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[TheBryanJZX90]

According to a recent report. This data is estimated, but they list total worldwide digital sales on consoles as $4 billion, up 34% over last year, and brick and mortar at $5.3 billion, down 13% from last year.

Downloads to consoles like Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation saw the biggest jump. Digital console game sales were up 34 percent last year, though the category remained relatively small at $4 billion.

At the same time, software sales at brick-and-mortar stores continued to fall, slipping 13 percent to $5.3 billion, according to NPD Group.

"Sales figures points toward a shift in the industry as more consumers have adopted digitally distributed games and free-to-play," said SuperData CEO and founder Joost van Dreunen.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/26/digital-gaming-sales-hit-record-61-billion-in-2015-report.html

With a similar rate of increase for digital sales and decrease for brick and mortar sales, digital would actually overtake brick and mortar within a year or so!

There are plenty of other things to discuss from those numbers, like how PC and mobile digital sales are even bigger than all console sales. But given the digital vs physical divide those console sales figures jumped out at me.

Edit: Wait the $5.3 billion is attributed to NPD group, don't they only track US and Canada? If so, nevermind that might be comparing worldwide digital to NA brick and mortar. Oops. Stupid CNBC.

 

[Demoskinos]

Good as it should be!

 

[napalmjam]

Once it's 100% digital I am out .

 

[Petrae]

You can't stop that digital train. You can only hope that you manage your data cap to allow for purchasing all of the games that you might want to buy in a month's time.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Wait the $5.3 billion is attributed to NPD group, don't they only track US and Canada? If so, nevermind that might be comparing worldwide digital to NA brick and mortar. Oops. Stupid CNBC.

 

[Occam]

Once it's 100% digital I am out .

Once there is no option to buy physical, so am I.

Game ownership FTW.

 

[axisofweevils]

Surprised it's taking this long.

 

[Z_Y]

All digital here and loving it. I pick up what I want on day one and wait for sales on stuff I'm mildly interested in. Sales have been fairly good on both platforms and I haven't really regretted many purchases.

Only downside for me has been storage on PS4

 

[Ultima_5]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC

 

[thuway]

I will stay physical as long as games cost more than $40. Thank you Amazon Prime.

 

[lastplayed]

Been 100% digital since X1 launched, works for me.

 

[bryanee]

The day I have no choice but to buy only digital is the day I buy less and less games and mostly on sale.

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

Once it's all physical I'll do a lateral

 

[SwiftDeath]

Like 99% sure that SuperData Report that uses as the source of this is Overall Digital Revenue and would include all DLC, Microtransactions etc. which would impair the comparison.

Wait the $5.3 billion is attributed to NPD group, don't they only track US and Canada? If so, nevermind that might be comparing worldwide digital to NA brick and mortar. Oops. Stupid CNBC.

Physical is from NPD? Then yeah that's a limited set of data on the physical side. Forget exactly the countries NPD do track.

GFK tracks most of Europe, Japan has several of their own trackers.

 

[Ogawa-san]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

 

[Mr-Joker]

Good as it should be!

Why is it "good"?

You lose the ability to resell/trade games, no option of a refund on PSN/Nintendo/Live and you end up paying a lot more than retail due to lack of competition.

The benefit of going digital doesn't outweigh the negative in my eyes.

Once it's 100% digital I am out .

Same, hopefully it won't come to that.

 

[Jessie.Bristol]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Ha ha! Same thing I thought when reading that post.

 

[Deleted member 284]

I wonder if brick and mortar stores explicitly excludes sales from online house of traditional retail like Walmart.com or Bestbuy.com

 

[orochi91]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Lmao

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

I wonder if brick and mortar stores explicitly excludes sales from online house of traditional retail like Walmart.com or Bestbuy.com

I think the bigger problem is that the data might be comparing worldwide digital to North America brick and mortar, which obviously wouldn't even be close to a useful comparison. My bad, but the article I read was pretty damn bad if that's the case.

 

[aadiboy]

It's only a matter of time, guys. You're only just delaying the inevitable.

 

[DISSESHOWEDO]

Once there is no option to buy physical, so am I.

Game ownership FTW.

Same here, the moment they take the smell of a new disk from me, i'll quit gaming!

 

[Sydle]

Whenever Sony and MS start doing Steam-like sales on their respective digital stores this is going to accelerate and digital will overtake physical sales. I suspect they're just playing nice with retailers until there is enough of a consumer shift towards digital.

 

[Ultima_5]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Haha I know it sounds backwards but once I lose the option of being able to actually own my games I see no reason why I shouldn't just switch to PC and buy stuff when it's less than $10.

 

[John Harker]

this is a big fat 'nope.'

Also 'digital sales' overall constitutes a lot more than just full priced retail games sold digitally.

So that isn't an apt comparison to N.A. retail only sales (which is just full priced boxed sales)

 

[JayhawkerStL]

Why is it "good"?

You lose the ability to resell/trade games, no option of a refund on PSN/Nintendo/Live and you end up paying a lot more than retail due to lack of competition.

The benefit of going digital doesn't outweigh the negative in my eyes.

