The FY2026 Q1 earnings are in for Sony and PlayStation, and one of the figures that draws the most attention is digital sales. The great physical and digital debate will rage on for months, if not years, unless something changes, but new Sony figures highlight why PlayStation is heading in this direction.
Frustration continues to ring around the gaming industry. Sony‘s shocking decision to end physical media support still reverberates even now. Hideo Kojima has described it as ‘frightening,’ whereas Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser thinks ‘players should still have physical game options.’
But digital sales remain extremely high.
Sony FY2026 Q1 Earnings Continue to Support Digital Shift
Sony’s FY2026 Q1 Earnings Announcement is out.
It delves into a mindboggling assortment of statistics and numbers, but if we check the company’s financial statement for this period, we can find a section on ‘PlayStation 5 hardware and software unit sales.’
Under ‘Full game software digital download ratio,’ for both the PS4 and PS5, we can see that sales are accounted for by 82%!
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So, only 18% of software sales were physical media. The first quarter of FY2025 showed that 83% of sales were digital, which means it is a 1% decrease, but the overall picture is clear—PlayStation games have been mostly sold as digital for a long time.
Whether we like it or not, it just adds more fuel to the Sony fire, even if it is a universally unpopular decision.
Interestingly, Sony has finally addressed the fan backlash towards ending PlayStation discs.
Will Sony ever realistically reverse its decision to make PlayStation go fully digital? Share your thoughts in the official Insider Gaming Discord Server.
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Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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I can understand that Digital is easier to download and install, however from my own research there are 73 countries out of 191 that can access PSN, this leaves 118 that can’t so it is clear Digital is not going to help those with no PSN access or bad internet. I have been a Sony PS player since PS2 (never had a PS1) and still have 1 x PS2, 3 x PS3, 3 x PS4, 2 x PS5, a PS Vita, 2 x PS VR, 1 x PS VR2 and a PS Portal. All of my PS consoles are Disc based, I still have all my games for all the consoles including PS Vita.
Sony does not have a good record for hardware, as I had a PSP sold it for the PS Vita, only to find it scrapped in 2 years. When the PS VR2 was launched I pre-ordered it and then it was announced that the pre-orders were bad and they cut back on production. The only good game at launch was Horizon Zero Dawn: Call of the Mountain (I have all Horizon games and play them loads of times), they launched the PS Portal, but its not really any good as a portaable as you need a 100% stable networked RJ45 connection to use it.
Sony then launched a PS5 disc and PS5 digital, they had the digital priced about £100-140 lower, and parents and others who wanted a PS5 bought digital as it was cheaper so Sony were pushing the consumers to Digital. Eventually they scrapped the PS5 Disc console, launched it as only Digital and the add on drive was made at about £100, but it is not suprising the sales of the add on drive never materialised. Now they are planning on a Wireless Digital Joystick which I understand has been delayed. I know a lot of friends of mine who are only PS5 disc based, and one said to me recently, he has not seen any show stopping 5 star games on the PS5, and won’t be buying the PS6, plus never bought the PS VR 2 for the same reason. I think their stats do not cover users who buy disc based consoles who live in countries with no Internet or no access to PSN and a lot of users need to be able to trade/sell games back to recoup something, and it keeps the thriving disc based games market alive and also employees of shops that deal with the trade and resale of games.
I own both all PS and Xbox, and whilst I might buy a few digital, if I like them enough and find them on physical I buy again so I have them to keep for ever. The PS consoles (and Xbox) also server a blu-ray player and I have a 3D project since 3D TVs are no longer made, but the PS3 and PS4 support 3D so its a no brainer for me. Cancelling my PSN sub to me is not worth it as I use the Basic PSN to back up saves, and see the games of the month, something I will continue to do, but I have no interest in the middle tier or streaming one, and the basic one at £60 works out at 0.16p per day, so I don’t think cancelling this will make any difference so I have no plans to cancel it and continue subscribing. However like a lot of friends who are avid PS players of both physical games and digital as we get the “CHOICE” I think if Sony continue with Digital they may lose a lot of customers on the PS6 (it would have to be low priced and games cheaper) and SSD storage is not cheap, as my PS5 has 4tb and when bought that was over £250. I would sadly be a customer not to buy the PS6, and even though I have an Xbox X and 3 x Xbox S (2 x 360 and Xbox One) the benefits of MS Expansions cards to unplug and use in another console offers me a better way to retain games, I will watch MS with interest (as I will with Sony) but I suspect Sony PS5 will be my last console if the PS6 is all digital.