As the years have progressed and the video game industry matures, we have seen a shift in purchasing trends from physical media to digital. This ratio of physical to digital has been changing with each year. According to Sony now, 80% of their game sales are digital, possibly representing the end of an era for physical media.

Sony recently held a financial presentation where the CEO of Sony Interactive entertainment, Jim Ryan, discussed the sales performance of the PlayStation brand. Alongside the announcement that PS5 stock shortages will continue until 2024, Ryan noted that there has been a noticeable shift in the trend of game purchases vis-à-vis the relationship between physical and digital sales.

Having seen growth in this area every year since 2013, the 2021 Fiscal Year represents the biggest for digital gaming yet, with 80% of all PS4 spending being of the digital variety. This represents an increase of 3 percentage points over FY2020 and 14 percentage points over FY2019’s numbers.

It is worth noting that this ratio accounts for all online sales in general, meaning microtransactions are included. That being said, even when looking purely at the sales of full games, the trend toward an all-digital future is clear.

In looking only at the sale of full games, 66% of the sales were digital. This is only a 1 percentage point increase over FY2020, but again, this followed from a much bigger jump between FY2019 and 2020, where digital sales increased from 53% to 65% in just a single 365 day period.

While it’s clear from the chart that COVID has played a major role in the shift towards digital, the trend was already set long ago, and so it is seemingly only a matter of time before the video games industry is all-digital.

KitGuru says: Do you care about physical media? Do you own more physical or digital games? Was Valve ahead of its time? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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