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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