Sony's plan to end physical media production for the PS5 (and likely PS6) from January 2028 has proved controversial with fans, but new sales figures suggest the decision reflects a genuine collapse in demand rather than a corporate whim. Analyst Mat Piscatella of Circana reports that only two PS5 titles sold more than 10,000 physical copies in the US in the week ending 11th July 2026, with just seven games passing 100,000 physical sales for the whole year so far. Industry commentator Christopher Dring has highlighted similarly weak figures for Nintendo formats, undercutting the assumption that physical sales remain robust outside PlayStation.

Dring notes that only around 1,000 physical sales were needed to reach ninth place in the UK's chart for the week ending 18th July, a spot held by newly released Star Fox. That such modest numbers can secure a top-ten placing, for a game barely a month old, is presented as stark evidence of how far physical retail has declined from a time when a single store could sell 100 copies of a new release in a day. The article suggests this trend explains Sony's silence amid the backlash and argues that, while a full move to digital-only leaves some consumers behind, a scaled-down physical presence—similar to how music and film have preserved physical formats—would be a fairer compromise.