toXM2JGTrlwnUQmK.jpg
 
The split is a lie and also:

EzcFOlHhRXyUMcJl.jpg

The revenue split is an even bigger lie.
In fact I don't even believe their record profits at all.
Same hardware sales with smaller margin, less first party sales with 3+ times the cost, billions lost in gaas shit... The subscriptions alone brought the record profits??? Then they should sell cheap consoles and go for the throat.

Physical is still too big for their preference and that's the only reason they kill it not the other way around.


Speak with your wallet and send them to the grave along with Microcrap.
 
My response to the whole digital vs. physical situation boils down to an anecdote between myself and my best friend. We are both hardcore gamers. We both prefer to buy games physically. I game almost exclusively on PlayStation. He games almost exclusively on Xbox. Unlike many Xbox gamers, he actually buys games rather than waiting for them to come to Gamepass. Our gaming philosphies are very different. I like to finish my games and put them on my shelf as memories to be reviewed, replayed, and shared with others. He prefers to finish games and trade them in to Gamestop for cash or credit to recoup something from his investment.

A few months back, Resident Evil: Re9uiem released. I pre-ordered a physical copy of he Deluxe Edition with the steelbook from Amazon. Despite having ordered the game many months ahead of time, I still had to wait a full week for the game to get in my hands because there was not enough stock to fulfill all the orders.

My best friend does not pre-order games, but he went around to many game and retail stores trying to get a copy the day it came out. He could not find a copy in the wild, for either Xbox or PS5. After searching the entire weekend, he gave up on that Monday and bought a digital deluxe copy at full price from the Xbox store. I waited for my physical copy to arrive.

Today I still have my physical copy. It's sitting on my shelf, and the game is still installed on my hard drive. I'll delete it after I play through the post-launch content that has not even been released yet. But the game will remain on my shelf long after. My friend still has his digital copy and can reinstall it when he wants to play the DLC coming later.

I can trade in my copy at any time, though I never will. He decided it wasn't worth waiting for a physical copy to become available and sacrificed his right of first sale to be able to play the game sooner. He will never recoup anything from his purchase but the enjoyment of the game itself, even though he would much prefer to. The scarcity of the physical version made him change his purchasing habit.

The point to my story is that Sony knows they make far more money from digital sales than physical sales, and by taking away the physical option, they will get more people to jump into digital gaming.

They are also fully aware that some people will choose to abandon them over this change. Sony knows this. They ran the numbers, calculated the losses they'd suffer as acceptable, and pushed forward.

Sony did not just make this change on a lark. They carefully planned it out, and implemented it when Grand Theft Auto VI pre-order numbers proved that gamers care more about games than the format the games are in. Sony is also extremely aware that Xbox is about to do very massive layoffs, and the outrage will quickly shift away from them. The timing of the announcement was calculated to minimize the damage.

Yes, some people will protest by selling their PS5s or canceling their PS+. Sony knows it. Sony doesn't care. Ultimately, the shift to digital only will make their profits go up, not down. If they lose some of their customers along the way, they're fine with that as long as the profits increase. The All Digital Future is something every single game publisher and platform holder have wanted for the last two decades since digital games began emerging on console. Now that that future is here, they aren't going to back down because some people make angry forum posts and videos screeching about how much they hate what Sony is doing. They knew some gamers would react this way. They did it anyway. Because the math made more sense.

Welcome my son
Welcome to the machine
What did you dream?
It's all right, we told you what to dream
 
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85% is a lie.

AAA games (ahem, the shit Sony makes) sell a healthy amount physical, from the Insomniac leaks in 2022 it was about 65% physical for Sony first party games.

From October 2024 physical was about 22 to 32% (US/Europe) and digital trend was slowing down. (overall, not just new releases).

The "market trend" is an excuse to force the ~25% who buy physical - especially for newer games (no physical games enjoyer is worried about whether Witcher 3 was digital when it's on sale for $10 with all the DLC...).

It is not organic.
 
Portugeezer said:
85% is a lie.

AAA games (ahem, the shit Sony makes) sell a healthy amount physical, from the Insomniac leaks in 2022 it was about 65% physical for Sony first party games.

