More than a third of worldwide sales of Marvel's Wolverine in the month of its release came from the disc versions. The figures come from the analytics firm Ampere. Although digital downloads accounted for the majority, the 35% share shows that physical copies remain a significant part of the market.
Demand for discs varies markedly by region. European players are especially devoted to them: in Europe, physical media accounted for 51% of the game's sales, outstripping digital versions. Within the region itself, however, the picture is uneven. In the United Kingdom, two-thirds of purchases were digital, whereas in France, by contrast, more than two-thirds of players opted for the disc edition.
These figures have reignited arguments about the future of video games amid reports of Sony's plans to move entirely to digital distribution. Ironically, if the company does not change course, Marvel's Wolverine could become one of the last of its own games released on disc. Notably, the disc version contains the full game, which can be played from start to finish without an internet connection or mandatory downloads, though without the latest updates.
High disc sales are not a peculiarity of a single game. According to the same report, physical media accounted for more than 45% of sales of Silent Hill: Townfall and 36% of sales of the PlayStation 5 version of the role-playing game The Blood of the Dawnwalker. Even for Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword, whose company told investors that most of its revenue already comes from digital stores, discs accounted for 30%.
Although the data suggest that abandoning discs could mean losing millions of buyers, some industry figures, such as CyberConnect2 head Hiroshi Matsuyama, continue to argue that a full transition to digital sales will ultimately benefit the industry.
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