PlayStation fans continue to demand physical game discs from the company after it announced it would stop making them in 2028, but actual sales numbers gathered by Circana industry analyst Mat Piscatella suggest that – as much as I hate saying this – Sony might be right.
People are not buying physical games, though the 12,000 wailing comments under the latest Marvel's Wolverine trailer might confuse you into thinking you fell asleep and woke up in a physical media Eden. But – I'm consoling my tired, creaking DVD shelf as I say this – we are not in Eden, as Piscatella reveals only seven PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the US this year.
"2 PlayStation video games sold more than 10k physical units in the US during week ending July 11, 2026," the analyst shares on Bluesky, "7 have sold more than 100k physical units year-to-date." Global estimates from earlier this month by Alinea Analytics suggest EA Sports FC 26, Resident Evil Requiem, and 007 First Light might be among those seven games, as each saw at least 12% of their millions of international sales derive from physical games. In Requiem's case, a hefty 27.8% of its 3.5 million copies sold are estimated to have come from physical discs.
Those are not small numbers. But they're not big for PlayStation, either, especially when considering the fact that Piscatella's data comes from "all games, all pubs, all PS platforms," he explains.
Things used to look very different for all games, all pubs, all platforms. According to a wedge-shaped chart Piscatella posted on Bluesky in June, US consumer spending on physical games went on a sleigh ride downhill from $11.5 billion in 2009 to $1.6 billion in 2026. We're still nurturing a capital-B Billion, but that wad of cash is a much smaller prize for Sony than it's used to.
Piscatella predicted this summer, "More than half of all Xbox Series consoles in the US don't have a physical drive, while over a quarter of PS5's are the same. We likely have less than a decade left of physical software."
Now, PlayStation is fulfilling the prophecy. Piscatella says about players' recent outrage, "Commenting is cool, use your voice and all that. But commenting is cheap." So, remember, if you really do care about physical discs, buy them.