From October 2024 physical was about 22 to 32% (US/Europe) and digital trend was slowing down. (overall, not just new releases).

The "market trend" is an excuse to force the ~25% who buy physical - especially for newer games (no physical games enjoyer is worried about whether Witcher 3 was digital when it's on sale for $10 with all the DLC...).

It is not organic.
Click to expand...

Sony has clearly steered things in that direction quite deliberately. First, bundle games were switched from physical copies to digital codes and then the disc drive was only offered as an external add-on which, quite coincidentally, was out of stock for months.
 
MrRibeye said:
Bro, just look at the revenue numbers for FY25

Digital Software:
¥1.056 trillion

Physical Software:
¥125 billion

It's an enormous gap, and digital revenue is 8 timers larger than physical. This doesn't happen because people buy Anime Fantasy Uni 3 for $0.99.



If consumers overwhelmingly insisted on buying discs, publishers would continue printing them because that's where the sales would be, but that's not where the sales are, and therefore a digital only market is exactly representative of what gamers want.
Click to expand...

Something people DELIBERATELY ignoring and also laughing at pure numbers.

Gap is ENORMOUS

 
I don't care what the gap is. We shouldn't let them take away an option that is beneficial to consumers only for their own greedy gain. Everyone should be pushing back against it regardless of your preference for how you buy games.
 
HerjansEagleFeeder said:
Every society in a similar position would produce nearly the same socioeconomic outcomes. People are equally shit in all places on this planet.
Click to expand...
There are regional differentiators in terms of culture, though. I think the sheer aggressiveness of trying to capture a market is quite unique to the US (which explains why it has so many "too big to fail" companies).
 
consoul said:
85% of PlayStation game sales are digital.
Apparently.

That figure is being widely quoted as a simple one-liner rationale for the end of PlayStation disc production. It would be easy to accept it uncritically as just common sense, a fait accompli. Why support physical if gamers don't want it?
...but is that what it means?

The figure came from a Sony financial report, where for one single quarter, specifically FY25Q4, the ratio of digital to physical full game sales was 85%. It was a new high. The average over the two year period in that report is 77%, but what the figure really represents is worth considering.

You could be forgiven for misinterpreting the 85% as meaning for every 100 copies of GoW Ragnarok, AstroBot or GT7 sold that quarter only 15 were purchased on disc. Or you might assume it meant Sony made 85% of their software sales revenue from digital games. None of that is true.

The truth is that the vast majority of PS5 games are digital only. Less than 2000 PS5 games have been pressed on disc. How many PS5 games are for sale (not F2P) on the PSN Store? About 7,500.

That's where this percentage figure is misleading. It counts every sale as equal. If you bought Death Stranding 2 on disc and somebody else bought Anime Fantasy Uni 3 for $0.99, the percentage figure considers these as wholly equivalent.

To put it another way, let's say I spend $100 on games this month. I buy one physical AAA game for $69.99 and spend the rest on six little $5 digital only games. What percentage of my game purchases were digital? More than 85%.

The 85% figure does not truly represent 'consumer preference' and cannot in good faith be used to justify the end of PlayStation physical game distribution.

Don't be fooled. The push to a digital only market has nothing to do with what gamers want. It's only about maximizing profit through market control.
Click to expand...
The 85% is actual sales not the number of titles. You are right that individual big releases do not get 85% digital though and it's skewed by the digital only releases on the store. The other thing to keep in mind is that this was trending up every year so in 2028 it will be even higher and physical in the single digits.
 
Rather than dismissing the 2022 leaks as "old data," I think they make the point clearer.

That physical sales for major PlayStation games was strong before Sony pushed the cheaper digital-only PS5 and dressed it up as "choice." That "choice" locked price-sensitive buyers out of discs, used games, resale, lending, borrowing, and retail price competition.

Nudge people toward digital by making physical less convenient, then point at the digital numbers later to justify phasing physical out.
 
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Sephimoth said:
Jim Ryan Interview in 2020, pre PS5 launch:

"Choice". The cheaper digital box nudged buyers into a locked storefront while presenting it as consumer preference.

