According to Games Sales Data’s (GSD) presentation at GI Live, PlayStation fans across Europe and beyond heavily favor retail for their gaming purchases. GSD tracks full-game boxed sales from 23 countries and digital sales from 49, covering all major publishers. Looking at a sample of six territories – France, Italy, Benelux, Iberia, Nordics, and Oceania – the company found that the cumulative attach rate for physical software sales has been consistently higher than digital since the PS5 launched. GSD’s chart is based on digital data identified by publishers as PS5, whether bought through the PS5 console’s store or codes redeemed on a PS5.
In its first month, physical games achieved an attach rate of 0.95 software units for every console sold. By comparison, the digital attach was 0.84 units sold for each PS5 console. These are low attach rates for a new games device, but the situation is slightly more complex given the backward compatibility with PS4 games. This suggests some people are happy to buy the new hardware for their existing library while waiting to pick up new PS5 titles until a later date. This is also complicated by the fact that digital purchases on the PS4 can then be accessed on the PS5.
Nevertheless, the cumulative attach rate for physical saw five months — December, January, June, July, August — where the number of total units sold exceeded the number of consoles in consumers’ hands. And it has been consistently above 1.0 from June onwards. Digital, meanwhile, never managed a cumulative attach rate higher than 1.0 throughout the first ten months. In fact, its best attach rate — 0.87, as seen in December and January — is still lower than the worst physical attach rate (0.88 in March). By the end of August, around two million physical games had been sold for PS5 — 51% higher than the total digital units sold in the first ten months. Given the increasing shift to digital purchases across the industry, GSD offered four factors that may explain why PS5 owners prefer box games to downloads.
First off, the high price tag for new PS5 titles — around $70 — means consumers prefer to invest in a physical item. This is combined with GSD’s second point: console owners like to build a physical library of games for their new device. GSD also pointed to the ability to sell and lend boxed games as a factor, before adding that download sales typically favor back catalog titles. Since the PlayStation 5 is only a year old, there is not an extensive digital catalog of past releases to choose from.
(All information was provided by GamesIndustry Biz)
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