Nobody’s Buying New Physical Games On Xbox In The U.S.

Amid worries about the disappearance of physical media as PlayStation prepares to discontinue discs in 2028 and Xbox is expected to follow suit, today we’ve got an interesting statistic on the breakdown of who is buying physical discs for which platforms. Apparently, only a little over 4 percent of all new physical video games sold in the U.S. this year were for Xbox.

According to Circana’s monthly report, 63 percent of new physical games sold this year have been for Nintendo platforms, while 32 percent were for PlayStation. When I asked analyst Mat Piscatella to confirm the remaining percentage for Xbox, he pointed out that PC also had some physical editions this year, such as collector’s editions of 007 First Light and Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. That leaves Xbox with just over 4 percent.

Several reasons for this breakdown are immediately apparent. We’ve long known that Nintendo fans purchase physical games at a much higher rate than PlayStation or Xbox players, so Nintendo carrying the bulk of that percentage tracks. But the skew toward PlayStation over Xbox is notable. It’s likely stemming in part from players using Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to get access to more of their games digitally than folks on PlayStation do. And several of Xbox’s biggest first-party game releases this year so far (Halo: Campaign Evolved, Forza Horizon 6) have been (or will be) cross-platform. Furthermore, we don’t really have data in front of us breaking down how many physical PlayStation games vs. Xbox games were even produced: it’s possible PlayStation just pumps out more physical copies to start with. Then again, it could also just be that Xbox sales are way, way down generally.

Regardless, it’s a fascinating look at what the impact on the market might be once PlayStation discontinues its discs. That’s roughly a third of physical game sales converted to digital ones or totally wiped out. Meanwhile, if Xbox follows suit, it doesn’t make nearly as much of a dent. Nintendo is the juggernaut that matters here, though the use of game-key cards for some third-party Switch 2 releases indicates it may also be considering an eventual abandonment of physical media, even if that move would be farther down the road.

It’s also worth pointing out that per Circana’s data in the same report, new physical software sales for July 2026 hit an all-time July low of $85 million. Again, this is new sales, and July wasn’t exactly bursting with new games that people might want physical copies for. And spending in general is down, as everything gets more expensive and more and more people close their wallets to expensive hobbies. But January of this year was also an all-time January low, suggesting that this may be part of the larger trend Sony has identified of physical discs’ popularity waning enough to merit moving away from them…no matter how much fans seem to hate it.

Overall, total content spending in July, including physical software, digital spending, subscriptions, and so forth, dropped 9 percent year-over-year, mostly due to a big drop in mobile spending and aided by drops in console and PC content spending. Subscriptions were the only thing that were up. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the projected best-selling game of July in dollar sales (jumping from No.67 last month) thanks to a current-gen PlayStation port, and Black Ops jumped to No.5 last month for the same reason (up from No.150). Black Ops 2 is now the fifth best-selling game of 2026 so far.

Behind it at No.2 was EA Sports College Football 27, though Circana notes that if both the individual game and the MVP Bundle (2026) were combined, it would have been No.1. The MVP Bundle separately charted at No.4 for the month. EA Sports College Football 27 by itself is also now the tenth best-selling game of 2026.

Also debuting last month and appearing in the chart were Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced at No.3, Halo: Campaign Evolved at No.6, Splatoon Raiders at No.7, and Echoesof Aincrad: Sword Art Online at No.8. Piscatella shared with me that Halo was the sixth best-selling game on PlayStation last month as well, with 2 percent of all active PlayStation players engaging with it in some way, compared to 10 percent of active Xbox players.

Palworld saw its 1.0 launch last month, jumping to the No.2 best-selling game on Steam in dollar sales, behind Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced at No.1.

And finally, Digimon Story: Time Stranger jumped from No.87 in June to No.23 in July thanks to its Switch release.

*Indicates the data includes at least some digital sales projections. Some publishers and platforms do not share digital sales data with Circana

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