PS4 Software Sales Are Tilting Towards Digital

I booted up my PS3 to play some games recently. There were a few discs I lost, so I went to the store to re-buy some. I forgot that in the PS3 era, not all (most?) games were released digitally. Such a convenience I completely took for granted this generation.

I'm guessing a lot of this is through the very many sales they have on the PS store (of which I'm guilty - probably bought 10 or so games digitally this year because they were super cheap), Can't see many people paying £54.99 for a brand new game digitally when you can get it for £40 - £45 pounds from Amazon etc.

I was all physical until I got a pro as well.... sharing software between two ps4s ultimately means my son and I have access to 2 copies simultaneously. Going all digi was a no brainer.

I’ve embraced it, both on Switch and PS4. Just plain convenient

I'm going all digital. I share my account with my brother (and he share his with me), and when we merge our coins, we can usually buy anything we both want. We pay US$60 on a new game and we can play it together, 100% better than buying two physical copies.

Makes sense. Modern physical games are essentially digital games anyway: you install the data to your hard drive to actually play them and, even putting that aside, most big games are incredibly reliant on software updates to run well. Plus, it's so much more convenient to just download a game at home and play it whenever than it is to run out to a store to pick up the game and have to switch discs any time you want to play something different.

If we're talking PS4 specifically, they have tons of amazing deals every year that encourage people to buy games they might have otherwise happily ignored.

There are downsides, of course (can't resell your digital games; no physical media to claim ownership of; and, if your account is banned, you usually lose access to thousands of dollars worth of games as well), but I can see why it's catching on and, personally, 90% of my purchases these days are digital on PS4 and Switch (and 100% on PC, because, well, physical games are dead on that platform).

By number of games bought I probably buy more digital than physical. But I spend most of my money on physical games and most of my time playing those games.

Physical is usually something I pick up day one for full price whereas digital is usually low price in a sale.

I usually bought games digitally especially if it's a first party games since I don't plan to sell it, unless there's a region 1 steelcase version

Not the case with me. I'm physical.

@AdamNovice yeah what we really need is sales percentages for games which are released physically and ignore the download only games to get a true reading of where gaming is at

Also have to remember that there is far more Digital content than Physical. Physical releases are generally just the AAA games where as Digital sales also include all the indies, all the DLC and all the micro-transactional content. Even the free games can have Paid content that also counts as sales.

If 65% of AAA game sales are physical sales, the 35% digital, the other Digital content only needs to add up to the equivalent 31% to overtake Physical sales. What I mean by that is if Physical sales generate £65m and digital versions generated £35m, all the other digital sales of indies, DLC and Micro-transactions would only need to generate £31m for digital transactions to overtake Physical sales.

The fresh smell of a new game, the crack of the disk release button and the money retained from selling it off.

Physical baby.

It’s just a lot more convenient if you have reasonably fast internet. Physical games are awesome and I still get collector’s editions for games I really like, but it’s hard to beat playing a brand new game without having to leave your house.

@BAMozzy That’s a great point. Considering the sheer amount of content available for purchase on the PSN store versus what you will find in a retail store is a really massive difference when you think about it. All those indies and smaller titles that you will never see at a physical location.

Lets hope more games are released digital only better for the whole industry

I do like physical games, well at least I used to. No manuals and terrible boxart makes it not worth the effort these days.

@wiiware nah first party games like God of war.bloodborne.uncharted .infamous.spiderman.horizon zero dawn.until dawn.etc are physical for me.i do have a lot of digital games .just bout 7 last week.and plan on buying couple more.and I'm a ps plus member so all those games are digital.so it's all gravy playa.word up son

I'm still stubbornly physical where I can be. I still am afraid of my games being at the mercy of a publisher or platform holder if my HDD goes belly up.
Besides, there are some games, like Persona5, that have never needed an update patch and the idea that I one day might no be able to play it if I bought digitally is heartbreaking.

I have done a lot of digital purchases, but one thing I cannot work out. Why the same price? There is no disc or casing so it should be cheaper. It's not just games, car registrations are now paperless/stickerless and all digital, but the same cost. More and more things are becoming paperless and digital however the companies are not passing the savings.

@Tasuki Here in Australia. Everything is super expensive. Entertainment, living expenses etc are through the roof. Wage growth hasn't increased but living costs has, soon we will be heading into a recession if something isn't changed.
New release games here digital are about the same cost (sometimes dearer) as retail disc versions.

For me it's because of deep sales for games that are not new. Games that are year old can be on sale online for 60-80% off where in the store most may be only 20% cheaper.

I think the better indicator of physical vs digital are new game sales during the first month.

so how were the last 4% sold?

Last game i bought digital Hellblade because i thought it was going retail. 😆

Indies i buy of Limited Run Games and Signature Edition Games and Playasia.

PSN offline i cant access my games. 😆
PSN offline permanent i dont own any games. 😆😂🤣

Fully digital /streaming/always online oh you want to play your old games sorry no support because part 2 is out or its expensive too keep the servers running pick your poison.

Plus not everything is sale retail so its kind of a cheap way of tipping the scale.

@DigiTM The investors need more money they cant pay their bills.

The prices for digital are becoming more competitive, even with the second hand market. Buying a game digitally during a sale can be the same price or even cheaper than buying a used copy. That’s why the tide is shifting. Previously I would buy a game physical because I always knew I could recoup some of the money with a sellback. Now, it’s a wash because the digital copy is often a couple bucks cheaper and so it’s just easier to buy digital.
Still, some game I prefer to have the disc, for better future-proofing.

I tend to get new games physical with all digital purchases being sales.

The only exception being The Division 2 which was a bit of an impulse buy but my PS4 also goes through phases of randomly ejecting discs. This is annoying for any game but especially one with such a strong online component.

something really doesn't add up, for me. the total sales made by the games and services division for Q1 was $458m - that's revenue for all games, dlc, MTs, subs. if 43m 'games' were sold, even if every dollar was for games, that's just over $10 per game, which seems unlikely imo. if the term 'software' refers to anything, including DLC, etc., this tells us nothing more than the tautology that digital only content is bought digitally. shocker. easily 75% of all content is digital, which indicates that where physical copies exist, they still command a higher proportion of sales. without actual hard numbers, these vague stats can be used to portray any picture publishers want. the only specific dataset i've seen was for the top 20 games sold in the UK for 2018, and physical copies were about 75% of the total (eg: FIFA 19 sold 1.9m on disc, and 565k digital - which includes PC, so % is even less for consoles).

here in the UK, retail games are almost always significantly cheaper at launch than buying it on psn. even sales further down the road, the different isn't much. rage 2 is on 'sale' at the minute, it's still at least £10 cheaper to buy the disc.

Not all games are released as physical. Indies are thriving so it affects those numbers a lot.
I'd like to see the percentage for games released both physically and digitally.

98% of my 60+ games are digital copies. I simply don't trust physical discs cuz they can get stolen, scratched, broken, they're noisy and you have to switch discs everytime... and I don't care about boxes with extra junk. I'm not a hoarder.my digital library is all I need

A true view of the situation would be physical Vs digital sales of AAA games in their first few weeks.
I'm betting physical is still winning that one comfortably for now at least.