PlayStation’s decision to stop releasing disc-based games won’t have an impact on Nintendo’s plans for this generation, market research firm Circana has told VGC.
Sony announced on Wednesday that physical disc games will be discontinued for PlayStation consoles from January 2028, and that after this date, new games from all publishers will be digital only.
Sharing his thoughts on the announcement with VGC, Circana senior director and video game industry advisor Mat Piscatella said he thought the decision to move entirely away from physical media would happen eventually, and that if Xbox follows suit with Project Helix, it will likely mean Switch 2 will be the only system in this generation to have physical games.
“It was inevitably going to happen someday,” Piscatella said. “I didn’t think an announcement would happen today, but hey it’s 2026 and things just happen all the time, don’t they.
“Sales of new physical video games have fallen every year since the late 2000s. You may have seen the chart I posted over on Bluesky that has the US data for 12 months ending May. The US physical market has recently seen the slightest growth because of Nintendo Switch 2, but that won’t last.
“Through a combination of consumer preference and manufacturer strategic decisions, we are now seeing Sony announce it will cease production of physical discs in January 2028. This will result in lower sales of video game software at retail (although publishers will still certainly sell code in box or special editions in physical boxes at retail for as long as it makes sense to do so), and it is now safe to assume that both PlayStation 6 and Project Helix will be digital-only devices.”
This will most likely leave Nintendo as the last console manufacturer that will produce physical media through at least the end of the Switch 2 lifecycle, Piscatella added.
“All of this will result in more of a psychological shift than a true market shift. The market shift has already happened. But it does seem to be marking the end of an era in video games.
“A lot of players will be (justifiably) very unhappy with these decisions. But physical media in video games will only last so long as the console manufacturers allow it to, and we’re now one step closer to its death. It’s a sad day in the world of video games.”
Piscatella added that despite Sony’s decision, and reports that Microsoft is also working on a way for disc-owning players to move over to a digital-only future, Nintendo will be unlikely to stop releasing cartridges in response, but he did stress that this year has already thrown up plenty of surprises, so nothing is certain.
“My gut says Nintendo does what Nintendo wants to do, and I don’t see them changing anything in their plans based on what Sony or Microsoft do on anything, really,” he explained. “Nintendo is going to be Nintendo, for better and/or worse.
“Retail has already leaned into Nintendo support more and more over the past few years (Nintendo also holds very strong share of physical software and hardware sales since the launch of Switch 2 in particular), so this could continue to increase, sure.
“It’s not like boxes on shelves will go away entirely with this change. There will be more codes in box, more merch, maybe more special editions with swag included, that kind of thing. But the change should also result in the continued decline in physical game retail spend.
“But yeah, we’re kind of in dartboard territory when it comes to things. The day is young (in the US at least). Anything could still happen today, tomorrow, surely Monday. It’s madness.”
