So even when including all digital-only games and DLC, it’s still at 38.5% who are buying physical. That’s monumentally high on it’s own and more then enough reason to keep physical games going for a fair while longer.
But that raises the question. Why is Nintendo adding so much digital-only purchases to the statistics? The current narrative is that Nintendo wants physical media to stay, so why would they be skewing the statistics so much just like Sony has been doing if they were so pro-physical?
Because Nintendo did not provide these statistics (directly). This is data mined from their financial filings. Nintendo reported their total software revenue and broke it down between transactions that occurred via their digital store front and outside of it. At the surface level, Nintendo is just explaining to its investors why it is worth selling via both a first party digital store (which is a large expense I imagine) and third party stores.
Any assumptions about physical vs. digital game sales are strictly coming from reporters pulling numbers out of context.
To counter PlayStation’s narrative I should think. Calling out their bullshit in essence. Come on Microsoft, announce a disc drive for next gen and really give Sony a middle finger!
XBOX has even less physical sales than PlayStation. I think they were at over 90% digital even few years back. Even the games they release, (some of these?) are “unofficial Game Key Cards”, with disc only containing few MBs of data, rest of all is downloaded.
This is not an anti-XBOX comment, just saying they when talking about these 3 consoles, they care the least about physical media.
But that’s kind of my point. If Nintendo was trying to break apart Sony’s ‘no one buys physical anymore’ narrative, then why would they be skewing the statistics of their sales so much by not only including purchases of digital-only games, but also throwing in all sales of DLC, Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs AND Nintendo Switch Online payments? If they didn’t skew the statistics so much, the number of physical game sales would probably be over 50%. They could have destroyed Sony’s narrative so much more if they calculated everything properly.
Because the metric that matters to the games companies is the proportion of total software revenue that comes from physical sales, not the proportion of games sold that are physical copies.
Exactly. I seriously doubt any of these corps couldn’t put together statistics for non-exclusively digital releases vs. their physical counterparts if they really wanted to.
For Sony it makes sense, because the statistics are a means to an end - but Nintendo is trying to justify physical sales, so why are they skewing the data too?? Are they really sabotaging their own argument because they can’t be bothered to parse the data properly?
Think corporate. Their math is different from actual math.
They probably want to switch to subscription and digital only as well eventually, with their NSO NSO+ and NSO++. Think of the profit margin for the quarter when they remove all physical product and lay everyone off.
This also doesn’t account for the second hand market. That’s 38.5% of all NEW sales. Since there is no used digital market, that probably means physical sales still account for over half of all sales.
To the dev/publisher/console storefront operator, a used game sale without a DLC attachment is the same as a pirated copy. Same result: you play zelda, nintendo receives $0.
Killing the used market is why Sony’s killing discs, full stop. Sony (or anyone else) doesn’t make the full value off of a disc game because they had to pay a bunch of manufacturers and shippers and middlemen. So if a digital copy makes them $60, a physical one new makes them let’s say $35 of the customer’s $60. And a physical used one makes them $0, even though the customer paid $40. Don’t forget this also applies to third party games: Sony gets a cut of every digital sale and new disc sale, but $0 from every used sale. If a million used $40 games get sold, that’s Sony watching customers spend $40 million on Sony products without Sony getting a dime - even if we pretend that every used game buyer would be a non-buyer instead of willing to pay full price, Sony goes from getting $0 to getting $0 from those customers when they kill used games.
All Sony’s calculus has to say to make killing discs “worth it” is “some percentage of people that buy games physical (thus we get less of their $60 that they are provably willing to spend) and used (thus we get nothing from their $20-40) will now be buying digital copies”. That percentage does not need to be high.
Even Nintendo’s 38% (which refers exclusively to Nintendo games, not eshop exclusives and third parties that generate Nintendo revenue) is lower than it needs to be to ensure physical is the “right choice”. Every physical sale is a lower profit per sale for Nintendo, if they make 38% “sales” of a given game with 40% overhead (cartridges are way more expensive than blu-rays to manufacture and source), that means the physical copies actually represent 22% of a given game’s profit. And then you consider how many of those physical buyers would buy digital if the other option was “don’t buy Zelda”. That’s why Nintendo’s current strategy is to pass the non-savings on to the customer by pricing physical games higher than downloads.
Nintendo is intentionally misrepresenting the value of their physical market to one-up Sony. This is a company that argues in court that every download of TOTK from a pirate website is $60 that would have been spent on the game. Seems to me that they’d have a much easier time believing that every purchase of new TOTK from a GameStop is $60 that would have been spent on the eShop, and that some number of $40s spent on the used game would have bought it digitally if they couldn’t have the savings from a used cart.
Oh, I know, but I was calling out that the numbers they report downplay the significance of the physical game market.
Also, that doesn’t really tell the whole story. We don’t know how much people who buy physical still interact with digital goods. Nor do we know how removing digital may shift consumers elsewhere.
Assuming that by removing physical you’ll push a majority to buy your digital goods is an assumption, not a guarantee.