Because going 100% digital on POC resulted in lower prices and more sales. Unless you think PC gaming is dead, I don't know why consoles going 100% digital is so bad.

I want better sales and lower prices along with the convenience of losing the freaking discs.

 

[Zophar]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Sony/MS/Nintendo digital = DRM, 1 purchase per device, more or less (cross-play notwithstanding)

Steam has DRM, but you aren't tethered to a single device, and you can trade-in/sell back your games. Several services for digital on PC are also DRM-free. Both options you don't have in current console ecosystems.

 

[MUnited83]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Eh, it makes perfect sense of you think about it.

 

[icespide]

people don't like digital on consoles because it isn't like steam but the only way to get steam-like on consoles is if consoles go all digital. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[LewieP]

In the UK, retailers still price disc copies of games way cheaper than the PSN/Xbox live prices. The same is also true for some Nintendo games.

Depending on currency fluctuations and the prices of a given game, buying in disc in the UK is often still cheaper than buying from US PSN.

But if you are patient and keep an eye on the discounts across U.S. & UK PSN, you can get digital versions of games at a good discount these days.

 

[Briarios]

That's a weird statistic to compare, because there are more games available digitally than at retail ... so, something like Rocket League -- which isn't available at brick & mortar -- kinds of skews it. With all the DLC and digital only indie games, I'd expect online to catch up. But, that hardly means physical media is dead.

 

[dose]

How are they supposed to know this when MS and Sony don't give out digital sale info?

 

[SatoAilDarko]

I was able to get over 100 retail games form the last generation over two years for an averaged of $7 from used game sales or the occasional $10 store clearance.

I wouldn't be able to have such an impressive collection with physical games.

 

[Hawk269]

Right now, 95% of my Xbox One and about 60% of my PS4 games are Digital. PC Games are 100% Digital. But I was recently on Vacation and bought up some old school games for my Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecVision and Sega Master System and I started thinking of how I buy all my stuff Digital now. In 10 years will I be regretting that decision because if servers go off line or something else, I wont be able to enjoy my games.

I love the convenience of digital, bouncing from one game to the next, especially on the Xbox One with Kinect where I can be in the middle of one game and just say "Kinect go to Rainbow Six Siege" and boom I am in that game. But at the same time, it is nice having physical "just in case". It is a weird situation.

 

[xRaizen]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

There's a reason why many people have a backlog on Steam.. game prices just get so low. Compared to PSN/XBL? Massive difference.

 

[Deleted member 284]

Man, for my jobs sake I need to avoid this thread…

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

I've been noticing that the PSN store is putting out more sales / better sales more consistently than before. I hope this trend continues. Picked up Project Cars, The Old Blood, and Far Cry 4 for less than 25 dollars. It was great.

 

[stryke]

Wait the $5.3 billion is attributed to NPD group, don't they only track US and Canada? If so, nevermind that might be comparing worldwide digital to NA brick and mortar. Oops. Stupid CNBC.

NPD tracks other regions with the assistance of other firms but since we don't have access to NPD, can't be sure which report they're referring to.

 

[Juanfp]

I am really loving digital in my Xbox. For me is too much easier to buy games like this.

 

[Mindlog]

I'm 90% Digital. 10% Retail (sales.)
Best Buy stores are so big.
VR. Imagine having the best VR demo in town! Sell that hardware.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

It's all digital... and it's an open platform. That's a huge difference to me.

 

[entremet]

I honestly don't care.

Physical, digital, it doesn't matter to me.

Just give me good games.

With huge Day 1 patches, mandatory installs and constant updates, physical seems pretty archaic. I can understand the resale value argument, though.

 

[texhnolyze]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Ha ha! Same thing I thought when reading that post.

Lmao

So you don't get it?

 

[orochi91]

So you don't get it?

I got it, but you can't not laugh at bamboozled Jackie, lol

 

[Welfare]

$5.3b refers to the software revenue made in the US, and that is thanks to consoles, PC, and portables. $4b is worldwide.

More info can be found at this blogpost by Zhuge: https://zhugeex.com/2016/01/us-console-market-in-2015-year-in-review/

 

[JayEH]

Once it's all digital I'm switching to PC where it's all digital

Big difference between digital on console and PC.

 

[ethomaz]

US (NPD) physical vs WW Digital.

Nice way to make digital better.

Maybe that way digital can be 90%.

BTW thread title needs to be fixed.

 

[SMOK3Y]

100% digital on PS4.. well have been since PS3 days

 

[Synth]

Sony/MS/Nintendo digital = DRM, 1 purchase per device, more or less (cross-play notwithstanding)

Steam has DRM, but you aren't tethered to a single device, and you can trade-in/sell back your games. Several services for digital on PC are also DRM-free. Both options you don't have in current console ecosystems.

Um, what?...

Also, you're not tethered to a single device on consoles... you just need to actually be logged into your account to use the games on any device other than the one you've configured to work offline... like Steam.

 

[Golgo 13]

Recently got an external Drive for my X1 (surprised how flipping easy it is -- just plug and play) and now I'm beginning to "come over" to the digital side a bit more. That being said, I'll still order the vast majority of my big releases on disc, resale is just too powerful to ignore.