Since Sony announced that it would be ending physical media production for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, there has been much discussion about the value of physical games media in the modern gaming landscape. Some argue that physical media is invaluable for game preservation and access to content in some remote parts of the world, while others argue that its value is limited, because the physical media market share is small for most games, and it has limited preservation value, thanks to day-one patches. Alinea Analytics recently posted some data about physical media sales on PlayStation, putting more numbers to the impact of physical games media on PlayStation.

Interestingly, despite the relatively high physical sales split of some games, like Resident Evil Requiem, with disc sales accounting for 30.2% of its sales, and Marvel's Wolverine, whose disc sales came to 32.3% of its total sales revenue, the total physical game sales revenue for games released in 2026 on PlayStation 5 and PS4 amounted to $655 million, which is less than 20% of sales revenue for the year. As the analytics firm explains, that revenue split itself is skewed by digital-only releases and pre-order bonuses, which are all digital sales. The data itself seems to tell a story of a split player base: those who buy first-party, single-player, narrative-driven games tend to skew more towards physical media, while sports and multiplayer gamers tend to buy digital more often.PlayStation's top-selling games for 2026 were FC27, Resident Evil Requiem, 2K27, 007 First Light, and Marvel's Wolverine, in that order. In that top-five list, three games had notably high physical sales splits.

Physical sales share by game:

• Resident Evil Requiem: 30.2% or 1.3 million sales
• 007 First Light: 29% or 873,000 sales
• Marvel's Wolverine: 32.3% or 799,000 sales

Despite its low physical sales share, at just 8.9%, FC27 still sold 705,000 physical units, while games like Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced sold 613,000 physical units, and Crimson Desert sold 511,000. The revenue from physical sales of Requiem, First Light, Wolverine, FC27, Black Flag Resynced, Crimson Desert, Pragmata, and Onimusha Way of the Sword—Sony's games with the highest physical revenue—accounted for a total of $1.2 billion, with bigger titles, like Resident Evil Requiem accounting for as much as $92.3 million in physical revenue alone.At the end of the day, though, the revenue generated from physical games still pales in comparison to that of Sony's digital offerings, and, between the higher margins on digital media—shipping physical media is more expensive than digital distribution—players who are apathetic about the switch to digital-only games, and the revenue it may earn from players who would otherwise have bought a used copy on the second-hand market, Sony appears to be betting that it will come out ahead in terms of revenue and game sales if it sticks to its guns on the switch away from physical media.