Marvel’s Wolverine physical sales show why Sony are wrong to abandon discs

Clawing back to physical (Sony Interactive Entertainment) PS5 players in Europe are proving why Sony’s decision to abandon discs might be a bad idea, as Marvel’s Wolverine sells very well at retail. Sony’s decision to abandon physical PlayStation discs after 2027 was justified on the basis that physical game sales are dwindling, and while that might be true on a broader level, it’s clear there’s still a significant appetite for boxed games – especially for the most mainstream titles. That’s been evident from the myriad of petitions and protests which have emerged in the wake of the announcement, but now there’s new concrete data to support the notion. As reported by The Game Business based on data from Ampere Analysis, 35% of Marvel’s Wolverine worldwide sales were the boxed version. This is not an insignificant figure in itself, but it’s even higher in Europe, with 51% of sales coming from the physical version. According to GSD data, the split varies between nations, with more than two-thirds of sales in France being physical, while two-thirds of the game’s sales were digital in the UK. As is often the case, the UK market is more similar to the US than the Continent. According to Ampere, Wolverine was the second best-selling PlayStation 5 game of September worldwide, with 2.16 million copies sold, behind EA Sports FC 27 with 4.96 million. Want GTA 6 news? Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for the latest GTA 6 news, reviews of new games you should play and exclusive analysis of the biggest stories of the week. While Sony has shown no signs of backtracking on its decision to stop producing discs, this might, at the very least, raise an eyebrow within Sony HQ – especially if it continues with Until Dawn 2 and God Of War Laufey next year. However, it’s important to note that while Sony is stopping production on actual discs, it still plans to release boxed versions of games, albeit with download codes instead. As such, the company might interpret these statistics as being less about the discs themselves and more people buying at retail in general. Based on new data in the US, it seems boxed alternatives to discs are selling well, namely Game-Key Cards on the Nintendo Switch 2. According to Circana’s Mat Piscatella, spending on new physical software has increased by 5% over 2026 so far to $738 million (£557 million), when compared to a year ago. However, this was driven by a 631% increase in spending on Game-Key Card physical releases, which offset a 3% drop in spending across other physical media types. If that sounds bizarre, the massive surge is simply because more Game-Key Card titles have been released in 2026 compared to last year. As explained to Kotaku, Piscatella said: ‘Last year there were 10 titles published as Game-Key Cards. This year 54 more Game-Key Card titles have been published. So that’s the biggest reason. ‘So, we are seeing new physical software sales showing growth for the first time in more than a decade. But that’s being driven primarily by Switch 2 and publishers leaning more into Game-Key Cards.’ While Game-Key Cards have some downsides compared to discs, they offer more flexibility than a download code in a box. Firstly, you can actually share Game-Key Cards with others. They can also be resold, but they do rely on the digital storefronts being kept open because they don’t store the full game data on the cartridge. As such, in terms of value proposition, Game-Key Cards are a lot more consumer-friendly than download codes in a box, which cannot be shared or resold. So the sales of Game-Key Cards might not be reflective of Sony’s boxed alternative in 2028. Elsewhere in US sales, total video game spending across content, hardware, and accessories for the month of August dipped 9% when compared to a year ago, to $4.3 billion (£3.2 billion). This was mostly driven by an 18% decline in mobile spending, but console content also dipped by 7%, while PC content went up by 13%. On the hardware side, spending fell in August by 3% compared to a year ago, with year-to-date spending being 11% behind 2025’s pace. There was a widespread dip across console sales, with PlayStation unit sales falling 11% during August compared to a year ago. According to Piscatella, this is the lowest August total for PlayStation hardware since 2013. It’s a similar picture across Xbox Series X/S unit sales, which dropped by a whopping 31% for their lowest August total since 2020. Nintendo hardware unit sales, meanwhile, dropped by 15% compared to a year ago. On the software side, there were some surprises. While player counts have been worringly low for it on Steam, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls debuted at number three on the August chart, behind big sellers NBA 2K27 and Madden NFL 27. This was ahead of Star Wars Zero Company and the EA Sports Kickoff Bundle, which combines Madden NFL 27 and EA Sports College Football 27. However, while this is certainly more positive news for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, there are no specific sales figures, and it was only August, so it still may have underperformed against Sony’s expectations. If you fancy some definitely positive sales news, the excellent Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve has surpassed one million copies worldwide, following its launch last week, making it the fastest-selling title in the series so far. Ace Combat 8: Wings Of Theve is going down a storm (Bandai Namco) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. 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