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New fiscal report shows that physical game sales only made up 3% of PlayStation's revenue

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Physical media continues to hang on. But a recent sales report from PlayStation shows just how little of an impact it has to the company's revenue. The document details the composition of PlayStation's earnings for the 2024 fiscal year. The biggest driving force was add-on content, which made up a whopping 29% of revenue, while digital game sales made up 20%. Physical game releases, however, brought in 3% of PlayStation's overall income. That rate is down from the 6% that it was in PlayStation's 2020 fiscal year report.

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Physical died in 2006, but people still try to make it work huh...
Think of the price as a way to help the devs for their work
If you want to own a game, pirate it, or buy it on GoG and keep you backups safe.

And that only applies to the final product, not even the source code.

There's no other way around this.
 
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Xzi said:
Not sure if it was in this same report or not, but as much as 45% of Sony's first-party revenue came from game sales on PC. Speaks to how big PC gaming has gotten that it's a majority of Microsoft's sales and almost a majority of Sony's sales, but it also speaks to how few first-party games have released on PS5.
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More like how badly the PS5 has been in terms of Sony doing the bare fucking minimum and making games. They've been stuck trying to chase the live service model for several years now while burning untold millions for projects they canceled or ended up in stillbirth if they do end up releasing like Concord did.

Just to remind you, they canceled most of the live service games they claimed they had planned and the ones still "being made" like Fairgames and Bungie's new Marathon have been in development hell as Sony has been shoveling more and more money at them hoping it would solve it, all while trying to make the shareholders not dump thier stocks by making the PS5 seem like it's making more money than the PS4 all while ignoring inflation and not explaining if that "success" has the PS4's revenue it's still making factored in (It absolutely does), and that money's got to come from somewhere, and it sure as fuck isn't comming from the PS5, it's from the microtransactions and DLCs they get a cut of, the PS4's PS2-like staying power, and the PC ports that were made out of sheer desparation to keep as much money flowing into those getting those live services off the ground as they can instead of giving what people want and making actual games for the things they bought.

If I was an investor, I'd be asking many, many question in regard to why the people running it is so fucking inept.
 
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Chary said:
I rent most of my games through Gamefly, still. So physical media consumption is still my primary way of playing PS5 games.

Accessing disc-based games is hardly a struggle. You can Doordash Death Stranding 2 from Best Buy, for goodness sakes. Convenience is winning out amongst most consumers, here. Not everyone playing on PS5 is laser-focused on games preservation or the horrors of an all-digital landscape, so it's not shocking why physical sales are trickling slowly to nothing.
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yeah you can get litterally 3 1/2 months worth of rental(s) any system for the price of 1 title through gamefly turn around time is decent depending on where the nearest warehouse is and better yet fast returns (they ship the next one a day after you send your return through the post office
 
Hippocampus_Hamster said:
When almost all the games on the system aren't wholly available on disc and require massive downloads to play, if not downloading the entire game anyway, then why even buy physical media?
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But they are?? Like I said, 92% of PS4 games and 94% of PS5 games [also, 98% of Switch games] are playable to completion offline with most not even having a download recommended.
 
This has the younger generation to blame, theyre the ones falling for all this digital only crap.

Console gaming will end up like pc gaming, digital only and then what's the point in paying for shit your never going to own.
 
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I for one have mostly digital media. Not because its smart or better but because im lazy and do mot want to change disks. Im all for physicla media, but i have a question. Most games nowadays arent even on the physical media. All ps4 games i had on physical media startet the game download as soon as i clicked install. So i just wanna know what the difference is? If they take down a certain game you cant download it with your cd either so i dont really get the hype.
 
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BlackZero500 said:
I for one have mostly digital media. Not because its smart or better but because im lazy and do mot want to change disks. Im all for physicla media, but i have a question. Most games nowadays arent even on the physical media. All ps4 games i had on physical media startet the game download as soon as i clicked install. So i just wanna know what the difference is? If they take down a certain game you cant download it with your cd either so i dont really get the hype.
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Not another misinformed gamer...

The vast majority of PS4/5 discs do have the game on them, from where they're installed onto the HDD/SSD without ever connecting to Sony's servers. The next time you buy a disc, try putting it in your console that's not online and see it magically "download". :P

As for why they need to be installed, do you really think 200Mbps of bandwidth is enough to run modern titles? That's slower than USB 2.0, lol.
Retrojunkies said:
This has the younger generation to blame, theyre the ones falling for all this digital only crap.

