Link: https://www.ign.com/articles/35-percent-marvels-wolverine-sales-disc

According to retail data, 35% of Marvel’s Wolverine sales were physical discs. This comes from Ampere Analysis (via The Game Business), which tracks sales data across major markets globally.

The data suggests Wolverine shifted 2.16 million units in September (it went on sale September 15), and a significant portion of those sales were on-disc. In Europe, 51% of Wolverine sales came from the boxed version. Zooming in, more than two thirds were physical sales in France, but two thirds were digital in the UK.

... doesn't that prove their point?

I can't really name many businesses who'd be happy to part with more than a third of their customers.

That's a preference though, not a hard loss

These customers had the option to purchase a digital copy, but preferred to either drive to a store or wait a few days for a delivery. That means a lot.

Either that, or they don't have access to high speed internet and relied on the physical copy to get the game in a reasonable amount of time.

You're right that we don't know how many customers they'd lose, but it's up to 1/3 of Wolverine players, and that's pretty enormous. I think if you get hyper fixated on one data point too, you can make a stupid decision that loses the forest for the trees.

Those numbers are probably inflated by customers "sticking it to Sony" because the purchases are done after Sony announced killing physical.

As for parting with a third (or more realistically a fifth like the former PS boss mentioned), that's just a simple math question. Is the cost of keeping factories running, studios creating "masters", keeping the supply chain active, factoring in the retail margin and maybe some other cost factors I don't remember off the bat. Is all of that worth keeping 20% of the customers around? The profit margin, compared to selling digital directly, is probably non-existent.

A console business largely lives and dies by how many customers it has in the first place, so cutting out double digit percentages of them sounds like a hell of a bad idea to me. As an anecdote, I've got friends who buy plenty of digital games on consoles because there is no physical option, but when physical is an option, they do so. That sounds like you could easily convince them to just buy everything on digital then, right? Well, maybe not. If physical is never an option, they'd wonder why they bother with a console in the first place, since they can't save money on used copies (either selling a new copy and recouping some cost or buying used at a discount) ever. At that point, why not just play on PC where the online is free and the discounts are better? With no disc drive, they lose most of their reason for playing on console at all.

Anyway, it looks stupid to me to cut out the physical market in the 2020s, and I haven't even bought a physical game for 4 years.

Sony must surely have some alternate motive for this, since it's clearly going to cost them a fuckton in sales.

Not all that third would avoid buying if it was digital only

They've publicly declared to their investors that they can't expect a growth market anymore (perhaps because of RAMpocalypse, or maybe consoles were just tapped out anyway), so they're instead focusing on maximizing revenue per user.

And how is this contributing to "revenue per user"?

There are far higher profit margins on digital copies compared to physical.

Why wouldn't they just increase the prices on physical copies to compensate?

Another greed grab unless they can ensure that bought copies can be played indefinitely.

They want to annihilate the second hand market, so every copy sold is through them.
Trading in your old games you don't play to buy the next one is a staple of console life for many, but Sony doesn't get a cut of the second hand games sold.

CeX is the place to go to get games near me, seeing as Game got swallowed by Sports Direct and hollowed out leaving Smyths, Argos and supermarkets the place to buy new games.
Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft would love CeX to implode but it won't happen whilst there are a steady stream of console gamers trading in the latest games to pick up an older one they never played or a random movie.

For this particular game I can only imagine physical sales were from gamblers that wanted a future collectible like E.T. Atari cartridges and actually predicted correctly.

Historically, because they don't want to piss off their brick and mortar retail partners. Someone like Walmart would just stop carrying their product if they're getting a raw deal out of it. These days, Nintendo is doing exactly that, but at some point, if Sony's charging $90 physical for a $70 digital game, you're already convincing your customers to just stop buying physical anyway, so they'll also save the money they'd have to spend on manufacturing the disc drive in the first place.

Would they actually lose those customers though? I prefer to buy physical whenever possible, but I still buy games that are only available digitally, or sometimes games that I just can't get the physical copy of at a reasonable price. Sony's banking on the expectation that people aren't just going to stop buying games altogether in an all-digital future, they'll buy digital once they no longer have a choice.

1. Not all of them would stop buying game
2. Reatilers take a huge cut of the profit from physical sales
3. Physical media costs more to produce
4. Physical media can be resold
5. Future consoles would cost more if they needed to handle physical media

Going digital-only is absolutely going to be more profitable for Sony. It's why they aren't backing down on this at all. There's simply no business case for keeping physical games alive.

