There is plenty of other data going back years pointing in the same direction. Capcom said last year that a full 80 percent of its new game sales were digital downloads, while Sony's 2020 fiscal year results showed a majority of PlayStation full game sales were coming as digital downloads. These release numbers also don't give any visibility into what proportion of sales go to the physical versions of games that are available as both discs and downloads.īut data from elsewhere also supports the idea that games on physical media are quickly becoming a smaller and smaller part of the console market.
Games that merit a physical release tend to be some of the most popular titles of the year and probably attract more total sales than the vast majority of bottom-of-the-barrel digital releases. Looking solely at the number of unique titles released gives an incomplete picture of the console gaming market, of course. Then, in 2021, that number exploded to nearly 2,200 digital titles, a 64 percent increase from 2020. The number of digital games released each year, on the other hand, remained relatively flat from 2018 through 2020. In terms of distinct game titles released in the United States, the raw number of new games available on physical media (i.e., discs or cartridges) dropped from 321 in 2018 to just 226 in 2021, a nearly 30 percent decline (games released on multiple consoles are counted as a single title in this measure). But a new exclusive analysis of NPD Game Pulse data conducted by Ars Technica shows the extent of the decline in physical console game production, even as the number of digital console titles continues to explode. Further Reading RIP Virtual Console: Nintendo will shut off Wii U, 3DS game downloadsAnyone watching the game industry knows that the console market is quickly shifting away from games sold on physical media and toward the digital download dominance that PC gamers have known for years.
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