As digital games become more readily available with regular discounts, some gamers prefer to buy digitally, but that isn’t reportedly the case with PlayStation fans. Sony released thePS5over a year ago and according to a recent report, PS5 owners prefer boxed games to physical ones.
Global Sales Data has been tracking thePS5’s sales from its launch in November 2020 to the end of August 2021 in addition to observing physical and digital copies of games sold. The data discovered by Games Industry.biz has been compiled from physical games sales in 23 countries and digital game sales from 49 countries. All the major publishers are represented in this report, but some of the indie game publishers may be omitted from the report.
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Global Sales Data shows that physical copies are still consistently outselling digital games, with physical games accounting for 51% more sold copies than digital downloads over the course of the PS5’s first ten months in the market. This trend of purchasing physical over digital has only skewed more in favor of physical games as more gamers are able toget their hands on a PS5, with November 2020 showing less physical sales and August 2021 found a boom in physical sales. Digital titles saw a noticeable increase in sales between December 2020 and January 2021, but physical titles are still overall outperforming digital ones on PS5.
PS5 owners who prefer to buy digitally seemingly wait for thePlayStation Store’s Winter saleto purchase in bulk according to Global Sales Data. December and January both sold 870,000 during these two months, a figure that still falls short of the lowest-performing retail sales. The recent report showed that March 2021 was the lowest point for retail game sales, with only 880,000 games sold during the month.
Although physical PS5 games are consistently outselling their digital counterparts, the Global Sales Data report shows that November 2020 saw the opposite. Given the fact that the PS5 was released in November 2020, this may be due to the availability of physical games such asBugsnaxorSpider-Man: Miles Moralesin stores, or just to the convenience of purchasing digitally on the first day of owning a next-gen console. Global Sales Data shows that in November 2020 digital game downloads accounted for 950,000 units compared to 840,000 physical game sales.
December 2020 saw a large increase in overall PS5 game sales, with five retail titles sold for every fourdigital PS5 purchases. According to Global Sales Data, the end of August had increased this figure to three physical game sales for every two digital games, giving physical games a further edge over their digital counterparts. 10.14 million retail games were sold forPS5between the console’s launch and August 2021, with digital games only accounting for 7.51 million in sales during the same time frame.
