Chris Dring: Sales of new Switch games are still ~80% physical in Europe; Astro Bot on PS5 nearly 60% physical across Europe

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
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Nintendo Switch has been the dominant player at physical retail. Sales of new Switch games are still around 80% physical in Europe. That means if Nintendo has a quiet year, which it did in 2024, then that will have a direct impact on the boxed game sector overall.

There may have been fewer Switch games sold, but the platform remains as physical as it's ever been. There wasn't a huge shift in consumers moving away from physical toward digital in 2024 on Nintendo.

Things are different with PlayStation, however. Across Europe in 2023, 55% of games sold on PS5 were downloaded, whereas that number jumped to 64% in 2024 (we're only counting games released digital and physically here, not digital-only releases).
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But this is more to do with the types of games released. Some titles are just more digital than others. Online action shooter games tend to do extremely well via download stores. Last year's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, for instance, saw over 80% of its UK sales come via digital stores. And Sony's own Helldivers 2 was over 90% digital.

That's different for single player, story-driven action games or family titles. Let's take 2023, which had an abundance of these games. 45% of Hogwarts Legacy's sales, 49% of Assassin's Creed Mirage sales and 45% of Resident Evil 4 Remake sales were physical in the UK. Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2 was bought more via physical retailers than digital ones (54% physical), although that does include console bundles.
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There were fewer big single-player and family games in 2024. But one of the bigger ones that did launch, Astro Bot on PlayStation 5, was 55% physical in the UK and nearly 60% physical across Europe.

In other words, that sharp decline in physical game sales is less to do with a shift towards digital, and more to do with the release schedule.
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That's not to say there hasn't been some shift from physical to digital. If we look at the annual sports titles (where we can do like-for-like comparisons), EA Sports FC 25 was 62% digital in Europe, whereas the year before EA Sports FC 24 was 55% digital (which is by far the biggest shift we've seen). Last year's F1 24 was 70% digital in Europe, whereas F1 23 was 69% digital. And WWE 2K24 in Europe was 64% digital, while WWE 2K23 was 61% digital (note: the newer games all sold fewer games than their predecessors). So, we are seeing digital take a larger market share, but it's not quite as dramatic as the headline figures suggest.

Even so, the data shows that there are still games very reliant on the boxed market. Switch games, retro games, kids games, family games, narrative games on PlayStation… they still see a high proportion of their sales come from the traditional retail sector.
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More at the link:

www.thegamebusiness.com

The video game industry is not ready to lose boxed games

Meanwhile, we discuss Québec tax break changes with The Logic's Brendan Sinclair
www.thegamebusiness.com www.thegamebusiness.com
 
It's crazy that these publishers, especially Nintendo, want to kill off physical games when it's still such a large portion of the market. Greedy bastards.
 
Mr Hyde said:
It's crazy that these publishers, especially Nintendo, want to kill off physical games when it's still such a large portion of the market. Greedy bastards.
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I haven't seen any sign that Nintendo want to kill off physical games.

For Switch 2 they are offering a half-way option. It's not something I care for, but some will find them preferable.

Valve killed physical PC games. And Sony are trying the hardest on the console front.
 
I hope Switch 2 owner continues that trend. They need to remember in future they can resell the physical copy for higher price or recoup the cost of purchasing.
 
Love getting these sorts of insights!

Digital % for Switch will be higher when we take first party games into account, due to vouchers. But it will still be noticeably lower than Xbox and PS.
 
Astray said:
And now we know why physical is more expensive than digital in Europe.

Nintendo wants these consumers to get digitally locked-in asap before any competitor has time to pull them over to their value proposition.
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Yeah, that makes sense in this Nintendo's "I don't care, give me my money" era. It is also ridiculous and asking to backfire, but company is ran by finance people now.
 
Tams said:
I haven't seen any sign that Nintendo want to kill off physical games.

For Switch 2 they are offering a half-way option. It's not something I care for, but some will find them preferable.

Valve killed physical PC games. And Sony are trying the hardest on the console front.
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Valve didn't kill physical PC games. PC gamers killed physical PC games because they wanted digital.
 
