The July sales figures aren’t positive, which only serves to justify Sony’s decision, at least in the United States.
Physical game sales in the United States reached the lowest monthly total ever recorded in July: revenue fell to just $85 million, the weakest result since Circana (formerly NPD) began tracking the market in 1995. These figures provide clear evidence supporting Sony’s controversial decision to stop producing new physical PlayStation discs in January 2028. According to Mat Piscatella, a Circana analyst, spending on physical game releases fell sharply in July, compounding an already declining trend. Last month, only two PlayStation games sold more than 10,000 physical copies in the week ending July 11. Meanwhile, seven games have sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the United States since the beginning of the year.
Hardware sales were no exception: U.S. console sales fell 29% compared to last year, generating $282 million—the weakest July result since 2020—while unit sales plummeted 39% compared to July 2025. This decline occurred despite the fact that the average price of new consoles rose by 16% compared to the previous year, reaching $542. This confirms that consumers are buying significantly fewer consoles, presumably due to rising prices. Among the remaining physical releases, the market is heavily skewed toward Nintendo. Its platforms accounted for 63% of all physical game sales during the tracked period, while PlayStation trailed behind with 32%. Meanwhile, Xbox has become virtually negligible on physical store shelves. So far this year, the platform has accounted for only 4% of physical game sales in the United States.
This one-month period is part of a much longer trend. In the United States, spending on physical games totaled just $1.5 billion in 2025—an all-time low—representing an 11% decline from 2024. This steep decline from the format’s 2008 peak of $11.6 billion means that spending on physical software has plummeted by approximately 87% over the past 17 years, even before adjusting for inflation. These figures certainly explain Sony’s decision to discontinue disc production. Since disc-based games now account for a small, steadily declining share of total sales (even for a platform owner like PlayStation, where physical media holds a larger market share than Xbox), maintaining a manufacturing and distribution chain dedicated to a format generating a mere $85 million across all publishers and platforms combined is becoming increasingly difficult to justify financially, despite complaints from consumers and developers.
It remains to be seen whether Xbox will stick with physical discs in an effort to regain support from dissatisfied hardcore gamers, as Digital Foundry recently speculated.
