According to statistics, digital distribution dominates the biggest releases on PlayStation. In FC 26, only 12% of sales were physical copies, the rest were digital versions. For Crimson Desert, the share of discs was less than 20%.
Publishers and Sony are most concerned about the situation with story-driven single-player games, such as Resident Evil Requiem. Since its February release, the game has sold 3.5 million copies on PS5 and generated about $250 million, of which 27.8% came from discs.
At the same time, about a quarter of players complete the game in less than 10 hours. This leads to hundreds of thousands of physical copies quickly entering the secondary market, depriving publishers and platform holders of a portion of their revenue.
The highest percentage of disc sales in 2026 was shown by Ghost of Yotei — 35.4% of 1.2 million copies sold.
Meanwhile, digital releases, such as Arc Raiders, show stable 2.1 million sales without the cost of producing physical media.
Abandoning discs will allow Sony and publishers to fully control pricing, keep games at full price longer, and effectively destroy the secondary market.