For example, I’ve moved away from consoles because if I’m going to buy it digitally, I might as well buy it for PC. That gives me greater control over how I play my games as well as more control over my games.
They don’t need to push “a majority” of current physical-preferring customers to digital, if the physical copy loses them 30% of the profit and 38% of sales for a game are physical, that means pushing half of new physical buyers over to digital and losing the other half of those customers entirely is slightly behind breaking even. That’s before assuming that a single dollar spent on used copies would have instead been spent on the eShop.
The only reason for Nintendo to not abandon these customers entirely is if they aren’t actually physical copy die-hards in the first place: they’re good little subscription paypiggies or totally fine with buying eShop exclusive games anyway. Their data currently leans in favor of tolerating the used market and lower margins on physical game sales. It will very likely shift, especially when it comes time to renew the agreements they’ve made with their manufacturing and shipping providers.
Nintendo’s doing what Sony did, testing the waters to see how many of their customers are willing to ditch physical for digital. They’re doing it by up-pricing physical first party games, while Sony did it by charging you an extra $100 (+33%) up front if you wanted to have the ability to play discs on your console. Sony is now acting on the customer data they have from their experiment, Nintendo will (as usual) be a generation behind. Right now, getting a physical copy for $60 vs a digital one for $60 is kind of a no brainer, unless you really don’t like swapping cartridges. As soon as customers start to ask themselves if having that cartridge is worth another $10, Nintendo will have the data they need.
Honestly, it’s so dishonest on all fronts that digital-only content is being thrown into these stats. Of course something only offered digitally is going to be bought digitally.
I don’t believe for a second that Sony, Nintendo, etc. don’t have separate data for each and every category of media they sell, and so could absolutely do an apples to apples comparison of digital vs. physical sales if they actually wanted to.
Data-driven decision making my arse. They’re driving the data.
Because Nintendo did not provide these statistics (directly). This is data mined from their financial filings. Nintendo reported their total software revenue and broke it down between transactions that occurred via their digital store front and outside of it. At the surface level, Nintendo is just explaining to its investors why it is worth selling via both a first party digital store (which is a large expense I imagine) and third party stores.
Any assumptions about physical vs. digital game sales are strictly coming from reporters pulling numbers out of context.
but then, wouldn’t the “physical” stats also include download codes you can buy at stores? maybe those are few enough in sales to be negligible, idk
it would also certainly include game key cards
While I agree, it does proves the argument that if there is content available only digitally, people will buy it.
Lemmy loves to shit all over Nintendo. The fact is that their first-party physical games hold value and only increase over time.
Buying physical on Sony and Xbox just doesn’t matter outside of the $8 you’ll get on it at GameStop or the $10 you’ll get selling on OfferUp.
Well, technically, Nintendo’s first party games hold there their price because Nintendo never lowers or discounts their games. I recently looked at Deku Deals (a price tracking website for games across all platforms), and none of the Nintendo’s first party games on the eShop I looked at had any discounts since late 2024. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch release title, 2017) originally released at €70 is still sold at €70, and last discount at eShop was summer 2024.
True that Nintendo rarely puts games on sale, but BOTW was on sale on the eShop like a month or two ago.
physical is where the discounts are for the Nintendo platform
This one is not surprising that it’s higher than Xbox’s and Sony’s, considering Nintendo’s digital store rarely, if ever, has anything go on sale while the physical games actually drop in price over time (or if bought pre-owned drop significantly after only a few months).
Because your eshop sucks ass.
Is that because Nintendo never have digital sales on their own games but retailers seem to have heavy discounts on physical
“Physical” lol. Aren’t a lot of them just like activation keys now, and no game content on disk?
Not really… The majority are still physical, particularly first party games. I would say there are a lot of key card games but not the majority
Also even with key cards that means people are still opting to have the “inconvenience” of switching the cartridge to play the game over fully digital showing that they still care about having a physical item in their hand, even if it is a sham
You can also sell or trade the key cards, unlike fully digital purchases. This is basically what Xbox and Playstation have been doing the last couple generations with discs, Nintendo is just more up-front about how it works.
No the vast majority of games are on cart.
I said some. You said majority not. Ok? You’re basically saying the same thing I am.
They just started doing that earlier this year for a handful of titles. I doubt there has been enough time for a significant number of titles to implement that.
The numbers reported are not even about “physical” vs. digital sales. As I understand it, is software sales conducted in the Nintendo Switch Store vs. software sales from other stores. So a customer buying an activation key in a box will count as a physical sale.
This is an important data point, since it shows that some customers would rather drive down to GameStop, buy a code in a box, drive home, and punch that code into the console rather than giving Nintendo their credit card (probably because they are buying the game for someone else). That means that stopping sales outside the console games store would alienate a ton of customers.
Some third-party games are Game Key Cards. Some are properly on the cartridge.
I refuse to buy Nintendo. But when I used to, I used to buy all the physical media games I could. Got then used and almost always managed to sell them on fo a couple of £s more than I got them.