Yet two years after PS5 launch, after buyers had already been incentivised to go digital to avoid paying more for the disc model, the leaked 2022-era data still suggested physical was strong for major PlayStation games.

Sneaky times.
Click to expand...
it's hard to believe but you can buy an external disc drive for the digital ps5. i think maybe since launch that was an option? that's a weird thing to allow if you wanted to lock your customers to buying digital only. is it so hard to believe that consumers actually just do prefer it this way: the same way they currently enjoy their movies and music?
 
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I love how even with facts and evidence provided there are still some people banging the "it's fabricated bro"

We have even had the large publishers coming out with how big digital is now for consoles and eclipsing physical but no it's all a conspiracy guys, you're right it's all fabricated.

GIF by Giphy QA
 
Sephimoth said:
Not researched enough yet (PENDING), but I've seen murmurs those digital figures could have some Hollywood Counting?

1) There are a LOT of products that are digital only (indies, back compat, DLC, addons) that pumps digital numbers/revenue way up
2) First party/AAA releases have more balanced physical vs digital splits
3) Physical second hand market figures are obviously absent
4) Sony forced normies to go digital only by making bluray drive cost more, telling you "everyone is digital now bro", when 2022 leaks show different. Trickery afoot
5) Arrogant Sony wants you to believe you're an edge case clinging to physical so they can force you into their walled garden and profit

Not saying these are facts, I'm just posting what I've seen. Someone else might be able to elaborate more.

Do not blind believe any corpo PR if its endgame benefits them.
Click to expand...
Why do people think they are trying to lose money? lol. They know their next gen is going to be split between a handheld that can't take discs and a console that most people won't buy discs for.


 
Unless your inner circle is old school collectors, and that means people probably older than 30, then you probably are very outside the reality of what things actually are. So with that being said, my example is people that I know. The kids or extended family. None of them have any physical games in their house. This is ranging from the ages of 10 to 25. This is a sampling size of probably seven or eight gamers or at least people that play games. I, the adult and old school gamer, have probably six physical games in my house. As you count something old that is sitting in a box in the garage that I totally forgot about.

To your questions of analytics and everything that has been coming out for years and leaning much more towards digital, this shouldn't come as a surprise to you hence the premise of the thread falls flat on its face. So small research can tell you that the industry has been trending towards digital for a long time. And the consumer has been more than happy to accept that since most people have reasonable internet.

That doesn't mean it's being defended or some insensitive opinion but that is the reality and it doesn't mean that I like it as much but even as somebody that likes physical copies of games, I've long accepted it.
 
Just did some more digging (Alinea figures) and yeah, the trend certainly is shifting (as you would expect when the consoles stop coming with disc drives), but I don't believe it's 15% on average.

Ghost of Yotei 35% physical
Resident Evil Requiem 28% physical
007 First Light 21% physical
 
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I don't buy that number one bit. There was a leaked memo showing that physical games were outselling digital games 60/40 for a lot of titles. It just depended on the game. Single player games tended to do better on disc which makes sense. If I'm playing a story driven game, I'm probably putting that disc in and it's staying in until I beat the game. If it's a multi-player game, it's probably more convenient to play it digitally.

Sony isn't tracking used games. If they sell a copy of the Last of Us physically to someone, that person trades it in to a used store. Someone buys it. That person might trade it back in, and then someone else buys it. That could happen 2-3, maybe 10+ times for the life of the game. So that game just didn't sell once, it sold 10 times. Albeit it at a lower cost. But still, digital sales outpacing physical doesn't tell the whole story.
 
JerryinSoCal said:
Why do people think they are trying to lose money? lol. They know their next gen is going to be split between a handheld that can't take discs and a console that most people won't buy discs for.


Click to expand...

Everyone on twitter thinks they're an expert. Sony isn't making 1000 times more revenue on digital compared to physical sales because of games like my name is mayo. I wish people would just think about what they're actually arguing for
 
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That 85% isn't exclusively digital, there's clearly a bigger overlap than many thought, including Sony. I'm in the same boat, I buy mostly digital these days, but from time to time I want a physical copy for my collection, or to buy for someone as a gift, and so on.

