Capcom's response to physical games dying: a shrug and "90% of our sales are digital anyway"
Asked how the shrinking physical market would hurt it, Capcom said about 90% of its unit sales are already digital and it doesn’t expect a significant impact. Its detailed report puts the digital share even higher, at 93.3%.
Capcom was asked how the death of physical games might hurt its business. Its answer was, essentially, a shrug.
In a Q&A tied to its latest financial results, an investor asked what impact Capcom expects from the shrinking physical market over the medium to long term. The full reply: “Approximately 90% of our unit sales are digital. We do not anticipate a significant impact at this time.”
That’s it. When roughly nine in ten of your games already sell as downloads, physical discs going away isn’t a crisis. It’s a rounding error.
Capcom’s real digital number is even higher
The “90%” is the round figure Capcom gave investors. The detailed report goes further.
Capcom’s Q1 financials break the split as 93.3% digital and just 6.7% physical. On PC, the shift is basically total, and PC is now Capcom’s biggest platform at 60.4% of sales, ahead of all consoles combined at 32.9%.
Resident Evil Requiem has sold over 8 million copies, the vast majority of them digital. Physical copies of Capcom’s big 2026 releases were reportedly hard to find at launch in the first place.
One caveat that muddies the number
Before treating 93.3% as gospel, here’s the asterisk.
Capcom counts Nintendo Switch 2 game-key cards as digital, even though they ship in physical boxes with a cartridge. Those cards hold a license, not the game, and require a full download to work, so the classification is defensible, but it does push the “physical” number lower than a strict disc count would.
Big discounts on older games inflate the digital figure too, since bargain-bin back-catalog sales happen almost entirely on storefronts. So the true disc-vs-download picture is a little less lopsided than 93/7. A little.
Why this matters beyond Capcom
Capcom’s shrug is the context for Sony’s whole disc decision.
Sony is ending physical PlayStation disc production in January 2028, a move that sparked heavy backlash. Capcom’s numbers are the cold business case underneath it: if a major publisher is already at 90%-plus digital, the physical market a company would be “abandoning” is a sliver. Sony’s own recent figures reportedly show around 82% digital, and US analyst data from Circana shows the same steady physical decline.
Not everyone’s celebrating. The UK’s Entertainment Retailers Association called Sony’s plan “a triumph of corporate convenience over consumer choice,” arguing digital should complement physical, not replace it. Preservationists point out that a download you don’t own can vanish when a storefront closes.
Capcom isn’t wading into any of that. It looked at a question about losing physical games, checked that 90% of its sales were digital, and shrugged. For collectors, that shrug is the whole problem.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
VGC (August 6, 2026), verified for the investor Q&A question, Capcom’s full “approximately 90%... do not anticipate a significant impact” reply, and Resident Evil Requiem passing 8 million copies mostly digitally
Vice (July 2026), verified for the 93.3% digital / 6.7% physical split, PC at 60.4% and console digital at 32.9%, and Capcom counting Switch 2 game-key cards as digital rather than physical
Kotaku (August 6, 2026), verified for the exact investor question wording, the 68% year-over-year unit sales increase, and Pragmata exceeding expectations
TechRadar (August 6, 2026), verified for the ERA’s “triumph of corporate convenience” statement, CEO Kim Bayley’s comments, and Sony’s January 2028 disc plan
Push Square (August 2026), verified for Sony’s ~82% digital software figure, the Circana US market data, and the discount-driven skew in the digital percentage