If you told a ten-billion-dollar company that it was potentially about to lose up to 10 percent of its revenue, you might imagine a shocked reaction and an immediate declaration of a plan to reverse this. Which makes it all the more strange that Capcom’s response to an investor’s question about the loss of physical media for games was to shrug and say that 90 percent of its sales are digital anyway, so it can’t see a problem.
When announcing its latest quarterly results—in which Capcom reported a 68-percent increase in game unit sales over the same period in 2025, and that Pragmata sales had exceeded expectations—an investor asked the company, “What impact do you anticipate from the shrinking physical game market in the medium to long term?”
The very brief response read, in full, “Approximately 90% of our unit sales are digital. We do not anticipate a significant impact at this time.”
It’s notable that in Capcom’s financial filing, the publisher goes to some efforts to stress its focus on expanding its digital sales, stating, “In the three months ended June 30, 2026, Capcom….pursued investments for growth aimed at the ongoing enhancement of digital sales to further advance and expand within the global market.” In the next paragraph it added, “the Company worked to increase global unit sales in its core Digital Contents business, through the release of all-new IP PRAGMATA and by strengthening sales of catalog titles…” Which, while being a very wordy way of saying “We released games people wanted to buy,” does very much put the emphasis on non-physical sales. This all seemed to work out well for Capcom, given it reports net sales up 54.7 percent on 2025’s first quarter, and ordinary profit up 81.1 percent.
But it remains odd to dismiss a loss of up to 10 percent of sales as something that cannot present a “significant impact.” Obviously we don’t know what proportion of those one in ten people who buy discs would refuse to buy a game that was digital only, and it’s arguable that a fair number would begrudgingly shift over, but it’s not nothing!
Clearly this is the way the wind is blowing, not least with PlayStation’s defiant refusal to back down on plans to ditch physical discs entirely from 2028, no matter the furious response from many customers. The extra costs of releasing games physically, when the market has largely proven itself willing to pay exactly the same price (or more) for digital versions, is obviously becoming harder to justify to shareholders. Perhaps Capcom sees its recently improved sales as enough to swallow the difference, but it remains sad to see another company just shrugging its shoulders at the loss of game ownership.
