New physical game spending hit all-time low in 2025, analyst says

Cicana analyst Mat Piscatella reveals a quick snippet of info about the video games industry that speaks volumes on what's to come.

2

Gaming has become increasingly more and more digital-centric throughout the last decade. It's to the point where console-makers are starting not to even put in optical disc drives in their systems by default any more; all new PlayStation 5 consoles are discless by default, and Microsoft was the first to introduce the digital-only console with the Xbox Series S. Predictably, this hardware lockout has helped accelerate digital adoption, leading to consumers buying fewer and fewer physical games throughout the years.

Now we have an interesting tidbit from Circana executive director Mat Piscatella, who routinely delivers updates on games industry numbers in the United States. According to Piscatella, 2025 was an all-time low for physical game spending in the United States; buyers in the region spent less money on physical games last year than any other period in Circana's 30-year tracked history.

• Read more: Digital-only made up 66% of Xbox sales in 2025 amid console price hike
• Read more: Battlefield 6 debuts as year's best-selling game in the US, already beat BF1 lifetime sales
• Read more: Battlefield 6 was the #1 best-selling game in US

There's some good news, though, well sort of; the rate of decline for physical game sales is slowing down, dropping -11% between 2024 and 2025. For comparison, physical game spending dropped -28% between 2023 and 2024.

"So, in 2025 US new physical video game spending fell 11% compared to 2024. This is the lowest rate of decline since 2021 (-8%), and far better than the -28% recorded in 2024," Piscatella wrote on BlueSky.

"However, spending on new physical video games also reached only $1.5 billion in 2025, an all-time tracked (since 1995) low."

Meanwhile, as companies funnel consumers into digital lanes for better profits, it's likely that discs and cartridges won't just suddenly vanish any time soon.

Sony, in particular, has a vested interest to keep pushing disc-based media in order to serve customers with poor internet access. PlayStation faces a worldwide infrastructure roadblock that it can't immediately address when it comes to converting physical to digital in a more complete way, yet the company's full game sales haven't dipped below 70% digital for many quarters in a row.

PlayStation does indeed make hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter on physical game sales, yet the last two holiday quarters--Q3'24 and Q3'25--have delivered considerably lower results compared to previous years.

Check below for a quick look at Sony's physical software revenues: