US physical game spend ‘has halved since 2021’

US spending on physical video games has more than halved since 2021, according to new data from market research firm Circana.

Player spending habits have steadily migrated to digital for more than a decade, driven by faster internet speeds, the emergence of online marketplaces on consoles, and live service games funded by microtransactions.

Circana data, supplied executive director Mat Piscatella this week, suggests that the migration towards digital has accelerated since the pandemic.

According to a graph showing the past 25 years of US video game software spend, physical games have been cut in more than half since 2021, and are now more than 85% below the 2008 peak.

Overall content spend, including physical and digital (including subscriptions and microtransactions), has increased since 2019, according to Circana data.

It’s worth noting that a key reason for the acceleration towards digital games during 2024 will have been a weaker than usual Nintendo Switch release schedule, which usually props up a significant portion of physical game sales.

While the overall video game sales trend is increasingly migrating to digital, it’s not even across platforms or game series. For example, in Europe last year, overall digital share was 68%, up from 60%. However, Xbox’s digital share was 75% (up from 70%), while PS5’s was 64% (up from 55%), and Nintendo remained flat at 22%.

And while more Europeans bought Astro Bot as a physical boxed game, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine’s sales were overwhelmingly digital.

It was a quiet year for new releases all round, with only six new games in the European top 20 for 2024 (in 2023, there were 10). In fact, sales of new releases were down 21% in 2024 compared with new releases in 2023.