2020 was the year of digital, even for videogames. Two of the consoles released this year, Xbox series s e PlayStation 5 Digital they have no disk drives at all, and if we take a look at the sales numbers of these few months, the figure is not bad at all, demonstrating a strong predominance of digital over the physical format. This is what emerges from the study published by the colleagues of GamesIndustry, which found a clear predominance, in 2020, for the market without physical support
Based on current data, it seems that this year gamers have chosen to buy more in digital format, slowly abandoning the physical format and preferring downloadable versions of their favorite games. Many factors seem to have helped push the game in this direction, including the arrival of Stadia, a console from Google that only streams games without storing them, as of November 2019, as well as the Sony and discless Xbox consoles. The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic was also accelerating the transition to digital in 2020, which has forced many shops to close. In 2020, the video game industry grossed $ 158 billion in global digital revenue. Physical sales, however, were only $ 14,9 billion. This includes games for mobile devices, consoles, PCs and tablets, but also paid DLC and in-app purchases. Downloads from the digital store such as the PlayStation Store accounted for 73% of total sales. Physical sales for consoles were 28%, down from 37% in 2019, 40% in 2018 and 50% in 2017. As for the market shares controlled by the different platforms, these show how mobile domains with 86,4 billion dollars, equal to 49% of the entire market, increased by 25% compared to the previous year, with the following consoles able to generate 51,2 billion dollars (+ 21% compared to the previous year) for a 29% compared to the overall market and finally the PC with 37,4 , 6,2 billion dollars, with a lower growth, equal to 22%, which keep it at XNUMX% as a covered "market share".
Most likely, this decline in physical sales will continue as digital becomes more affordable, with consoles ditching physical media. And which side are you on? Do you prefer digital videogames or are you still fond of the disc?
