Ubisoft exec says physical sales may continue to fall, but they’re not going away.

[Gamernyc78]

Ubisoft exec says physical sales may continue to fall, but they’re not going away | VGC

“Some people will always want to own the physical disc”…

www.videogameschronicle.com

There’s a collector edition market,” Ubisoft’s SVP, strategic partnerships and business development, told the company’s website. “There’s the aspect of gifting physical items and allowing access for people to be able to easily purchase a game in a store and gift them to their friends or family.

“Some people will always want to own the physical disc. I just don’t think it’s going away. Do I think physical sales might get lower over time? Sure, but will it ever completely go away? I don’t think so.”

Microsoft, which already offers the all-digital Xbox Series S console, could be set to launch an all-digital Xbox Series X next year, according to a recent leak.

Sony, which currently offers disc-based and all-digital versions of the PS5, said digital accounted for 67% of the 264.2 million games sold for its consoles during its last fiscal year ended in March.

While most triple-A games currently receive dual physical and digital releases, some are only available to download.

 

[Say1nMan]

One facet to take into account is that physical games is still big in Japan. So I think physicals still got more legs in them for the time being.

 

[flaccidsnake]

weird how they're willing to give a cut to everybody for physical media: manufacturers, delivery/logistics, retail, first party. but they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to support Steam.

 

[Zzero]

weird how they're willing to give a cut to everybody for physical media: manufacturers, delivery/logistics, retail, first party. but they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to support Steam.

They don't even need to support Steam, they just need to please stop pushing their own service. I would be totally fine downloading an Ubisoft game from Ubisoft.com or wherever. But I swear on my life I will NOT create and log into an online account to play a single player game and I will not play a multiplayer game period.

 

[Bryank75]

Yup, too big to ignore.

Even with some stores stopping sales of physical media...

Let me say right here, if COD goes fully digital it will lose over 20% of sales globally of the annual releases.

Big AAA releases also have very large physical sales. many times over 50% around launch on PlayStation and even higher on Nintendo.

 

[flaccidsnake]

They don't even need to support Steam, they just need to please stop pushing their own service. I would be totally fine downloading an Ubisoft game from Ubisoft.com or wherever. But I swear on my life I will NOT create and log into an online account to play a single player game and I will not play a multiplayer game period.

Yeah people forget that exe installers still exist. It's preferable to what a lot of publishers did the last 5-10 years.

 

[Gamernyc78]

One facet to take into account is that physical games is still big in Japan. So I think physicals still got more legs in them for the time being.a

And the fact ppl like CE editions physical.

 

[toadsage44]

This is you, bitching about Steam in every thread

 

[MiyazakiLovesKojima]

Physical copies is what gives us ownership over what we buy.

Digital copies are ultimately in the ownership of those with the license...except GOG.

 

[JAHGamer]

They don't even need to support Steam, they just need to please stop pushing their own service. I would be totally fine downloading an Ubisoft game from Ubisoft.com or wherever. But I swear on my life I will NOT create and log into an online account to play a single player game and I will not play a multiplayer game period.

logging on to Steam to play a game = good
logging on to Ubisoft Connect to play a game = bad

? ?

 

[Dr Bass]

Physical copies is what gives us ownership over what we buy.

Digital copies are ultimately in the ownership of those with the license...except GOG.

Not really. Not anymore, in an age of required updates and connections to servers.

 

[MiyazakiLovesKojima]

Not really. Not anymore, in an age of required updates and connections to servers.

 

[Yurinka]

Same as previously happened in music and cinema, I agree with him.

I think game sales, and particularly physical game sales will continue slowly decreasing as the popularity of digital games, GaaS and particularly F2P games keep increasing and dominating the market more than they do now.

But as happened with cinema and music before there will be always at least a niche market for physical editions, specially collector editions with goodies and physical extras.

 

[Zzero]

logging on to Steam to play a game = good
logging on to Ubisoft Connect to play a game = bad

? ?

I might log into Steam like once a year. Its incredibly user friendly. It has nearly every PC game I could want, and prior to Epic purchasing exclusivity to other people's games, it pretty much did. Every competitor is fucking obnoxious and not only adds to the bloat on my PC (a storefront is needed to find games and Steam's is by far the best in usability, library breadth, community aspects, offline functionality, etc) but intrudes on my console experience as well. And if it had been Ubisoft who had invented the concept and got the entire rest of the industry on board, and if they had kept it away from console space, and if they had generally truthful user reviews then yeah I would like Ubisoft Connect. But they didn't and I don't.

 

[Johnic]

Fuck digital distribution. Not paying for shit I don't own. And I don't mean an actual physical thing, the accounts you create are not yours. These companies retain the right to close your account at any time for any reason and access to your bought games is not guaranteed.

PC is the one platform where I don't mind digital distribution. I'll always be able to access my library, one way or another. GOG even encourages backing your games up. That will never be available on a closed system.

 

[Gediminas]

statistic says otherwise. fuck all digital.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

Physical copies is what gives us ownership over what we buy.

Digital copies are ultimately in the ownership of those with the license...except GOG.

Problem is that many physical games nowadays feel like a key on disc rather than a game on disc. They really won't work or won't give you a "playable/ patched" game if storefront shuts down. We really don't have that sort of ownership that we used to have many years ago.

 

[Nomen_Nescio]

Problem is that many physical games nowadays feel like a key on disc rather than a game on disc. They really won't work or won't give you a "playable/ patched" game if storefront shuts down. We really don't have that sort of ownership that we used to have many years ago.

Such games are still very rare and are most prevelant in Microsoft games (surprise, surprise) in games such as Starfield and Halo: Infinite.

 

[Gamernyc78]

The shit tht gets me pissed are the physical boxes with the digital codes in them!