Here's the data for the most recent quarter, during COVID:
*The US Dollar figures have been converted from Japanese Yen with exchange rate provided in Sony fiscal reports Source 1 / Source 2 Highlights : Over $5.63B Revenue and $1.153B Profit between April-June 2020 (Q1 FY20) Biggest Revenue ever for PlayStation (and for any platform holder) during...
www.resetera.com
You can google the Nintendo results yourself. If you won't, or don't, thats fine. Believe in the heavy decline of physical as a trend. I don't care anymore.
I'm late to the party man but this data doesn't support your arguement at all.
Physical has been declining as a percentage of sales since the beginning of the generation - steadily at first, and rapidly more recently.
In terms of volume, it's been on a downward trend for the last 3-4 years as well.
There shrinking percentage and the shrinking volume together tell a clear story. Physical is rapidly becoming less and less important for consumers.
The fact that two major players are releasing consoles that don't have disc drives will only accelerate the trends. As will the rise of services like gamepass, which offers discounts on all digital purchases and challenges physical as a way to access older games (and some brand new games) at low cost.
You bring up Nintendo, but 1) they are an outlier in an industry that includes PC, Sony + MS trends and 2) Physical Nintendo games retain their value for a LONG time - so this platform isnt really for the price conscious.
The writing is written very clearly on the wall. The trailing indicators tell us that yes physical retail is still important to consumers, though its quickly becoming a smaller part of the revenue picture for gaming companies. The leading indicator it's quickly becoming less important to consumers as digital options improve.
