He believes that sales of physical game releases no longer carry much weight for their retail chain.
GameStop’s CEO, Ryan Cohen, shared his opinion on Sony’s decision to end production of PlayStation 5 (and possibly PlayStation 6) discs, stating that it doesn’t matter at all. In an interview with Bloomberg, Cohen said that Sony’s complete shift toward digital is irrelevant. Software used to be important. Today, however, it accounts for less than 12% of the business, while collectible merchandise makes up more than half. “This is completely irrelevant,” Cohen asserts.
This may seem like an unusual opinion coming from the CEO of a retail chain known for video games. However, as highlighted in the Bloomberg article, software sales account for only 18% of GameStop’s business. Collectibles, such as Pokémon cards, make up a much larger portion of the business, accounting for 41% of sales. This is a significant shift from the main driver of sales in the past: the purchase and resale of physical video games.
Cohen said that GameStop earned $143 million in the first quarter of 2026, calling it the highest operating profit in the company’s history. He believes that everyone in the media wants GameStop to go bankrupt. Explain to him why the mainstream media wants GameStop to fail. In May, GameStop made a $56 billion bid to acquire eBay, but the company rejected the offer, deeming it neither credible nor attractive.
This was not the first controversial business decision the company has made. In 2022, the retailer announced the launch of an NFT marketplace, which shut down after 18 months—another major setback for GameStop. Despite their attempts to ride the wave of the NFT craze, it’s not so easy to recover from this. Even Ubisoft tried this and failed.
