The slow but steady use of digital-only releases for video games, even AAA-based titles, has continued, and now one report says a number of retailers in Europe have simply stopped stocking physical Xbox games.
That's according to statements made by GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring during a new episode in the site's Games Industry Microcast Podcast (via VGC). During the podcast, Dring claims he was told by someone from an unnamed major game publisher "that across Europe, several retailers have started not listing Xbox anymore."
Dring did admit he was unable to discover which retailers in Europe had stopped selling physical Xbox game disks, but he did say, "it was a proper senior European publishing boss who said it to me." He added:
So they’ve just started not stocking Xbox games anymore, Xbox is such a digital console, the physical performance of games is really low, and ultimately when you’re selling a console that most people are just downloading games for, it doesn’t really benefit the retailer very much.
While the Xbox Series X does have a disk drive for both games and DVD/Blu-Ray discs, the Xbox Series S is an all-digital console. If this report is accurate, it's possible that this could lead to more retailers ditching physical Xbox games in other parts of the world in the very near future.
We have already seen major AAA games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 be released as digital-only titles, although Baldur's Gate 3 will soon have limited-time physical disk editions. Microsoft has also admitted that one of its biggest first-party Xbox games of 2024, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, will be a $50 digital-only game when it launches on May 21.
Unconfirmed reports have also claimed that during last week's mass layoffs in Microsoft's Gaming division, the company closed down the divisions related to releasing physical Xbox games. It's still possible Microsoft could keep releasing physical Xbox discs through a third-party company.
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