Console gaming will end up like pc gaming, digital only and then what's the point in paying for shit your never going to own.
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Way too many people are falling for the "convenience" of digital, which only tightens the console manufacturer's grip on your balls and hastens the death of video games, an already "disposable" art form.
 
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This report, which has to be accurate or they'd be in trouble with the SEC amongst others, doesn't so much show that Sony only gets 3% of revenues from physical sales, it shows that 97% of self-important gamers who drone on about game preservation and lament the death of physical media are living in a fever dreamworld where everyone cares about their concerns. Clearly 97% of people do not care, and find the whole physical ownership drivel hilarious in a world of Netflix and Xbox GamePass. Get over yourselves. The only gaming company on Earth that cares about gamers that want to own a physical copy is Nintendo, obviously, as the others have already made plans to have an optical disc as an add-on device on their next consoles. Those of us in the PC Master Race long ago stopped wasting storage/shelf space on wasteful plastic and cardboard and have never looked back. Time for the rest of you to put on your grown-up pants and stop whining. Like the other 97% of Sony gamers clearly already have.
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Bladexdsl said:
well no shit the ps5 pro has no disc drive unless you purchase it which i reckon 90% of ps5 pro owners did not. this was their plan all along
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A plan that obviously PS5 Pro purchasers had no problem with whatsoever. I mean you speak of this "plan" as if Doctor Evil came up with it. If ACTUAL gamers were against it, they'd actually be buying physical games, which they clearly aren't. So the plan isn't evil, it is what everybody else (97% of us) wants. Five years from now when Nintendo first party cartridges are the last physical games available on Earth, I'll bet even the clickbait Youtubers will have stopped their incessant whining about physical media. In any case, they have already lost.
 
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Sounds about right. 90% of my PS5 games are digital. I still haven't get around to buy the disc drive for my Pro either, as I have no need for it atm. I still have the OG PS5 for the physical and PS4 stuff, but the Pro with 4tb ssd installed pretty good for me atm.
 
Physical games rarely get launched with digital counterpart. It's usually months or one year after and its never done on a large scale, its either limited runs or specific region launch. What ends up happening is most people would just buy the digital copy and be done.

It's a deliberate sabotage to give them reason to move to digital only.
 
Chary said:
digital game sales made up 20%. Physical game releases, however, brought in 3% of PlayStation's overall income.
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...Because they're making it so, not because people necessarily want it. People will follow a trend whether they like it or not, usually. It's pretty sad to see such mindlessness in our society.
 
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I'd buy more digital if only the games were cheaper than physical. Though recently I've noticed that online sales are often cheaper than any physical option at the time, in Australia anyway.
 
I mean this was nearly a year ago, so what's with the fake outrage at the Captain Obvious announcement from Sony this week? These toddlers act like they were blindsided. 🤣
 
What a meaningless piece of statistics. Of course you can say that direct sales of physical discs amount to 3% of their revenue, because those just cover the base game. Not the subscription you need to pay in order to play it online. Not the DLC that it gets at some point after the initial release. Not microtransactions or other scummy monetization schemes. NOT EVEN THE CONSOLE THAT YOU NEED TO PLAY THEM.

3% is not the important number here. It's just an excuse for a really bad business decision. What matters is how much revenue they'll actually lose due to said decision. That's gonna be way more than just 3%, because one certainly doesn't buy DLC for a base game they haven't purchased at all. And why would I buy the console if I can't buy its games the way I intend to?
 
yankii said:
They're counting it in a way that makes physical seem insignificant. 3% is just the revenue they make, so a 30% cut of disc sales or thereabouts. And digital likely includes microtransactions, PSO subs and crap too.
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Well, I'll join the re-un-necro-ing...as pointed out by @yankii above, they are counting the revenue in a biased way to emphasize digital and undercount physical media sales.

Sony is looking at any %-age that the stores (including any Mom-and-Pop stores, if any are still around) and viewing that money made by local retailers as money they are leaving on the table.

Rather than sharing any percentage with anybody else, they just want it all. And they'll get it with digital-only sales.
 

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