𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧

Did more digging. It gets worse. I decided to compare, isolating the PS5 Platform as a comparison. How many more digital exclusive games are there? and does it correlate with the 85% number? There are, at this point in time, about 1,120 PRINTED PS5 games (give or take). We are going to assume, that all 1,120 of those games also have a digital counterpart. I went to the PSN store and simply clicked PS5 Platform and games. So this does not include DLC, MTX, etc. The total? 7,590 games. But what about free to play? Lets exclude those, this brings the total down to 7,451 games on the PSN store sorted specifically for the PS5. I want to note, this would be a COMPLETE PS5 library (thus far). So, simple Math 7,451 - 1,120 = 6,331. There are 6,331 MORE games on the PSN store than what's PHYSICALLY PRINTED For the PS5. That is 5.65x MORE games. These are all games that sell for 1 dollar, all the way up to your 100$+ digital special editions. If you Buy Final Fantasy Rebirth for 69.99 physically, go home, and buy "Quack McStuffins" for a dollar on PSN, those quantity of numbers are treated as equal. and it gets even funnier. Lets take that digital catalogue of 6,331 games and divide it by that complete library number (7,451) and turn it into a percentage. 6,331 divided by 7,451 = 84.96% Meaning? almost 85% of the PS5's available library is DIGITAL ONLY. Ironic how 85% of Playstation's sales are digital eh? So, what's happening here? "All digital" defenders are using False Equivalency, and an Availability bias to gaslight users into thinking that no one plays physical anymore and to "get with the times" in the digital era. Playstation themselves stated "This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs." But this logic is ONLY sound if you apply a False Equivalency. ALL OF THIS- Before we even take into account of the insomniac leaks back in 2022, which showed that 31 out of the 33 first party games sold MORE in Physical than Digital. And in recent memory, Astrobot selling around 55% physical vs Digital. So, why are they doing this? Because MONEY! Playstation makes WAY more money if you buy the game digitally vs Physically. So playstation is using the backing of convenience, Digital Incentives, indie/AA teams, Mini-Games, and yes, AI Slop, to validate jamming gamers who prefer Physical games with a hot poker into a 100% digital era.

Did a little research into this "85% of games bought on Playstation are digital". So I decided to look at the EXACT wording of what that meant. Spoiler: Its not "Out of 100 copies of Spiderman sold, 85% are digital" Here's how they calculate it. Digital Units sold, Divided by Total Units sold, times 100. Straight forward right? In Q4 of 2025, sony sold 74.6 million units in total, that is both Digital and Physical units. But the "85% of all games bought are digital" has a HUGE skew to it. Why? Because there are THOUSANDS of DIGITAL only games that do not get a PHYSICAL release. Think the 5$-20$ indie titles or digital only ports of older games. However, those digital sales are counted AGAINST the physical sales. Meaning? Even if EVERYONE who stopped buying Physical in the past 5 years, went out and bought one game a month? Digital will still dominate physical because (mostly) everything thats physical is also digital, but very little that is digital is also physical. The Comparison is not fair and when its thrown around on social media its literally framed in a way for the stat to prove how dominant Digital sales are while excluding a number of factors. Doing so would be like comparing Your local Wal-Mart's stock to Amazon. Not only that, but there are many digital only sales that are held that puts STEEP discounts on games that in-store simply cannot do. Of course there are some games that are on sale in-store that are not on sale digitally, but those digitally only games ALSO go on sale which the retailer has Zero access to because its digital only. There's also digital incentives where buying the game digitally grants you more content vs buying it in store, driving more sales. Then, there are some games that release digitally, and then have a physical release MONTHS later; or, allow you to play the game a few days early. If you wanted a more fair comparison? It would be "Digital media with a simultaneous Physical Release vs The Physical Release" Having this stat would reveal the true number. But even THAT number is missing details because that also doesn't include people buying the game second hand/Used from GameStop. However, while Im sure that stat would STILL benefit digital sales, I would suggest and conclude that it wouldn't be "85%" as many people are suggesting. Sources: sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/libr…