EA, Sony and Take-Two have more than 50% of sales accounted for by the figure

By 2020, digital copies have become more in demand in console retail. Major publishers now sell more digital than disc versions.

This is the picture for EA, Sony and Take-Two: all three companies had digital sales exceeding 50% in 2020.

• EA: 52% of digital sales for Xbox One and PS4 for the period July 2019 – June 2020;
• Sony: 51% of digital sales for the period April 2019 – March 2020;
• Take-Two: 55% of digital sales for the period April 2019 – March 2020.

The situation is revealed by a senior analyst Niko Partners by Daniel Ahmad:

“It is worth noting that we entered the current generation of consoles (2013) with 5-10% of digital sales. Now we are entering the next generation with 50%+ as standard.”

A good example is the extremely successful sales of the latest blockbusters in numbers:

• The Last of Us Part 2 — the game’s initial digital sales in June amounted to 2.8 million (a record figure among PS4 exclusives);
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons — in March alone, the digital version of the game was bought 5 million times (previously, no console title had ever been bought so actively in a month).

All this could not but affect the future generation of consoles. The PS5 will be released in two models at once: with and without a disk drive. The second console will work with digital games and may cost $50 less. Microsoft may also release an Xbox Series X version without a drive. For Xbox One, the company has previously released such a version — Xbox One S All-Digital Edition.

Also on the topic:

• SuperData: In June, players spent $10.46 billion on digital versions of gamesElectronic Arts called the last quarter unprecedented for its business
• Is there any news?