Analyst: Nintendo Unlikely to Follow Sony in Dropping Physical Games
Circana's Mat Piscatella says Nintendo is unlikely to follow Sony's move away from physical games, citing strong physical sales and retail support for Switch 2.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella says Sony’s plan to end disc-based PlayStation releases by 2028 won’t push Nintendo to do the same. “My gut says Nintendo does what Nintendo wants to do,” he told VGC, “and I don’t see them changing anything in their plans based on what Sony or Microsoft do.”
Nintendo still holds a strong share of US physical software and hardware sales, especially since the Switch 2 launch. Piscatella notes that US physical sales have been falling every year since the late 2000s, but retail is leaning into Nintendo support more and more, with in-store kiosks and strong cartridge demand. Even with Game-Key Cards blurring the line, physical media remains central to Nintendo’s retail presence.
Nintendo’s stubbornness on physical media isn’t new. POCG once explored the quirks of cartridge-based games like Sega Rally DS, a reminder that Nintendo has always treated physical as part of its identity. If the disc dies everywhere else, that stubbornness could quietly turn into a preservation feature rather than a business quirk.