When you can no longer play any game on your PlayStation, unless it's through them? No lending, and nothing is ever on sale unless it's approved by them and they get their cut?? Yeah, that's a monopoly, and even if we don't like it or avoid the platform, they will make more money from every user who remains...

Have you seen how anyone reacts when prices are raised, especially on video games?

Keep in mind that Sony can also be betting that not everyone will stop buying completely. Just because 35% bought this game physical does not necessarily mean that when they stop selling discs, they lose 35% of sales. Only half, or a third, or a quarter, might stop, and Sony might be betting that most will just suck it up and continue buying.

Someone like Walmart would just stop carrying their product if they're getting a raw deal out of it

But they're already getting screwed. Better a $10 price increase than no product at all?

Yeah, they whine and complain and keep fucking buying it.

They're transitioning the facility used for disc pressing into making microlenses for their optical sensor division (which is the most profitable part of Sony)

Well that's an interesting theory, do you have a source for that? Im not seeing anything in search.

I see no🧵e read ð report. Shameful😔.

I'd buy Wolverine digitally.... if it were on Steam. Gonna walk back THAT decision Sony?

Who knew it would be Microsoft and Sony that killed gaming as we know it…

I guess shooting one’s self in the foot is more profitable than providing products and services.

I don't know if the downvoters misunderstood the joke or think the new Wolverine game is actually good. 🤔

The next stock by back is coming to town! Just in time for the holidays.

Truly a mystery even science cannot explain.

The Sony rootkit scandal should have been plenty of reason to never touch a single Sony product ever again.

Reading it back I think I've might've come across as defending the decision. I am and I'm not. I do think what Sony is doing is stupid and in the simple digital vs physical argument they shouldn't be getting rid of physical. That said, I think the real problem that people are feeling but maybe not being able articulate isn't getting rid of physical, it's getting rid of what physical represents. For the PS physical media is an alternative to the PS store. It gives customers some control over the pricing because if the digital store price is too high they can go and see if they can find a physical version for cheaper (or make it cheaper by buying it full price and then selling it after you're done). It also gives them a product instead of a license (though even that is getting somewhat questionable when the physical disc no longer contains the product but just the license to access the product), which is a stark contrast to the PS store where Sony will happily revoke your licenses if you don't do exactly as they say.

Without the physical option Sony gains effectively complete control over the pricing of PS games and how the sold licenses get used. Had Sony approached this from the perspective of the consumer they should've seen that to go digital only they need to do more than just go digital only. This is a hypothetical but I imagine there wouldn't have been any real controversy if Sony had announced two more things with the digital only announcement. Open up the platform to third party storefronts (realistically that along would've shut up most people because now everyone is giddy at the thought of Steam coming to the PS) and give consumers (some) digital ownership of purchases done from the PS store such as being able to transfer your license to another user. You'd still get physical media fans being upset but that would be nowhere near as big of a outcry as what Sony is currently getting.

But Sony went with the MBA number crunching solution which I described before. Who cares what the customers want as long as the balance sheet looks positive.

The real question is how much people of that 35% would have bought digitally if no other option were available. That's what Sony is betting on.

It was a warning and we failed to listen.

Unfortunately I suspect the vast majority

Surprised anyone bought that slop

Not theory. I copied their comment straight into search and got this: https://mp1st.com/news/report-sony-digital-transition-decided-for-some-time-disc-manufacturer-switches-optical-microlenses

(There's a more prominent Verge article that's paywalled though.)

It's not a bet at all. Sony already has hard numbers on gamers with mixed physical and digital libraries, how many people are using discs to watch movies, etc.

The vast majority of customers have heard zero of this news and aren't principled in their purchases or easily compromise on them, so it's safe enough to assume that anyone who primarily buys physical games but has bought digital before will still fully transition over out of necessity.

Only Sony knows these numbers, but whatever they are, they're one-sided enough that Sony is already killing off ways for them to backtrack, and Xbox isn't far behind.

It was, by every account, a well made game from a respected studio other than the fact that they decided to treat the people playing their M-rated hyper violence festival like they needed their hand held to make it to the next objective.

Maybe not for a console they already have, but a future Sony console which can only play digital games?might influence their buying decision...

I suspect the same, consumers have an history of going with the flow no matter how harmful the flow is.

Interesting! Thanks

But is the game even on the disc? Its just a key these days isnt it?

The game is entirely on disk

You don't have to like the new Wolverine game to recognize that a comparison to ET is an exaggeration.

By deciding what each user can and be willing to pay. Everyone gets different pricing via their account on the store based on their purchase history. Can't do that with physical discs.

That’s why it’s slop. Game meant for little kids. Might as well had been Wii Shovelware.