MayauMiao said:
I hope Switch 2 owner continues that trend. They need to remember in future they can resell the physical copy for higher price or recoup the cost of purchasing.
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Calling switch 2 cartridges physical media is laughable when they already begin with the trend that its an empty cartridge that acts as a decription key for a download.
 
Lorianus said:
Calling switch 2 cartridges physical media is laughable when they already begin with the trend that its an empty cartridge that acts as a decription key for a download.
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Well I hope there is a push (lawsuit) to demand actual content on physical cartridges. Perhaps EU can take a stab at this.
 
Lorianus said:
Calling switch 2 cartridges physical media is laughable when they already begin with the trend that its an empty cartridge that acts as a decription key for a download.
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Even the Switch had boxes just with download codes. Key cards are an upgrade to that.
 
But but but people told me physical lovers need to go with the time.

Anyway I hope it stays the way forever. Stay strong brothers and sisters.
 
poppabk said:
Valve didn't kill physical PC games. PC gamers killed physical PC games because they wanted digital.
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Will we blame the people too once government kill cash and only offer digital currency. I dont think it's the right way to blame the people who basically had no choice in the long run.
 
Fabieter said:
Will we blame the people too once government kill cash and only offer digital currency. I dont think it's the right way to blame the people who basically had no choice in the long run.
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Blame? I think the move to digital was a positive move, I'm pretty sure most other PC gamers at the time also welcomed it with open arms.
 
Even as a PC only gamer with 15+ years doing all digital. I don't want physical games to die, just the feeling of going into a store and seeing tons of physical games lined up from multiple consoles makes things look more vibrant and appealing. And if I ever get a console again I'll want physical games for it.
 
poppabk said:
Blame? I think the move to digital was a positive move, I'm pretty sure most other PC gamers at the time also welcomed it with open arms.
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I don't know, I know you can get a refund on Digital games on PC but most PC gamers I knew use to buy games and complete them and go an exchange them for another, rinse and repeat.
The probably still do that with digital tbf.
 
Not to shit on peoples strawberries, but there is like 20gb of space on the switch. It really is a really terrible experience if you want to go all digital. Switch 2 will have that issue as well tho, especially with bigger 3rd party games. Physical ain't going nowhere, but not by choice
 
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Kerotan said:
Kids are more likely to have physical games bought by their parents.
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Tbh, my son is the reason I switched to digital completely, because by sharing my PSN account I only had to buy a game once.

But good to see physical is still doing well, as it should.
 
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Why is this a surprise? Nintendo's audience is 95% small kids. You do not put a credit details into your kids' device. I wouldn't.

You just buy them physical game when they ask for it…
 
VitoNotVito said:
Why is this a surprise? Nintendo's audience is 95% small kids. You do not put a credit details into your kids' device. I wouldn't.

You just buy them physical game when they ask for it…
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I see the 'Nintendo is for teh kiddies' argument has acquired some new nuance. I see you.
 
Switch games hold their value in a similar way to Apple products. You'd be an idiot to buy Mario Kart World digitally when you can get $50 for it in 3 years time.
 
Tams said:
I haven't seen any sign that Nintendo want to kill off physical games.

For Switch 2 they are offering a half-way option. It's not something I care for, but some will find them preferable.

Valve killed physical PC games. And Sony are trying the hardest on the console front.
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Sony is literally selling a physical media add-on. What are you talking about?
 
Fabieter said:
Yea because of the digital distribution. There were alot of people pissed that they couldn't play hl2 because they had to activate their disc etc.
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That wasn't to do with digital distribution - that was DRM. Steam didn't really even sell games at that point.
 
poppabk said:
That wasn't to do with digital distribution - that was DRM. Steam didn't really even sell games at that point.
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The first game you could buy through Steam was "Half-Life 2", released on November 16, 2004

Steam expanded slowly because most people hated the idea of digital.
 
Fabieter said:
The first game you could buy through Steam was "Half-Life 2", released on November 16, 2004

Steam expanded slowly because most people hated the idea of digital.
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But that was basically the only game. It expanded slowly because why would you put your game on steam when it was a flegling service mainly dedicated to a competitors games? There were other services like Direct2Drive at the time, it wasn't until steamworks that steam had advantages for publishers.
 
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