People want choice, and it's their right as paying customers to close their wallets when those choices are taken away.
 
I've posted this before in many threads but the physical/digital split for a new AAA single player PS5 game during the launch window (first 3 months) is about 40/60 in the US, 50/50 in Europe and 60/40 in Japan.

Sony heavily skews their data by including games that don't have physical versions. They do this to push a narrative that paints digital as the preferred consumer choice because they make far more money and have far more control over digital sales. Now they've pushed the narrative to its logical end, the justification for the end of physical discs.
 
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consoul said:
The 85% figure does not truly represent 'consumer preference' and cannot in good faith be used to justify the end of PlayStation physical game distribution.

Don't be fooled. The push to a digital only market has nothing to do with what gamers want. It's only about maximizing profit through market control.
Click to expand...
Yes, you know, because more than half of consumers are not included in that numbers
They play gaas games those naturally has no "copies sold"
think twice before you go to war, it may backfire
 
Sephimoth said:
Rather than dismissing the 2022 leaks as "old data," I think they make the point clearer.

Physical sales for major PlayStation games still appeared to be strong and competitive
Click to expand...
I agree with this. I feel major games still had a ratio less than 85%
Sephimoth said:
before Sony pushed the cheaper digital-only PS5 and dressed it up as "choice."

That "choice" locked price-sensitive buyers out of discs, used games, resale, lending, borrowing, and retail price competition.
Click to expand...
Sorry but that's simply not true. With a digital only PS5 you had complete choice. They rebuilt it so you can add a disc drive whenever you wanted. You weren't 'locked' out and they tried to make sure you weren't. The people buying PS5 Digital later on had complete choice and that is what those people chose to do. If those specific people wanted they could get a disc drive at any point.
Sephimoth said:
Convenient for the company that owns the digital storefront.
Click to expand...
they've always owned the digital storefront and also had a big stake in physical media. They're just shutting down production in 2028 due to several factors, low and decreasing volume/consumer demand being the major one.
 
DrFigs said:
it's hard to believe but you can buy an external disc drive for the digital ps5. i think maybe since launch that was an option? that's a weird thing to allow if you wanted to lock your customers to buying digital only. is it so hard to believe that consumers actually just do prefer it this way: the same way they currently enjoy their movies and music?
Click to expand...

If you could find it.

Making it an attachment was a movie to push people away, as it is already an added cost and accessory. Having stock scarcity was also interesting.

Odd that for the dying physical market, keeping the disc drive in stock for a while was a challenge.

BTW, a lot of people in here just trying to defend anti-consumer moves. It isn't about the number, honestly. It's about not being beholden to Sony and their sketchy ass record of being greedy dick heads. Digital only people should STILL want physical competition for THEIR own good. It isn't really a hard thing to understand.
 
I just want people to understand this simple point, even if the 85/90% digital sales figure was right ( it isn't ) that still wouldn't justify going full digital in the future.

Believe or not 10% makes a big difference in this industry, for example Playstations first party game sales are roughly 10 to 15% of all game sales on the PS5 ( 85% are third party ), and yet it's those first party games that made people decide to buy a PS5 over a Series X . I single exclusive, a single physical copy is enough for a consumer to decide buy one system over the other, seems like Sony has forgotten this very important lesson, hopefully it bites them in the ass sooner or later.
 
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Three said:
I agree with this. I feel major games still had a ratio less than 85%

Sorry but that's simply not true. With a digital only PS5 you had complete choice. They rebuilt it so you can add a disc drive whenever you wanted. You weren't 'locked' out and they tried to make sure you weren't. The people buying PS5 Digital later on had complete choice and that is what those people chose to do. If those specific people wanted they could get a disc drive at any point.

they've always owned the digital storefront and also had a big stake in physical media. They're just shutting down production in 2028 due to several factors, low and decreasing volume/consumer demand being the major one.
Click to expand...
Maybe I leaned too hard into the "locked out" and "not a choice" rhetoric.

