GTA 6 and a string of other high-profile games might be forgoing discs altogether, but US physical game sales actually grew ever so slightly for the first time in 17 years.
Rockstar Games recently caused a big online hullabaloo after announcing that physical copies of GTA 6 won't actually contain a disc come launch, just a code that lets people download a digital version. Multiple retailers began dropping what will eventually become the biggest game of the year over its code-in-a-box plan, although Circana senior director and prominent analyst Mat Piscatella predicted this won't actually have any impact on sales..
Curiously though, Piscatella also shares that physical game sales in the United States actually enjoyed a rare glimpse of hope – for the first time since 2009's feverish peak, dollars spent on physical game releases shot up year-on-year by 3%.
US new physical video game software spending. 12 months ending May 2007-2026:
— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T16:27:48.105Z
Physical game sales have been on a big decline since 2009's $11.5 billion record, but now "spending is up by 3% in the 12-month ending May 2026," according to Piscatella. Don't be too quick to celebrate now, collectors. This uptick is apparently not a sign of things to come, he says.
"The overwhelming majority of volume is done digitally now," Piscatella writes on social media. "The second hand market... doesn't really matter. More than half of all Xbox Series consoles in the US don't have a physical drive, while over a quarter of PS5s are the same. We likely have less than a decade left of physical software." Ominous indeed.
GTA 6 ignoring a real physical release is also worrying since the Rockstar Games behemoth is guaranteed to sell consoles, especially since it's not immediately coming out on PC, but many prospective console buyers might opt for hardware without disc drives thanks to the game's digital-only launch. I can only imagine that'll further snowball the death of boxed games, our ability to share them with people in our real lives, the preservation of art, and, you know, our ownership over the things we've paid for.
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