A lot of people would naturally gravitate toward the cheaper console, especially parents, gift buyers, casual players, or anyone just trying to get a PS5 at the lowest upfront price. So for those pre 2023 slim revision, had a digital system which couldn't be upgraded. Splitting the launch console into a cheaper digital model and a more expensive disc model helped funnel more people toward digital over time.
 
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consoul said:
Where can I find that?

Leaked internal data from Insomniac Games didn't show consumer preference for digital.
toXM2JGTrlwnUQmK.jpg
Click to expand...
No need for leaks. Sony provides revenue breakdown as part of its financial reporting.

Sony G&NS — Game Software Revenue, FY25 (millions of yen)

Code: 
                     |    FY25     | % of sw |  Q4 FY25  | % of sw
---------------------+-------------+---------+-----------+--------
Physical Software    |    125,106  |   4.7%  |   17,718  |   2.8%
Digital Software     |  1,055,688  |  40.0%  |  244,437  |  38.4%
Add-on Content       |  1,359,617  |  51.5%  |  349,066  |  54.9%
Other Software       |    100,612  |   3.8%  |   24,792  |   3.9%
---------------------+-------------+---------+-----------+--------
Game Software Total  |  2,641,023  |  100%   |  636,013  |  100%
 
They need to switch the remaining physical sales to (far more profitable for Sony) digital sales, to be able to afford to subsidise the console price enough to shift it.

What would the PS6 install base look like if it's priced at almost $1000 throughout the first say 3 years? Probably not too good.

LyricalShrike said:
Sony G&NS — Game Software Revenue, FY25 (millions of yen)
Click to expand...
What reevaluation of his argument should this cause?
 
Felessan said:
Yes, you know, because more than half of consumers are not included in that numbers
They play gaas games those naturally has no "copies sold"
think twice before you go to war, it may backfire
Click to expand...
Aren't people here comparing revenue from licenses sold and numbers of people buying either digital or physical licenses? What does player retention, time played and stuff have to do with that?
 
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Fabieter said:
There is a trend towards digital but the 85% is complete bullshit for very different reasons.
Click to expand...

Focusing on the accounting of digital vs physical sales when Sony's financial data states that sales of physical disks (first party, third party royalties, and bundled game) account for only 5% of software revenue.
 
Boss Mog said:
I've posted this before in many threads but the physical/digital split for a new AAA single player PS5 game during the launch window (first 3 months) is about 40/60 in the US, 50/50 in Europe and 60/40 in Japan.

Sony heavily skews their data by including games that don't have physical versions. They do this to push a narrative that paints digital as the preferred consumer choice because they make far more money and have far more control over digital sales. Now they've pushed the narrative to its logical end, the justification for the end of physical discs.
Click to expand...

Check This Out GIF


And if people dont fight for something like this they wont be fighting for anything.
 
LyricalShrike said:
Focusing on the accounting of digital vs physical sales when Sony's financial data states that sales of physical disks (first party, third party royalties, and bundled game) account for only 5% of software revenue.
Click to expand...

Girl Eye Roll GIF


The distortion: for third-party disc sales, Sony books only its royalty (a small cut). For digital sales via the PlayStation Store, Sony books the full sale price, with the publisher's share deducted only afterward.

So it's gross (digital) vs. net (physical) not an apples-to-apples comparison. This makes digital look far bigger than physical in Sony's numbers, even though Sony's actual take per sale is much closer between the two once the publisher payout is factored in.

#pisSony

Keep defending this anti consumer company mate.
 
Fabieter said:
Girl Eye Roll GIF


The distortion: for third-party disc sales, Sony books only its royalty (a small cut). For digital sales via the PlayStation Store, Sony books the full sale price, with the publisher's share deducted only afterward.

So it's gross (digital) vs. net (physical) not an apples-to-apples comparison. This makes digital look far bigger than physical in Sony's numbers, even though Sony's actual take per sale is much closer between the two once the publisher payout is factored in.

#pisSony

Keep defending this anti consumer company mate.
Click to expand...

You think that the royalty split will even a 95% gap which includes it's own first party game and DLC sales? I'm curious what you think the real revenue split is.
 
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